well that's summer

It has almost been another full month since my last posting and there is a lot to share. I continue to get settled into Greek life more everyday, I have started making some friends and the man at the deli recognizes me. If only I could master the language I would officially be a local! 

Right after my last posting, we were visited by a bunch of our friends. My bestie Amie had embarked on an adventure of her own and left the great white north as well. Her first stop was Santorini to spend two weeks with yours truly. Amie happens to be dating Ilias’ bestie Marc Antoine, so he flew over from France as well for the first six days so they could see each other. The day after those two arrived we greeted more French friends, Gerald & Francois, as well as Francois’ Bulgarian girlfriend Maria. The week was filled with tons of time logged at the hotel pool, providing lots of laughs as well as the opportunity to learn a lot about each other. For instance, we learned that poor Gerald cannot be exposed to the Santorini sun without sunscreen for even 5 minutes. I’ll just say that luckily there was aloe vera and greek yogurt close by to soothe his sensitive skin. (Gerald I was very tempted to post the photo of you with your yogurt treatment.) We also learned that while Marc Antoine doesn’t know how to tread water, Amie wears the champion crown. (But perhaps with some cheating? The jury is still out on this one.) :) And of course we learned that Ilias can in fact swim two lengths of the pool without coming up for air - imagine what he could do if he didn’t smoke. I think you get the idea, we had a lot of fun. 

Amie & I by the pool 

As always when surrounded by friends, we had some great meals. Ironically, despite eating at some of the best restaurants on the island, everyone’s favorite meal was the one spent down on Exo Gialos beach at our friend’s Antonis’ taverna, Aegialos. The traditional greek food is always amazing there, but it was the atmosphere and the relaxed nature of the evening that really made it special. 

Amie & Marc Antoine after one of our fabulous meals

Ilias & Gerald

Francois & Maria

As the week came to a close and we said goodbye to our French friends, it was time for some real bestie time. I was so happy to have Amie there to spend some quality girl time. I think Ilias was happy as well, because it allowed him the opportunity to hang out with some of his buddies without his wife always being there. :) 

Amie and I explored the island and saw some places that even I hadn’t been to yet. We went to the small fishing village of Ammoudi, went to a movie at the open air cinema,  attempted to visit the church of profit Ilias but missed it by mere meters apparently and on Amie’s last day, took a sailing tour of the island on a catamaran. The sailing trip was unreal! We went swimming in the hot springs at the old volcano, visited red beach, white beach and sailed back into Ammoudi at sunset. It was a such a great way to end our visit. 

Ammoudi

Our sailing trip

While Amie was here we also had a baptism to go to. Yiannis was the godfather and did an amazing job of the party. In Greece the godparent takes care of all the decor, the baby’s clothing and organizes a lot of the baptism. Baptisms are particularly special here because until a child is baptized they don’t have a name. The party that follows is very festive and includes lots of food, drink and dancing. 

Yiannis & Rodoula at the baptism

After Amie left, it was time to get settled back into our regular routine. Things were pretty normal for a few days, but with a dog like Belle, you can’t expect it to stay that way for long. Our dogger is growing up and had gone into heat. Ilias and I had decided that we would like to breed her at least once, so it was time to grin and bear it through this oh so wonderful time for Belle. It hadn’t been going to bad until one day around noon, as I was sitting in our bedroom working on my Greek lessons I heard a rumbling in the bathroom. That’s weird, I thought. The dog was supposed to be tied by the door so that she wouldn’t make a mess all over the apartment. As I opened the bedroom door, all I saw was a flash of black and white going towards the living room. What the???? As I turned the corner I saw Belle’s leash and half of her collar still hanging by the door. That’s right, only half of her 2” thick leather, metal studded collar. As I approached the entry way of the living room I saw that not only had she managed to slip out of her collar and eat half of it,  she had also managed to tear apart a magazine, eat a coaster, destroy a flower arrangement and was getting into my swiffer cloths. I managed to catch the dog, get her quasi tied back up and called Ilias so we could get the poor thing back to the vet again. As we were waiting for our ride to arrive to go to the vet Belle sat and stared at me with the most apologetic, sad eyes you could ever imagine. We got her to the vet, she got her shot and she barfed up her leather collar. At least she had chewed it this time. She now has a specially fit metal collar that god willing she won’t be able to eat. 

