Mykoyes please

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We seem to have made a habit of throwing off our sleep schedule. It being the ‘off-season’ there seems to be an absence of night life on the Greek islands… or life in general for that matter. Point being we went to sleep late and woke up later.. I think.. All I know is that by the time we woke up we had about an hour before our ride took us to the airport (conveniently our ride was the same person who drove us to our hotel, was in charge of television programming during breakfast, and seemed to be the general operator of our hotel). Though we only had about a half hour, I had a busy day planned for us. We had to go into town, check the electronics store for something (next to “The penguin has spoken” laundry store), go to the souvenir shop, make it to lunch, and grab some baklava before our trip to the airport. We succeeded in all of our tasks except the baklava. I assume there will be more of it in Athens. Took the flight from Santorini to Athens airport. Got some zinc from a very nice lady in the airport pharmacy. Got some delicious food. And then boarded our next flight to Mykonos.

Let us take this time to give thanks to Brooke who single handedly organized our trip to Greece! She found a great company and reasonable rates and (so far) everything has worked out swimmingly. Props to Brooke.

When we got to Mykonos there was a travel representative waiting with a sign “JACOBSON.” It also had another name of some kid who was on the same flight as us (and happened to be going to the same hotel as us… very suspicious) We followed her into what seemed to be pretty much a personal vehicle and she drove us to Hotel Elena. The mystery boy went into her co-worker’s car, but we all went to the same place. She was very nice and along the way she told us a couple awesome facts about Mykonos.

Trivia Question (no cheating):

Which one of these is not a law/practice in Mykonos:

There can be no chain stores/restaurants.

Houses must be painted white with colored doors/windows.

Houses may only be two stories tall or less.

Everything is closed on Wednesdays after noon.

She also told us that it’s beautiful here and that youngins like ourselves would enjoy the night life and the beaches, if it were the season for either of those things… Mykonos is a gorgeous little island. It’s crazy that these islands are complete ‘ecosystems’ (or whatever) within themselves.. that people can be born, raised, and live here permanently. (Like in Santorini all the kids took buses from around the island to go to school in Fira).

Anyway, we got into Mykonos in the evening (Kalispera-good evening) and checked in to our hotel. It was definitely a step or two (or like ten) up from hotel Margarita. Really elegante (Spanish, not a misspelling) and beautiful. Having recently arrived on this gem of an island, we did the natural thing: took a nap. And apparently at like 9pm (21:00) Brooke came by to wake Nathan and I up… but Nathan kept sleeping and I said “I’ll do whatever you want to do,” half asleep… so we slept into the night. (Kalinikta – Good night).

Having had a solid nap of about 4 hours followed by a full nights sleep, we were well rested for the day of adventures ahead of us. And what better way to start the morning (Kalimera – Good morning) with a delicious breakfast buffet. In additional to the bread, butter, jam, cake, and coffee/tea of your average breakfast, this buffet actually had real food to offer us! Fresh eggs, meats, cheeses, fruits, pastries/croissants, cereal and the like. It was delicious, to see the least. (And in case you were wondering, Ken, I had all of the above on my plate(s)). After a delicious and filling breakfast our first inclination was to take a post buffet nap, but our consciences/brooke told us otherwise. So we decided to go out and explore. The women from the night before as well as the hotelerista told us we should walk to a beach. We had the choice between generic-named beach and Paradise beach. I have no idea why we chose the generic-named beach, but we did.

Along the way we passed through a beautiful little area with homes/shops all around. We stopped in and out of a couple shops and then made our way down to the pier/beach. You could still tell that we were out of season but the lack of open shops, but it was still more lively than Santorini. We walked a ways down and around the pier. Found some crazy windmills (aka the power plant of the ancient Greeks). We also saw, from a distance, some important island with Ancient Greek ruins. Unfortunately ships only run there on Tuesdays and Saturdays or something, so we missed it. But the windmills sure were cool. We continued walking along the coast for quite a ways. We ended up at another beachy area that was pretty deserted. We also found a hotel being built/repaired. (Pretty much everything on these two islands was trashed/messy/being repaired.. we feel like they go crazy with their hotels every year and end up repairing and rebuilding and cleaning them in March before tourist season. ) Lalala

Following the coast line we saw a soccer-esque stadium with many a people in it and decided to investigate. As it turns out it was a soccer field filled with school children running amuck. We decided it was kind of sketchy for three tourists to be chilling with all the school children and decided to move on. We went to the beach on the other side of the island (clearly a big tourist spot on season) and found that off-season it was a bus stop for the kiddies! Apparently Greek children go to school until about noon where they have mandatory recess for an hour where they go to the bakery and play on the futbol field.. then they take the buses home. Brooke should be a teacher in Greece (math is the same in every country… or is it language. Shoot.)

We eventually left the school bus stop intent on exploring more of the island. We walked up a massive hill and found an abandoned hotel (abandonded cause of the off-season) and found a place on top of the hill to sit and look at both sides of the island at the same time! Brooke thought it looked like the sound of music hill. We continued up the hill, stopped for some coffee/drinks, and tried to find our way back to our hotel. We eventually did (find our hotel). It was a long, but beautiful walk. I won’t bore you with the details.

After we returned to the hotel and used the internet a bit, we decided to find a place for dinner. [while we were using the internet we watched Olympic prelims for women’s volleyball where I met Glinka, an amazing/huge Polish volleyballer. She is really, really cool.] We asked for directions to a good place and tried to follow them (Nathan and brooke got the directions, in case you were wondering) and ended up at the pier by the same place we had lunch (oh yeah, we had lunch at the pier area). There were 3 restaurants open.. one was the one we had lunch at, one was ritzy and above our means, and the other was our remaining option (as brooke would say, settling is settling.)

It was kind of a little barish/café. But it got the job done. We came in and found a pasta-monger eating pasta in the corner. There were also two middle-aged plus men playing backgammon at a table. And a man or two at the bar. We found a seat and were served by a nice man. He kept rifling through the tv stations after we had ordered, until eventually he found the futbol game! It was a Greek league game (and once it started a couple more people came in). The owner spoke to one of the new arrivals in Greek as he sat down.. the only thing I could pick up was probably ‘Yasas’ and ‘Lua-Lua.’ The later I had never heard before, and they both laughed when they said it. Soon we would be introduced to the greatness of Lua-Lua… Well now in the story actually. Within five minutes or so of the game starting the forward from the Olympikos scored!! His name: Lua Lua. He was a baler, to say the least. We finished our food and returned to the hotel to finish the end of the game. I think Nathan and broooke went to bed and I stayed up to watch the game (ended with a score of like 6-1, Lua Lua had at least one more goal. Ballin’ )

Then we woke up early and flew to Athens. (too early for breakfast I’m afraid, it was quite sad.. I think brooke took it the worst actually.)

Athens was nice. Very nice, see one city and you’ve seen them all I say.

In Athens we saw a really nice 5 star hotel, and Nathan suggested that there are now 6-star hotels. Ever heard of them? Have you stayed in one? Discuss.