What I did on my summer holidays
Sep. 17th, 2002 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyor; Notes from a Greek Island.
And so this year it was off to sunny Greece – the same place I went last year, no less. I’m a creature of habit, or rather a distinct lack of imagination, and the combination of nice beaches, sunny weather, and very few tourists has endeared me to Spetses – I’ll probably go back next year as well.
As well as my wench accompanying me, I also had my sister and brother in tow, whom, as my wench so rightly notes, are a lot of work. Deep joy.
The Trip.
We flew with Easyjet from Gatwick to Athens, and spent a happy few hours on the trip making up amusing easyjet-clone names, such as Uneasyjet (where when you get on the plane everyone just looks at you funny), Sleazyjet (a flying brothel), and Queasyjet (where they actively try and fly through every piece of turbulence they can find, whilst serving you a greasy breakfast). As you can tell, those long winter nights in the Wade household just fly by.
A quick taxi ride across Athens later we boarded the Flying Cat catamaran to the islands (apparently named after the Greek practise of hurling kittens into the harbour), arriving at Spetses a few hours later in the middle of a local celebration.
Every year, they have a big party to celebrate the defeat of a Turkish fleet several hundred years ago by a local pirate queen turned Admiral of the Greek navy called Laskarina Bouboulina. The islanders spend a year building full size replicas of Turkish ships that they tow out into the bay and burn, with lots of drinking and fireworks. The Greek government sends along representatives – and you could just tell that all the Greek sailors aboard the Cruiser anchored offshore were wishing that it were a real Turkish fleet they could have a go at. Like England & Germany, there’s some historic antipathy there…
Holiday, celebrate.
Our landlord had ‘accidentally’ messed up our booking (more likely he saw a bunch of paying customers and didn’t want them to slip through his fingers), and so we ended up sleeping 4 to a room for the first night until he found us two separate rooms. However, I am not downhearted and in the morning I set off to scientifically evaluate the sea at the local beach. I discover that a) it’s full of water, b) it tastes horrid , and c) it has lots of fish in it. However, my scientific researches are cut short by a thunderstorm and I realise that being surrounded by salty water might not be the safest place when Zeus is being a bit cross – so we head for the bar instead. Much nicer.
Monday is much nicer. The dodgy weather has blown away, and the topless Swedish & German girls are out in force. My concentration on them is broken by Jennys affectionate right hook, plus she attaches herself to me like a remora fish for the rest of the week. And what a charming & delightful sucker-mouthed monstrosity of the deep she is. What chap could ask for more?
That evening we head off for the local internet café (of which more later), and then home with a bottle which starts out being incredibly rough local Cherry brandy but by the time we’ve got to the bottom of the bottle it’s a delicious vintage liquor. Ah, the joy of alcohol.
I wake on Tuesday morning with the realisation that several ravenous, blood-sucking insects have made a meal out of me. However, I resolve not to be bitter about any of my ex-girlfriends and instead we all head for the beach. The water is great – a deep, rich blue and turquoise. The sea & sky are such similar colours that at times it’s difficult to see where the sea ends and the sky begins, and so there is the illusion of just being suspended in a huge blue bowl – a feeling of flight, almost. Naturally, it doesn’t last as the jellyfish, spying a kindred spirit, begin to home in on me. I could swear that I see one or two of them wearing tight rubber corsetry; but the comparison to the average cam event is unfair so I won’t.
Deciding that there are too many jellyfish & sea urchins for comfort, we decide to check out the other beach tomorrow.
Tuesday night we’re off out on the town again; I love going on holiday to the continent. Musically, it’s like the last 10 years never actually happened. Where else can you find bars still playing ‘Greatest hits of 1988’ in a way that isn’t supposed to be hip & ironic?
By Wednesday, both Jenny & I have shed our secret identities and turned into our heroic alter-egos – Lobster Girl and Beetroot Boy! Ever alert for the call to action, always ready to jump and squeak at the slightest touch of our bare skin! Yup, we’re red, although quickly turning to a muddy chocolate brown which people so aspire to on Holiday. With that in mind we don’t do much in the way of sunbathing, but travel to the other beach on the far side of the island on a rickety local bus (I notice that neither the speedometer nor the fuel gauge work, which is very reassuring) on narrow, winding clifftop roads. I help the mood by piping up brightly “Gosh, I do hope the driver isn’t suddenly struck by a suicidal urge!” as we whiz along a particularly precipitous stretch, inches from a bloody, mangled death. Everyone glares. No sense of fun the bloody lot of them. However, the beach is nice and the sea is full of fish. I spend a jolly afternoon paddling about the bay thinking up new advertising slogans for the Mediterranean: “The Mediterranean Sea! Now with ten percent less untreated human excrement!” or “The Mediterranean! Now less than one part in five urine!” After a while I give this up – not only is it impossible to come up with something that makes the med sound nice, it’s also putting me off my swimming.
