Myconos/Mykonos/Mikonos

However you want to spell it - we are here. After almost two weeks on Paros we took the boat to Mykonos today. We are getting refreshed in our room (we have internet acess in our hotel!!) and we are going to have a look around the town. Tomorrow we plan to head out to Delos (again with the various spellings) to see the ruins.

Capers

The owner of our small hotel, Maria, went out the other day to pick capers. She was gone for about 20 minutes to a secret place (which must have been really close by) and brought back a grocery sack full of parts of the caper plant. We were sitting in the courtyard with friends Willy & Robert (from Holland) and got to help prepare the capers (pick them off the stems). We all got busy and started telling stories of doing similar tasks in our youth - bean snapping, tomato picking, pea shelling, peanut shelling...etc. I didn't even know they had peanuts in Holland. Not only do they have peanuts, but there is famous Dutch Peanutbutter, good stuff.

Back to the capers, they grow on bushes out in the wild, you can usually find these bushes near the sea. The part that you pick as the caper "fruit" is the flower bud. After the capers are seperated from the stems, you wash them, put them in a container with a lid, throw in salt and seal it up. You then shake it a few times each day for about 2 months until the capers are "cured". That's it. Easy - hu?

Robert is a graphic designer and took the opportunity to snap a few photos and put this together for us.

Random Photos From Greece

I thought you might enjoy a few random photos:

This one was taken in Athens in a doorway framed by two wood cur-outs in traditional costume.

John sporting his new Greek clothing in the midst of the ruins in Athens below the Acropolis. Notice the Parthenon on the hill?

A woman sitting outside her house in Parikia, on Paros.

Our dinner companion decides to take a stretch after enjoying the sunset.

The Veg Man

We have been eating breakfast at a small cafe in the old town of Parikia that also happens to have wireless internet access. Yesterday when I looked up from my coffee I saw the veg man outside the window. Notice the scale in his hand.

Meet the Meat

While in Athens we went to the meat market. It is a bit different from the sterile, saran wrapped way we procure meat in most of America.

Here the goats are split down the middle and shown with internal organs intact to prove how fresh they are. There are baskets of livers, tables of heads, lines full of plucked chickens that still have their heads and feet.

Goat heads anyone? The butchers are standing by in their bloody aprons with huge cleavers ready to chop off whatever you wish from that side of beef, or perhaps carve you some pork chops. It was fun to watch the older Greek women poking at the meat and haggling over the prices.


The most interesting thing though was the rabbits. They have been skinned except for their feet and tails which still have fluffy bunny fur. I couldn't tell if they had been gutted or not - I think not.

I couldn't help wondering what happened when your average Greek woman arrived home with the bunny. Did she cut off the feet and hang them in the kitchen to dry for good luck? Was the rabbit cooked with the head on or off? Did they have a specialty made with the internal organs? Things to ponder.

UPDATE: We were talking with Willy, who we met at the hotel on Paros, and she says that the reason they keep the fuzzy bunny feet and tail is so that you are guaranteed the product is indeed rabbit and not cat. Yes, apparently it is difficult to tell the difference between a skinned cat and a skinned rabbit and butchers now find it necessary to guarantee that they are selling the real thing. Now we know.

Island Life

(Photos here.)

We've been on Paros for almost a week and have been quite content to just explore the island and laze around. Luckily after our first couple of days of overindulging in the sunny weather we had two days of stormy weather, giving us time to recover from mild sunburns.

On Thursday we rented a couple of scooters to explore the island (10 euro each for 24 hours, though some places had them for 5 euro). It was quite a step down from our 1200cc and 650cc motorcycles. Riding a scooter is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike riding a motorcycle. They're hinky little things but after an hour or so we learned to enjoy them. Paros is only about 13 miles long so scooters are really a great way to get around.

There are numerous small villages dotting the island. Although it gets very busy in the summer, many of the villages were still filled with boarded up summer homes.

