Siesta

In most of Greece, all work stops in the afternoon so families can get together for a big lunch. After their filling meal, most people retire for a nap. This nap generally lasts from about 2pm to 5pm. When they wake up, they have coffee and the shops reopen for the evening hours.

I'm not a big napper myself. I generally use this time to catch up online, to read on the balcony or to watch my little one sleep. Parker sleeping is something to behold. The utter peacefulness of his expression is mesmerizing.



When he was a baby, he would often fall asleep in my arms and I would stare at him for hours. Sometimes, his eyelashes will flutter and I used to wonder what he was dreaming about.

Nowadays, Parker has a tendency to either talk in his sleep or to tell me immediately upon waking what he was dreaming about. Not surprisingly, it's generally about trains or Winnie the Pooh. This morning, he woke up asking about Piglet.

I love the simplicity of his life and of experiencing it with him. His greatest joy these days is eating a peanut butter sandwich and taking a walk to visit the donkey. If that's all it takes to make him happy, I'm more than happy to oblige.

Trail Running

On the island, my workout schedule fundamentally changes since there isn't a gym or pool to be found. By necessity, mountain and trail running becomes my main form of exercise.



Trail running is nothing like road running. First, you have to keep your focus entirely on the trail ahead of you. There's an abundance of rocks and roots and other natural obstacles that can easily cause you to sprain an ankle. When I'm running on asphalt, daydreaming is my constant companion and three miles may pass before I come back into the present moment. On the trail, every single step is calculated and focused. Did I mention that there are snakes? Yeah, that definitely keeps my focus sharp.



The other difference is that I'm running at a high elevation, so it's harder to catch my breath. Two miles becomes the equivalent of six at sea level and since I'm on a mountain, I'm constantly running either uphill or downhill so there isn't time to catch my breath before I'm charging up another incline.



Whereas road running is mindless, trail running is precise and mentally exhausting. My usual loop is probably about 2.5 miles, but when I return, I feel like I've been running for hours. It's laborious work, but there's a certain sense of satisfaction to running completely alone in nature. Yup, I'm sweaty and tired, but it feels good.



Of course, I generally carry my cell phone with me so that if I do sprain an ankle or take a tumble down a ravine, I can call my dad to come get me. Safety first!

The Market

Every Monday on the island, there's a big Farmer's Market in the neighboring village. They sell everything from produce to poultry to flowers to clothes and shoes. This past Monday, we took Parker to the Market. He walked away with a Mickey Mouse baseball hat and I left with about 10 lbs. of fresh fruits and vegetables. I can't tell you how happy we both were with our acquisitions. Here are some photos from our trip to the Market.

Greek Coffee

I have a confession to make. Before yesterday, I did not know how to make a Greek coffee. In my defense, a cup of Greek coffee is only about 4 oz. of liquid so it's not exactly my choice of caffeination. Furthermore, Greeks can linger over a single cup for upwards of an hour, which is baffling to me, but I am (in this and most things) decidedly American. Now, however, I can make a Greek coffee with the best of them. I feel Greeker already.

First, add one tea cup worth of water for each cup of coffee you're going to make to your briki (the traditional beaker in which you make the coffee). Measure the water using the cup that you're going to serve the coffee in. Notice how they even have special burners specifically for the briki.



Once the water gets warm, add in one heaping teaspoon of Greek coffee and as much sugar as you prefer (my parents do equal parts sugar and coffee, my cousins do two parts sugar to one part coffee).



Give it a good stir to dissolve the coffee and sugar. Once it starts foaming and expands to half way up your briki...



...fill the coffee cups half way.



Put it back on the burner and allow it to foam up a second time then top off your cups.



My theory as to why Greeks take so long to drink the coffee is that since the grinds are in the actual cup, if you chug it, you're likely to get a mouthful of sludge. Sipping it allows the grinds to settle after each sip. When you get close to the bottom of your cup, it's easy to distinguish when the liquid ends and the dregs begin.