That evening we return again to the Dolphin, the local internet bar. They guy who owns this now recognises us as regulars and the shots we’re served are IMMENSE, gallons of booze, hurrah! The owner has got his fortune made; by offering online access to porn, Pool tables, cheap booze, and a selection of 80s rock, he’s got the disaffected youth market on the island sewn up. It’s full of 14 year olds, all desperately trying to be hard and interesting, bless ‘em.
This is why I like Greece; any nation that puts Smirnoff Mule on the “Kids drinks” menu has to be alright.
Thursday. The holiday is winding down and it will soon be time for home, so we head for breakfast good & early. We’ve found a fine harbour bar that serves waffles with syrup & ice cream, and our breakfasts have been getting progressively less healthy and more expensive every day. After eating, we slowly and painfully waddle to the coach and head for the beach again. My sister made the discovery on Wednesday that if you stand in the sea to waste depth with some bread, hundreds of fish surround you in a feeding frenzy, guzzling and chomping away at the bread in your hands. It’s a remarkable sight, and today we’re all at it, buying bread from the beach restaurant to feed to the greedy little blighters. It’s like watching girls at a shoe sale, as they force each other out of the way, showing no regard to life or limb as they swarm in ever increasing numbers. Fantastic stress relief to watch, mind.
Getting chatting to the waiter in the bar that evening, he starts telling us how many languages he speaks :
Him: “I speak, French, English, Italian, and Spanish, but I do not speak German.”
Me: “Thanks to the British!”
I thought it was funny, but the Greek staff turn a tad surly. Honestly. Bloody Greeks. You’d think they invented civilisation or something, the way they act.
And so Friday. Our last day. Much of the same; beach, swimming, and reading. At one point my brother in the sea calls out that he can see an octopus, and so, thinking quickly, I sacrifice Jenny to it. However, it turns out to be a normal Cephalopod and not the rising of Rl’yeh as I’d feared, but you can’t be too careful, that’s what I say. That night there is another large electrical storm, and so I sacrifice a couple of goats to Zeus and manoeuvre Jenny under a convenient lightning bolt to reanimate her. She may be a brainless shambling zombie, but who’s to notice the difference, eh?
Home again, Home again, Jiggetty Jig.
Saturday. Off for breakfast and then the Flying cat (“Boing! Meeeoooow! Splosh!”) back to Athens Piraeus. From there it’s a coach ride back to the airport. As we drive through Athens I’m pleased to see all the great monuments they’re building to commemorate my visit to their land; Jenny assures me that “Olympos 2004” is how they spell “Welcome David” in Greece.
I remember when I really liked airports; whenever I was in them I had a feeling of travel and of going somewhere – they always had the 1960s’ jet-setter lifestyle feeling to me. As time goes by, I’ve lost that. The more airports you see, the more you realise they’re all the bloody same; huge ‘convenient’ hanger like buildings with sod all to do but sit & wait, or be force fed things to do. Oddly, the very worse, most unappealing, cheapest airports are the ones in the US – with one exception. Glasgow. It’s a stinking pisspot of crapness and I shall never return there.
Athens airport used to be one of the worlds crappest airports, but thanks to the infrastructure boost from my visit (Olympics indeed!), it’s new, shiney, and just like everywhere else. As our plane is delayed by an hour or so, we have plenty of time to sit, wait, snooze, read, and politely refuse to buy huge stuffed donkeys in sombreros and large bottles of interesting local liqueurs.
The real error we made in this holiday was booking our return flight through Alitalia, Italy’s national airline. Italy is a great nation that has produced many great things; the Romans, Armani, Lamborghini. However, punctuality is not, and never has been, an Italian trait. Our plane is late .We only get back to London because our connecting flight in Milan is late. And when we get back to London, we find they have no idea where our luggage is. Somewhere in Milan. Or Athens. Hopefully. Possibly.
It’s Tuesday now. I still have no idea where my socks are. If this keeps up, I shall have to turn my underpants around.
And so this year it was off to sunny Greece – the same place I went last year, no less. I’m a creature of habit, or rather a distinct lack of imagination, and the combination of nice beaches, sunny weather, and very few tourists has endeared me to Spetses – I’ll probably go back next year as well.
As well as my wench accompanying me, I also had my sister and brother in tow, whom, as my wench so rightly notes, are a lot of work. Deep joy.
The Trip.
We flew with Easyjet from Gatwick to Athens, and spent a happy few hours on the trip making up amusing easyjet-clone names, such as Uneasyjet (where when you get on the plane everyone just looks at you funny), Sleazyjet (a flying brothel), and Queasyjet (where they actively try and fly through every piece of turbulence they can find, whilst serving you a greasy breakfast). As you can tell, those long winter nights in the Wade household just fly by.