We have spent a lot of time enjoying the local food. One of the favorites is octopus. They dry the octopus hanging on a rope in the sun for two days and then either grill it or boil it with olive oil, wine and spices. It is good, but really rich.

They also have lots of varieties of fish either grilled or fried. These were really tasty, but we really like the fried small fish that you eat like chicken fingers - head, bones, tail, and all.

Mmmmm....fish heads.

The island is populated with a lot of wild cats and dogs so we always have company at dinner asking us to share. It is not uncommon to pull out a chair at a cafe and find a cat curled up in it. This is Snagletooth who hung out with us at coffee one day. He is so named because he is missing one of his bottom front teeth and his tounge kind of lolls out of his mouth and he drools. He was determined to try and become our friend even though we had no food to give him.

There are many old windmills on the island. They did a great job of turning this one into a charming cafe. It overlooks the harbor and you can watch the ferries, charter boats, sail boats, and fishing vessels sail in and out.

Traveling to Ireland

I have decided that my long boring blog posts that I don't publish because...well, because they are long and boring, might actually work as small snapshots - so here is one.

I had a job in Westport, a very small town on the Northwest coast of Ireland. In order to get there in time to teach on Tuesday, I had to leave Montenegro on Friday and fly to Rome. I spent Friday and Saturday night there, and then flew to Dublin Sunday morning, had a layover for 7 hours, then flew to West Knock Airport. The plane was delayed so I struck up a conversation with an older woman from Castlebar who had been to Dublin on a shopping trip. When she found out that I have no children she said (you have to imagine this in rapid fire sequence with a heavy Irish accent):

"Good for you, then. They’re all cheeky little devil’s spawn now a days, you know. Take my nephew, he is one cheeky bastard, that one is. I keep tellin’ me sister to give him what for, but she goes and bails him out of whatever he’s into. The guards stopped him for crossing the solid line. You don’t cross the solid line, you know, you just don’t, it’s how people are getting killed, it is, crossing the solid line. You’re suppose’ to be respectful of the guards and all, and do you know what the cheeky bastard said to the guard? The guard, he asked him why did you cross the solid line then? And he says, Whell, I was just wharmin me wheels, I was! Wharmin his wheels he says, the cheeky bastard! Can you believe it? The guard says to him why did you cross the line, and the cheeky bastard that he is….” She went on repeating herself like that for about five minutes. I love Ireland.

Bitty Brown Splotches

Ah Greece, the crystal clear waters, the whitewashed blue-trimmed houses, the beach, the ancient ruins, and the sun! I have been in Greece for less than a week and I am becoming one big mass of freckles - bitty brown splotches all over instead of that golden tanned look.

Last week I was in Westport, Ireland working and it was cold, rainy and windy, but spectacularly beautiful. It was really weird to go from there directly to Athens - talk about climate change. Meanwhile, John took busses through Albania to Greece. We are working on posts about both places, meanwhile John posted some pictures from his path through Albania in the photos section. Yes, that is a guy walking his bear. :)

More soon.

A Few Hours in Rome

I woke up the first time to someone stumbling in the dark. There were two figures outlined in the light from the bathroom across the hall, one trying in vain to support the other as he attempted to climb into the top bunk of the bed setting parallel to my head. It was about 5AM Saturday and two of my 5 male roommates had just stumbled home from a bar. The second time I woke to a loud series of farts coming from the even larger Australian bloke in the bottom bunk across from me. After the third rather long exhalation of gas, he started moaning and then let out a kind of strangled hickcup/screetch before settling again in his blankets. No one else woke up.

When I decided it was time to get up and in the shower before the people in the other room came awake I had a bit of a problem. The bunk I was in was quite high, there were guys sleeping all around me, and there was no ladder. I decided to climb over the headboard and try to put one leg on the small nightstand covered by someone’s clothes, then climb to the floor from there. Front-first, I swung my leg over the headboard and was trying in vain to reach the nightstand with my foot when the guy in the top bunk parallel to mine turned and opened his eyes. He seemed a bit shocked - at my appearance or because he wasn’t expecting a girl, or maybe because I had one leg hanging over the edge of the bed out into space - I am not really sure. “I’m trying to get down without waking everyone up,” I whispered. He offered me his hand, I reached the ground safely, and he went back to sleep.