Belle looking guilty

Things with Belle aren’t all crazy of course. While our friends were in town, I was out taking her for a walk when a car pulled over and asked me if she was a boy or a girl and how old she was because they had a 3 year old male bull terrier and wanted Belle to come play. We set a play date for the next day and carried on with our walk. Belle and I walked down to the other end of Oia the next morning and met Marcos, Natasha & their dog Fidel. They have a vacation home here in Santorini and are right beside a huge open field. The dogs ran and played and slobbered all over each other. As exhausted as Belle was when it was time to leave, it still took all my strength to pull Belle away and start our walk home. Belle and Fidel were in love! We were able to get the dogs together one more time before they had to head back to Athens and promised to get the dogs together again when they are back in October. 

Belle & Fidel 

On a sadder note, just yesterday, I experienced my first Greek funeral. Rodoula’s grandfather passed away and in true Greek tradition, they lay their loved ones to rest before the sun sets on the day they die. The funeral was at a small local church that was overflowing with grief stricken locals. While Ilias’ and I had never met this man, we had heard stories of what a kind and generous man he had been and wanted to be there to support Rodoula. While of course very sad, I found the funeral to be very beautiful. The mounds of flowers, the bells ringing and the procession to the cemetery showcased perfectly how they honour their loved ones to the very end.  

Other than the visits, the dog and the odd special occasion, life really is pretty normal. Ilias and I are truly finding the rhythm to our life together.  As September comes rolling in, the evenings are beginning to cool and the signs of the end of the season are starting to show themselves. Everyone tells me to be prepared for winter in Santorini. But I don’t think this winter will be that bad for me. My momma arrives in 5 weeks for her first visit and then shortly after Ilias and I, along with Kiki & Yiannis (and possibly Rodoula) will all be coming to Calgary for Christmas. The month of February brings my dad’s visit and then by March the next summer season will be just around the corner. All I can really hope for is that the winter brings me more time to spend learning the language and truly feeling like a local. 

small differences

Another couple of weeks have passed with very exciting things going in other parts of the world (welcome to the world little Ruby Gray Seddon, Ford David Thompson & Oskar Flynn White)! It is moments like this that make being over here, away from my friends and family, extra hard. 

While not as life changing, there have been a couple of fun events over in this part of the world as well. We have celebrated both Ilias’ name day & his birthday. Name day, you may ask? In Greece, babies are named in a very specific way. Traditionally, the first born will be named after the paternal grandmother or grandfather and the second will be named after the maternal grandmother or grandfather, and back and forth, depending on how large of a family you decide to have.  No matter what though, you are always named after a saint, profit or one of the ancient gods. This is the only way the priests in the Orthodox church will allow a baby to be baptized (which is extremely important over here). Your name day, is the day of the year that the church celebrates that saint or profit. While birthdays are still celebrated, as you get older they don’t hold as much significance (much of Greece has the Peter Pan syndrome I think!). Your name day becomes the day of importance that everyone celebrates.  

Ilias started his name day off in Naxos (a neighboring island that houses the larger court system of the local islands). I picked him up mid afternoon from the ferries and presented him with his present...a new iPad. He was very excited and relieved, because he had almost bought himself one in Naxos. He was bored of ferry rides with nothing to do (the main reason I bought it for him too). We carried on with our day and met Ilias’ brother & his girlfriend, Yiannis & Rodoula, and another friend, Mr. Takis, for dinner at a local taverna in Kamari. After dinner we met some more friends for a couple drinks and then called it a night. I had made tiramisu for him, but we were both still so full from dinner that we decided to wait until the next day to have it. (It was deeeelicious if I do say so myself.)

