Antio, Canada!

After talking about it for fifteen years and a very hectic last couple of weeks, we finally pulled the trigger on boat life.  Much appreciation to David and CM for providing that essential item: a boat.

With Coral awaiting us in Aegina, Greece, we headed to YOW.  Pretty much the first person we saw was Bruce Cockburn flying out after the Juno Awards.  As good Canadians, that has to be a positive omen, eh?

In Montreal we boarded a big Swiss Air plane to Zurich.  No sleep for us, but fortunately there were lots of dumb movies available.  I watched Keeping Up with the Jones’s, Passengers and Ricki and the Flash.  Are you captivated by the adventure so far?

Touched down in Athens, grabbed a bus straight to the port and hopped on the ferry to Aegina, bing bang boom.   You have probably already deduced that I am not a fan of the Oxford comma.  Am I wrong about that?  (Comments will be enabled for these posts until the deplorables find me.)

We checked into the adorable Hotel Danae and headed out for our first Greek dinner.  It was pretty anticlimactic.  We picked a pub on the waterfront and the food was less than stellar.  Note to self, consult TripAdvisor in future for dining spots. At least the wine was tasty, though the poor waitress brought 2 broken corkscrews to try and open it, ultimately relying on Mike to jury-rig one functional corkscrew.  His success bodes well for how he will deal with boat issues.

A visit to the boatyard the next day made it clear that we won’t be in the water until next Thursday, so Mike has been hanging out there getting to know all the systems and repairing and polishing and… I don’t know what he’s doing, I’m hanging out on the balcony setting this blog up and trying to get used to Coke Light.  I think it’s too cola-y, so I see a switch to Perrier in my future.  Greece is changing me!

Further food adventures have been much more successful thanks to the aforementioned TripAdvisor.  Night two was Venus Pizza, very tasty!

Night three we ate at Kriton Gefsis, a Cretan restaurant.  The owner, Ioannis, was ridiculously attentive as it wasn’t very busy.  We seem to be eating much earlier (7pm) than the rest of the island.  The wine was a bizarre Cretan concoction that tasted like watered-down port, but the food was great.  We started with zucchini fritters, followed by sardines for him and Cretan carbonara for me.  Ioannis surprised us with an iced dessert and two shots of “medicine” to complete the meal, and then two more shots for being Canadian.  Uh, okay!

This photo of Kriton Gefsis in Aegina is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Last night was the biggest hit yet–Avli.  Started with the fried cheese, and yes, it was as tasty as you might imagine.  Just a big ole rectangle of salty, fried cheese: crispy outside and soft inside.  It was delicious but could become a problem, so I’d best not be ordering any more fried cheese.  I think I’m supposed to lose weight on the Mediterranean diet, am I not?  He had calamari and I had falafel with hummus, and both were perfect.  Our waitress was adorable and there is a fat cat who lives at the restaurant and wanders around looking for love when he isn’t curled up on a cushion.  Live music started at 10:30, so we used that as an excuse to hang around and have a few more drinks.  Friday night, baby!  By the time the music started (a trio singing and playing Greek music) the joint was packed.  When we left our waitress brought us shots, tasty ones, not firewater.  I sense a trend.

In other news, everyone seems to own a dog and feral cats are omnipresent and surprisingly healthy-looking.  They just stroll along, minding their own business.  Mike speculated that the odd kick from a human probably contributes to the aloofness. Not these humans, bien sur.

I’m working on my Greek.  It’s going to be a real puzzle, but I like puzzles.  Who knew that all those Greek letters we used in equations in engineering are letters that are actually used in the Greek alphabet?  Well, probably everyone but me, but it is quite entertaining trying to read the Greek signs.  I anticipate it will be old hat soon, but for now it is keeping my brain occupied.  I’m also trying to learn one new word a day.  Get this: ‘yes’ is pronounced ‘neh’.  Not exactly intuitive.

Everyone is very laid back.  I think the pace of life is going to suit me just fine.  Almost everyone speaks English, which is comforting since I currently know four Greek words.  I’m trying to use them though, which the maid seemed to get a kick out of this morning. If nothing else I’ll give some folks a laugh.