This coffee is usually served with some Greek cookies or some biscotti. I'm excited to start making this when I get back to the states. Of course, I'll have to secretly chug a 32 oz. mocha to get my fix before the sipping commences...

The Local Donkey

This is a donkey that lives in our village. Parker takes a daily trip to visit him. He's fascinated that there's a donkey just hanging out in a pasture.



The donkey's owner rides him up and down the mountain and uses him for other work around his property. It is so easy for me to imagine what life was like here hundreds of years ago because so many members of the older generation still live the same way. They have simple two room homes and the following things: a goat (for milking), hens (for eggs), a donkey (for transportation) and a garden to grow vegetables. I imagine that there are very few things they actually purchase from a traditional supermarket.

Every once in a while, I have a sudden urge to flee the complications of my regular life and move to our simple island home that has no address and no mailbox. I think I would last about 4 months before I started craving some Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey and the conveniences of a local gym.

Views

My cousin and her fiance came to visit us this weekend and we took a quick trip around the island. These are the photos that I snapped during that trip.







This initial trip was a scouting expedition of sorts and over the course of the next week, I'm going to set out by myself to explore new beaches and beautiful cliffs.

The View

In a single picture, I can tell you why my parents bought the house that they did.



This is the view from both balconies on the back of the house. This is where my father and I sit every evening around 8:30pm to watch one glorious sunset after another. This is why I will be coming here until my last summer on this earth.



Cheers dad, we're here.

My Island

There's an Irishman in the movie "Braveheart" that always refers to Ireland as his island. In much the same way, I think of the island that our house is on as somehow belonging exclusively to us. When an influx of British tourists discovered it a handful of years back, I recoiled at hearing English being spoken at various restaurants because it somehow felt like I had to share ownership of it.

When we arrive early in the season as we did this year, the illusion of ownership is amplified. As I sit here typing this, I'm sharing the cafe on the beach with just one other person and he's a local. Yup, it's my island, but I'm willing to share a piece of it with each of you.

We take a ferry boat over from the mainland and it takes about an hour to get there. Here we are departing from the mainland.



I love to sit above deck feeling the bite of the wind and the warmth of the sun. When I was little, I would jump at any chance to ride back and forth from the island to the mainland. There's a peace on the upper deck that is hard to come by. While I'm up there, I almost always indulge in a book. During this trip, I'm reading Pillars of the Earth, which I downloaded to my Kindle at the airport.



There are always a host of birds following the ferry hoping to catch a fish that was caught up in the wake. Parker was transfixed and shouted, "It's a bird!" probably 1,343 times.



When we're about 15 minutes from arrival, I love to watch our approach to the island. I recognize every mountain silhouetting the port and I can picture our drive back to the house.



As my parents ordered lunch, I hopped online (picking up wifi from the cafe I'm sitting at now) to do my usual online business.



I swear, stress simply slips away from me as I step off of the ferry and onto familiar land. This place has been my home away from home since I was 7 years old. Parker made his first trip here when he was just 6 months old and I hope that he comes to feel as reverent as I do about the sweeping mountains and aqua blue waters.

Olives

I love olives. Green olives, fat black olives, olives with pimentos, but most of all, I love Kalamata olives. I could literally eat half a pound without batting an eyelash. Every year before we leave for the island, we go by the olive store to pick up a couple of kilos to last us.



They probably have over 30 varieties of olives displayed in their cases and they'll let you try every single one of them before you make you selection...not that I've ever done that or anything.



I usually try about 3 or 4 varieties so that I appear to be considering other options, but I always know exactly what I want.



Giant Kalamata olives that are slightly tart and slightly sweet. The Irishman and I brough back a 10 lb. bucket of these one year and ate them every day for months and months. For the time being, I bought one kilo and since we're traveling to the island, they pack the olives in a jar with juice so that they'll be easier to transport and will keep longer.



With a fresh loaf of homemade bread from the bakery, a huge chunk of feta cheese and a Greek salad, these olives with make a filling and delicious lunch.