While Ilias may not care too much for celebrating his birthday (the king of Peter Pan syndrome), he married a Canadian girl after all, and as most of you know, I love birthdays. So too bad, we were celebrating. The day started with Ilias spending the morning doing his favorite pastime, sleeping. I was busy cleaning the house for our guests that were coming over that night, so it worked perfectly for me. When Sleeping Beauty finally awoke, I made pancakes (his favorite breakfast) and we headed to the pool. A couple of sun-soaked, relaxing hours later we headed back home. I had to get to the grocery store to pick up the last few ingredients for dinner. Well this is where my Sunday afternoon adventure really started. I headed to a big grocery store in Fira to buy the chicken for tonight’s chicken parmesan and a couple other key ingredients. I was just about to pull into the parking lot when I noticed all the lights were off and there wasn’t another car to be seen anywhere. Closed. What the heck?  I was annoyed but we do have more than one grocery store here, so I headed down the street to the next one. It’s actually bigger and I prefer it, life always works out as it should. Again, closed. What the f%^k? Annoyed turned to panic because what is chicken parmesan without the chicken? Oh gawd! Off to another one, please oh please oh please! I arrived and thank sweet baby Jesus it was open. This particular grocery store is not my favorite, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. They had the chicken and the parmesan I needed but were missing the fresh spinach I was looking for. Plus while the chicken was there it was pre-packaged so I was questioning how fresh it really was because (very surprising I know), everything is written in Greek here. Hmmm, if this one is open maybe the one down the road another block and a half will be open too? If the competition stays open on Sundays...I drop my chicken and my parmesan and head for the car. 45 seconds later I am pulling into the next grocery store saying Hallelujahs because it too is open and I like this grocery store better. Woot woot!!  I head inside, find my parmesan, find my spinach and head for the meat department. WTF?! Where is the meat department?? All they have is a deli with chesses and processed meats and a freezer with an array of frozen poultry. It is 5:30 and company is coming at 7pm. I don’t have time for any frozen chicken. Man! After noticing that they have frozen, uncooked prawns (something I have also been looking for here - everything comes precooked and frozen), I make a mental note and head for the checkout. Back to the previous store to get the stupid chicken!

At long last I make it home. It is 6pm and aside from the birthday cake, nothing is ready. I walk in the door and like a tasmanian devil, get to work. Mom, you can imagine what this kitchen started to look like! I love to cook people, but I also usually end up using almost every dish in the kitchen. Our apartment is small, the kitchen even smaller and it does not employ a dishwasher. With the chicken now successfully in the oven finishing to cook, I manage to get some of the dishes done and to clear enough counter space to start on the pasta, veggies and salad I am making to go with the dinner. As always, things all managed to come together pretty much on time. We sat down and had a wonderful dinner with Yiannis, Rodoula and Kiki, who was over from Athens for her book signing in Santorini & for Ilias’ birthday. 

With dinner over I start clearing the table and am going to start working away at the pile of dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. It would be nice if at some point we can indulge in the banana split bombe ice cream cake I had made. Dishes stacked, scraped and ready to be washed, let’s get this show on the road. I go to fill the sink and again what the f#^k?!!! No water. Nothing. Not a drop. Ahhh island life. It is the time of day in August . The tourists that are staying in Oia have made it back to their hotels to shower after the beach and they have used all the water. Well what’s a girl to do. We clear and clean and get as much done as possible and get on with the cake. It was AMAZING and a big hit. (Thank you Martha!) After cake, we headed back to Fira to celebrate with a couple friends. We got home hours later, to water that finally worked again and a mountain of dishes. I did as many as I could, before Belle decided that the noise was interfering with her sleep and she had had enough. I didn’t want her barking to wake the neighborhood, so I called it a night and went to sleep. The dishes have waited this long, what is a couple more hours?

So while, no life changing events here, it has been a good few weeks for learning to adapt to the small differences of Santorini life. Don’t plan on doing any grocery shopping on Sundays and always count on the water being gone when you need it the most. :)

The next few weeks have us busy with all kinds of visitors. One of my besties, Amie, arrives on Sunday for 2 weeks.  Along with Ilias’ best friends from France Marc Antoine, Gerald & Francois. 

Until next time. 

xoxo

1 month

It has officially been 1 month. 1 month since I left my hometown, my home country and moved almost 10,000 km to, well... a new world. I know I told most of you I would get my blog up and running sooner than this, but what can I say? Settling in to a new apartment, a new city and life with a new husband takes up a lot of your time. 

