Work and play in Palaia Epidauros

Having read Mike’s last post, I now see that I’ve been spelling windless wrong, and it should be windlass. Colour me embarrassed! That said, all the names here in Greece seem to be spelled at least four different ways, so let’s just say it’s part of the acclimation process, along with eating dinner at 9pm and falling asleep to the sound of pistol shrimp (not to be confused with the basketball team, The Pistol Shrimps).

So back in Aegina, Mike accidentally knocked over a display at the grocery store with his bubble butt. The owner of the store claimed responsibility for putting the display in an awkward spot too close to the cash, but Mike felt bad and bought a bottle of alcohol to assuage his guilt. We decided to use it to try and make our own Greek mojitos.

To further facilitate this, we bought a mint plant for the boat. After the first snip it seemed to get sad fast. We have black thumbs and couldn’t decide if it was overwatered or underwatered. Touching the soil we found it hard as a rock and decided underwatered was more likely, and after a healthy douse and some sunlight it sprang back to life! I had been on the verge of calling in to CBC to talk to Ed Lawrence, which in hindsight might have been a tad excessive.

This morning we took down the extra jib that we had mistakenly installed and put the correct one up. Some productive boat work accomplished, we rewarded ourselves with an afternoon trip out to the UNESCO site, the Sanctuary of Asklepios, which includes the amphitheater at Epidavros (or Epidauros or Epidaurus or… you get the picture).

I enjoyed seeing the amphitheater immensely, the acoustics are insane, but I was thoroughly annoyed at the behaviour of other tourists. There were relatively few people visiting, so there is no reason why every single person couldn’t have had a minute to stand on the button centre stage and do whatever: drop a coin, clap, sing, orate. The smallest sound carries to the topmost seats. But nooooo, obnoxious people have to stand there for five, ten, fifteen minutes, while polite, passive aggressive, Canadian tourists resist asking them to freaking move and give us a moment in the spotlight. Mike said he envies their obliviousness? lack of giving a shit? but I don’t. I’d prefer to be silent and have no one realize that I’m secretly a jerk who hates them, rather than an oblivious dolt who others KNOW is a jerk, even if they themselves don’t. Is that not part of what being Canadian is all about?

After the theater we wandered around the rest of the grounds, a healing sanctuary with multiple buildings and a sports field. They are doing some interesting restoration, starting to recreate the buildings using the real pieces they have and filling in the blanks with new stuff.