There Aren't Enough Calories In A Day...

There is one solitary fact that I know about Greeks...they know how to eat. In fact, even my 2000+ calorie diet is considered "light." They look at my 143 lbs. and consider me a total waif. Everyone here is hell bent on trying to fatten me up. I love this country.

The town that my parents are from has a number of specialties, one of which is bougatsa. Bougatsa is a breakfast food made with phillo. There's both a sweet and a savory version. The sweet version is made with custard and cinnamon...



...and the savory version with cheese.



It's a tradition that my father goes out before anyone is awake to pick some up from the corner pastry shop. Oh my good Lord is bougatsa good. Paired with a strong coffee, it is quite the treat.

Another thing about Greeks is that they don't show up anywhere empty handed. They usually swing by bearing local sweets like these little bites of deliciousness that my aunt brought by.



These, my dears, are chocolate-covered bites of ice cream and I'm making them immediately upon my arrival back at the states. The color of the chocolate indicates what flavor the ice cream is inside. I know this because I ate 6 of them, you know, just to be sure.

It's a good thing that we are only staying in town for three days before leaving for the island because I may have needed to buy new jeans if we had stayed much longer.

Vignettes

This is going to be my final Paris post, so I thought I would end with a series of Vignettes.

This was a seafood booth in one of many open air markets around the city. It was wonderful to pass so much fresh produce, local cheeses and freshly caught fish as we meandered around the city.



There was so much PDA going on in Paris, even the pigeons got in on the action.



Parker talks to the Irishman almost every morning on Skype and since both of our laptops are equipped with built-in cameras, they get to see each other. Parker usually parades all of his new toys and books in front of the camera to show his daddy his new stuff. He also gives him a rundown of the daily activities that sounds something like this, "I rode a train and there was a bunny and the marble man had no pants and the boat went 'toot toot' and the doggy smiled and mommy said 'crap'..."



Oh and please pardon my drowned rat look - we had just gotten poured on and I was too tired to do anything about it.

I'm always sad to leave Paris, but the blue waters of the Aegean are both familiar and welcoming.



Greece, I've missed you and we're coming home.

Batobus - Paris By Water

Other than the taxis, metro and buses, there is a water taxi called the Batobus. If I had thought of it earlier in the trip, we would have used it instead of the bus system because it takes you to all of the major landmarks without the fus of the other transport systems. As an added bonus, you get to see Paris by water, which is just lovely. We hopped on at the Notre Dame and rode it to all of the stops and back, which took about one hour.

A boat passing by the Notre Dame:



Parker checking things out on the Batobus:



The back of Notre Dame:



The extensive bridges:



The Louvre:



The D'Orsay Museum:



Outside of the Eiffel Tower:





And right when we were about to leave, the lights came and started twinkling. It was beautiful.

Hotel De Ville

The print above is one of my favorite pictures. In fact, I have a huge framed print of it in my living room that I picked up the last time I was in Paris. So of course, I had to go down there to take a couple of pictures myself. I would have loved to have taken them from the same angle, but they had some event going on and had tents set up obscuring the view.





There was a Carousel there, so naturally, Parker took a spin. I'm not sure what's with his face since he loves riding the Carousels, but it was cold, so perhaps that's why.



Then, we decided to walk back to our hotel since it was only a 15 minute walk or so. On our way back, we passed the "justice center."



It used to be a castle and the gothic building that you see behind it was a private church for the residents of the castle. The inside of St. Chapelle is comprised entirely of stained glass and the effect is breathtaking.



Also, on the walk back, I saw sweet little kitty hanging out in her bookstore.



This always makes an impression on me when I'm in Europe. Animals live in their owners shops without causing a fuss and even stray dogs stop at red lights and move with the flow of traffic. I'm sure that such orderliness is born out of the necessity to survive in a huge city, but I always think back to the wild animals I have at home who run with reckless abandon and would chase a squirrel into oblivion if given the chance.