Home is currently in the town of Oia (pronounced ee-ah). We have settled in and sorted through all of our stuff (read Lindsay’s home furnishings & Ilias’ clothes) and have made the apartment cozy and warm. (Well warm it is on it’s own, we actually try hard to cool the place down with blasts of A/C.) Setting up shop was a daunting task for me at first as the apartment was packed with boxes and bags of stuff so tightly, that it was like a maze getting from the living room to the bedroom. With the addition of a second wardrobe, my love of the game Tetris, and a severe test of patience, the organization really started to come together and now pretty much everything has a place to call home. 

My days consist of taking Ilias to his office in the mornings (we are a one car family at the moment), while Belle tags along with her dad so that I can have a few spastic dog free hours to get things done around the apartment or run some errands. I haven’t been working yet as the hotel is already fully staffed and running very well this summer so we don’t want to rock the boat. I will start working there next season though. 

In the afternoons Ilias and I will either head to the beach or to the pool at the hotel and layout in the sun and swim for a couple hours. We then head back to the apartment to rest and clean up before Ilias’ early evening appointments. This works perfectly for me as it gives me time to email/skype/get caught up on world events & my love of celebrity gossip. After that we’ll head back home for dinner or into the main square to meet some friends at a cafe or for dinner. 

The view from the pool

All of this is of course intertwined with hours of entertainment from our lovable yet totally insane dog, Belle. Well they say she is a dog, but Ilias and I question this.  Her behaviour leans more to a mix of donkey, coyote and garb-orator. She is 7 months old now and we absolutely adore her. I don’t know if it is her stubbornness (how ironic that 2 of the most stubborn people chose one of the most stubborn breeds of dogs possible), a lack of intelligence or maybe it’s just normal, but she is just starting to learn her commands now. I keep warning her that if she doesn’t start getting it together, she isn’t going to know what hit her when her grandfather comes to visit in February.

We take her to a football - what the hell, I am writing this for Canadians - ahem soccer field everyday to play catch and walk along the caldera. We take her with us to the beach some days but she certainly does not have the same love of the water as most other dogs I know. She also isn’t too fond of the Santorini heat/sun but who can blame the poor thing, it’s too hot for most living creatures here. The most memorable moment with Belle thus far has to be the evening that involved a 10:30pm trip to the vet. Belle has grown quite a bit since her first days in Santorini so we had gotten her a new collar and had switched them out earlier that day when driving to the beach. We had just gotten home later that evening and while unloading everything & everyone from the car, we realized that only a small piece of her original collar was left. We searched the car high and low for the remaining piece, she must have only torn it into 2 pieces - not actually eaten it, to no avail. Belle had swallowed almost her entire collar. Wonderful. It was leather and studded with tiny metallic dog bones. That will digest easily. We immediately called our vet and she asked us to watch her for the next hour and if she started acting strange to bring her in immediately. We watched her, she started grumbling and moaning and we took her in. One quick shot later and Belle was sharing her lunch, dinner and collar with the rest of the animals in the vets office. Luckily it hadn’t moved into her intestines yet and the whole thing came up from her stomach. She was groggy for the next day and very tired, but is now good as new and causing all kinds of new trouble for us everyday. I believe it more and more everyday that owning a dog together is good practice for when you have kids. 

Belle & her daddy

Aside from the day to day, we have had a couple of fun trips as well. The first was early in July, with a trip over to Athens for Kiki’s book release here in Greece. It is amazing to me that a book that was so well received all over the world so many years ago, that documents the life and relationships of one of the most famous Greek men, was not released at the same time in Greece. But it worked out well for me. The party was held at a rooftop cafe above a book shop & theater in a rejuvenated area of Athens called Technopolis. It reminded me a lot of Yaletown actually. Tons of bustling cafes and restaurants, clubs filled with young urbanites, parks with kids and dogs playing while the parents watched and laughed. Oh and it all overlooked the Acropolis. I guess it’s a little different than Yaletown after all... 

The Acropolis 

The evening was a huge success for Kiki with tons of influential Athenians coming out for the event. I even got to sit and talk with the mayor of Athens for awhile. (It turns out his nephew is married to a Canadian girl from Vancouver and Ilias and I are now invited to their house the next time we make it to Athens. Sooo Greek!) The book has been very well received and has been getting a lot of press coverage. Kiki has signings scheduled through to the beginning of September in various islands & cities and works so hard that she could run laps around the rest of us I am sure.  