Breakfast was a small purchased coffee cake, a small tin of cookies, and hot water for tea sitting on the small side table in the hall. As there were 17 of us in the tiny cramped rooms I didn’t think this would go very far. I stood in the small hallway with a cup of tea conversing in whispers with a couple from France. As one of us would move to get more hot water, or a cookie, we had to reposition ourselves. I finished my tea quickly.

It was raining out and my feet were battered and blistered so I decided to tour the nearest church – Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri. It is a church designed by Michaelangelo built in and on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. I walked past the gypsy woman with her baby begging in the entrance and into the dim gloom of the naïve. The only lights were the electric candles that replaced the traditional offering candles at the alters and a few oddly placed spotlights. I wandered toward the transcept to the right of the main alter and stood in front of the meridian line. There are two holes in the top of the walls near the ceiling that let in the light of the sun and moon and illuminate different points of a brass line inlaid in the marble floor of the church. The position of the sun indicates the time of year and is noted on the sides of the line in inlaid mosaics and engravings. I was marveling at how they constructed such a precise measurement of dates and time when I noticed an Italian man leaning on the back row of benches in front of the alter was staring at me. I assumed that I was somehow doing something offensive and disturbing his worship, but as I had not made a sound and there were other tourists poking about more intrusively than I was, I quickly decided he just thought I was odd.

I turned to cross the floor by the front alter and out of the corner of my eye I saw the man quickly cross himself and start to follow me. I slowly made my way to the other side of the church studying the intricate marble floors and oogling the frescos and statuary and I could hear the man walking behind me. He was in this early 50s and dressed in a nice suit, but it was bothering me a bit that he followed me. I decided to sit on one of the benches near the front alter and “pray” and assumed he would move along and leave me alone. Not one minute after I had sat down and bowed my head, the man approached and said, “Ah, bella, no?”

“Si,” I said, not knowing exactly what to do at this point.

“Ah, Inglese,” he said, assuming I was English. I didn’t reply and he continued. “Ah Roma e bella e tu, tu sai bellisima. Beautiful, beautiful! You piache Roma, si?”

“Si, Roma e bellisima,” I said. I was hoping that this would be the end of the conversation, but he was quite determined to talk to me.

“Ah, si. Sai solo? You are alone?” he said, one eyebrow raised in invitaion. This was a bit weird, not just because of his eyebrow wagging, but also because solo means single in Italian, but alone in English has a slightly different meaning.

I put my left hand on top of my right so he could see my ring and said “No, sono sposato.”

“Ah,” he said and looked around, “ma il tuo marito non e qui?” Apparently the lack of the physical presence of my husband was enough for him. “Posso comprarlo uno caffe?” he asked.

“No.” I shook my head adamantly.

“Ma, perche no? Coffee , con me, you conosci, coffee?”

“Si, capito, ma io non volio, grazie.”

“Caffe, solo caffe!” he said, and smiled.

“No, grazie.” I shook my head again.

“Ah, so.” He exclaimed and then picked up my hand. I thought about yanking my hand away, but it was just too rude and I couldn't bring myself to do it. “Come sai chiama? What your name bella?”

“Uh, Robin.” I stammered as he kissed my hand.

“Ah,” he sighed, and let go of my hand. “Ciao, bella, Ciao!” he said, and finally walked away. I sat there for a minute, not sure what to make of this strange encounter and then made my way through the rest of the church.

Lunch With The Mafia?

Yesterday we stopped for a lunch of kabops at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. After sitting there a few minutes and watching the comings-and-goings around us, Robin remarked that it appeared we had inadvertently sat down at the local mafioso hangout. For instance, a shady-looking pair were sitting next to us conducting various business with people that would just walk up randomly, and the parking lot was full of Mercedes autos with Albanian plates.

At some point we struck up a conversation with one of the shady guys ("Albert") at the next table. It turns out that he is from Albania and frequently travels back and forth across the border. I stupidly mentioned something about not liking Bush after introducing ourselves as Americans (despite my policy of attempting to keep politics out of conversations). It turns out that Albert was actually one of the few Bush-lovers on the planet. He had very strong words to say about wanting to kill us if he was a "muslim-men". Despite his ethnic biases, he was actually quite a nice guy. He bought us a round of drinks (everyone here is trying to get us drunk I think) and we chatted for about an hour.

Albania has had a very hard time coming to terms with the fall of communism. Not being wise to the ways of capitalism, most people in the country apparently lost their life savings to pyramid schemes. Many of those that now have money have come through it by less than honest means. Albert had lots of money. Albert mentioned that the town (Ulcunj) was full of mafioso. I point-blank asked him if he was Albanian mafia. He completely ignored the question, pretty much confirming our guess.

Another entertaining, yet puzzling, thing happened at lunch. Earlier in the day we had seen a young(ish) woman get out of a car with an older lady. The woman was decked head to toe in green. A green polkadot dress, green high-heels, even green fingernail polish. The older lady stood there primping the woman's dress before they set off to walk around town. During lunch this pair showed up at our restaurant and had some words with the owner. They then went into the restaurant. A few minutes later the woman in green rushed out with a younger gentleman and got into the back of a car parked nearby. The older woman and another person came out, got into the front of the car and drove away. A couple of bystanders (young boy, old man) stood there staring as they drove off. I don't know if the old lady was pimping out the woman, if we had just witnessed the start of a shotgun wedding, or what.

Today our landlady outdid herself. After eating a hearty breakfast we were just about to get up and leave. Suddenly the daughter brings out a huge platter of fresh cheese and told us the mother was making us something else. She had gone out on the patio and fried up a large plateful of fried pastries. Although we were already full from breakfast, we could hardly refuse. Will have to do a lot of extra walking today I think.

We've taken to walking down to a local cafe after breakfast and having coffee with Feri, a man we met who drives a cab and gives tours. Well, we had coffee; Feri was on his second (local, strong) beer when we got there this morning. Very nice man with a lot of information about all of Montenegro.

Ulcinj - The Place To Be (To Stuff Your Face)

We arrived in Ulcinj Montenegro yesterday afternoon after a 5 hour ride down the coast from Dubrovnik. The trip was quite interesting, in part because the further south we travel, the worse the buses get. The bus on the final leg of the journey literally had bailing wire holding it together. The windows were also completely messed up so we couldn't really see out to enjoy the scenery.

A few minutes after arriving in Ulcinj a couple pulled up and offered us a room. We're getting better deals lately too. Our board is €10 each, a very nice breakfast included. When we got to their house they made us some turkish coffee and served us crepes. Later we walked around down by the beach and up into the old town. A man there sat us down and chatted with us for a while and served us free pear schnapps. Later, after walking around for a while longer we stopped for a couple of beers. Cost: €1 each.

We splurged and spent another €10 each to have our hosts make us a nice homemade dinner. First they served us a very good peach brandy. Unfortunately they kept insisting on refilling the glass with more. This theme would continue throughout the meal. Next came an incredible fish soup and fresh bread, along with a salad. The salad had olives that the family had grown and preserved themselves. Along with the first course the white wine started flowing. It was hand-bottled so I assume it was some local wine. The main course consisted of pan-fried fish caught earlier in the day with a great garlic-lemon puree. Potatoes and risotto were served on the side. All in all it was one of the best meals we've had on the trip.

We woke this morning to a call to prayer from a mosque down the street. A pretty violent thunderstorm blew in overnight and so the weather is cool today, ruining our plan to veg out on the beach all day. This is probably a good thing as we're still trying to figure out how to get Robin to Ireland on Monday.

Ulcinj is a lovely town with very friendly people, and best of all it is kind of off the beaten tourist track. We'd like to come back and spend a few days-weeks-months here at some point.