Our next trip was to Crete for a friend’s cousin’s wedding. (Again so Greek, this explains why Greek weddings are so big.) Crete was unbelievable. We stayed in the city of Heraklion, at a gorgeous resort and were met with a kind of hospitality I have never experienced before. I would  like to remind you at this point, that Ilias and I had never met anyone from this family except for his friend Costas, who was the bride’s cousin. They welcomed us to all of the wedding events with open arms and glasses of raki. Raki, for those of you who haven’t had the good fortune to try it, is a Cretan speciality, or very strong liquor. To me it tasted like a mixture of tequila and vodka and they drank it like it was water and they had been stranded in the desert for weeks. The thing about Crete is that if you say no or refuse anything they offer you (food, drink or hospitality) it is considered a huge insult. So on our first night in Crete (at what we would call a rehearsal dinner) while Ilias and I sipped on our never empty glasses of raki, we met and talked with all of the members of the family, learned about Cretan culture and the history of this family. I was lucky enough that most of them spoke some english and in fact a few members of the family had just moved back from Texas so were fluent. It was a fun night filled with great people, great food and unbelievable Greek treats that the bride’s aunt had made. All while being serenaded by Michael Bolton music circa 1991. Oh yes! Welcome to Crete. 

The next day, Ilias and I headed into the main square, to a nice little cafe to have a coffee with Costas and his uncle before the wedding. It was a busy little city with people shopping, eating and drinking their iced coffees all over the place. It was so nice and relaxing. It was at this point that my lovely husband decided to remind me that we were only about 2 1/2 hours by boat to Libya. We better hope Gaddafi doesn’t do anything too crazy while we are here. Well Toto, I don’t think we’re in Canada anymore....

The rest of the time in Crete was less stressful for me. The wedding was very traditionally Cretan at a beautiful outdoor Church that looked like an ancient amphitheater. The dinner that followed was amazing (lamb, lamb and more lamb - I was in heaven) with an unbelievable amount of dancing. Greek dancing is one thing, but Crete has many of it’s own dances that even Ilias didn’t know. Men and women were kicking it up and flinging themselves through the air. To say it was a show is an understatement. We stayed until about 4am but the party carried on for many hours after that. 

The location of the wedding ceremony

Ilias & I at the wedding

The next day we were taken on a tour through the mountain village of Zoniana. This village is famous for all kinds of Cretan specialties. (I’ll let you google that one to get the full details, but to give you an idea, even the Priest of this village drives a jacked up, pimped out truck and lives in a gorgeous brand new apartment. It’s the Sicily of Greece, if you will.) The best man and his girlfriend also joined us on this tour and this is when I got my second dose of Greek celebrity. It turns out that the best man was one of the most famous actors in Greece and in one show he played a Cretan man in a Romeo/Juliet type of story. The Cretans LOVE him. It was pretty funny to hear his stories of life as an actor and the celebrity that follows. 

Our tour ended at the house of the matriarch of this huge family. Costas’ grandmother is well into her 70’s, has 8 children (had the first one at 13) and when we all showed up on her door step she brought out huge plates of Cretan cheese, bread, chocolates & fruit and offered to cook us a lamb. It was 11pm. We managed to convince her that we had just finished a huge lamb dinner already and that it really wasn’t necessary. That about sums up our trip to Crete though. 

Overall, life has been nothing but wonderful so far. I am starting to notice more and more bizarre differences between Greece and Canada, but they provide good amusement for Ilias and I, so there is nothing to complain about. As I continue to work on my blog, I’ll make sure to elaborate on these and share the funny moments with you all. 

Santorini is majestic in a way that I will never be able to truly describe, only your own experiences here will really be able to capture it. Everyday as Belle and I walk along the Caldera overlooking the calm, oil like sea and the volcano that emerges from it, I feel breathless. While it has only been a month, I hope this feeling never goes away. 

The Caldera

I will end this first blog posting sending all of my love to you back in the Great White North and letting you all know that I miss you all and cannot wait for your visits. 

xo