A quick taxi ride across Athens later we boarded the Flying Cat catamaran to the islands (apparently named after the Greek practise of hurling kittens into the harbour), arriving at Spetses a few hours later in the middle of a local celebration.
Every year, they have a big party to celebrate the defeat of a Turkish fleet several hundred years ago by a local pirate queen turned Admiral of the Greek navy called Laskarina Bouboulina. The islanders spend a year building full size replicas of Turkish ships that they tow out into the bay and burn, with lots of drinking and fireworks. The Greek government sends along representatives – and you could just tell that all the Greek sailors aboard the Cruiser anchored offshore were wishing that it were a real Turkish fleet they could have a go at. Like England & Germany, there’s some historic antipathy there…
Holiday, celebrate.
Our landlord had ‘accidentally’ messed up our booking (more likely he saw a bunch of paying customers and didn’t want them to slip through his fingers), and so we ended up sleeping 4 to a room for the first night until he found us two separate rooms. However, I am not downhearted and in the morning I set off to scientifically evaluate the sea at the local beach. I discover that a) it’s full of water, b) it tastes horrid , and c) it has lots of fish in it. However, my scientific researches are cut short by a thunderstorm and I realise that being surrounded by salty water might not be the safest place when Zeus is being a bit cross – so we head for the bar instead. Much nicer.
Monday is much nicer. The dodgy weather has blown away, and the topless Swedish & German girls are out in force. My concentration on them is broken by Jennys affectionate right hook, plus she attaches herself to me like a remora fish for the rest of the week. And what a charming & delightful sucker-mouthed monstrosity of the deep she is. What chap could ask for more?
That evening we head off for the local internet café (of which more later), and then home with a bottle which starts out being incredibly rough local Cherry brandy but by the time we’ve got to the bottom of the bottle it’s a delicious vintage liquor. Ah, the joy of alcohol.
I wake on Tuesday morning with the realisation that several ravenous, blood-sucking insects have made a meal out of me. However, I resolve not to be bitter about any of my ex-girlfriends and instead we all head for the beach. The water is great – a deep, rich blue and turquoise. The sea & sky are such similar colours that at times it’s difficult to see where the sea ends and the sky begins, and so there is the illusion of just being suspended in a huge blue bowl – a feeling of flight, almost. Naturally, it doesn’t last as the jellyfish, spying a kindred spirit, begin to home in on me. I could swear that I see one or two of them wearing tight rubber corsetry; but the comparison to the average cam event is unfair so I won’t.
Deciding that there are too many jellyfish & sea urchins for comfort, we decide to check out the other beach tomorrow.
Tuesday night we’re off out on the town again; I love going on holiday to the continent. Musically, it’s like the last 10 years never actually happened. Where else can you find bars still playing ‘Greatest hits of 1988’ in a way that isn’t supposed to be hip & ironic?
By Wednesday, both Jenny & I have shed our secret identities and turned into our heroic alter-egos – Lobster Girl and Beetroot Boy! Ever alert for the call to action, always ready to jump and squeak at the slightest touch of our bare skin! Yup, we’re red, although quickly turning to a muddy chocolate brown which people so aspire to on Holiday. With that in mind we don’t do much in the way of sunbathing, but travel to the other beach on the far side of the island on a rickety local bus (I notice that neither the speedometer nor the fuel gauge work, which is very reassuring) on narrow, winding clifftop roads. I help the mood by piping up brightly “Gosh, I do hope the driver isn’t suddenly struck by a suicidal urge!” as we whiz along a particularly precipitous stretch, inches from a bloody, mangled death. Everyone glares. No sense of fun the bloody lot of them. However, the beach is nice and the sea is full of fish. I spend a jolly afternoon paddling about the bay thinking up new advertising slogans for the Mediterranean: “The Mediterranean Sea! Now with ten percent less untreated human excrement!” or “The Mediterranean! Now less than one part in five urine!” After a while I give this up – not only is it impossible to come up with something that makes the med sound nice, it’s also putting me off my swimming.
That evening we return again to the Dolphin, the local internet bar. They guy who owns this now recognises us as regulars and the shots we’re served are IMMENSE, gallons of booze, hurrah! The owner has got his fortune made; by offering online access to porn, Pool tables, cheap booze, and a selection of 80s rock, he’s got the disaffected youth market on the island sewn up. It’s full of 14 year olds, all desperately trying to be hard and interesting, bless ‘em.
This is why I like Greece; any nation that puts Smirnoff Mule on the “Kids drinks” menu has to be alright.
Thursday. The holiday is winding down and it will soon be time for home, so we head for breakfast good & early. We’ve found a fine harbour bar that serves waffles with syrup & ice cream, and our breakfasts have been getting progressively less healthy and more expensive every day. After eating, we slowly and painfully waddle to the coach and head for the beach again. My sister made the discovery on Wednesday that if you stand in the sea to waste depth with some bread, hundreds of fish surround you in a feeding frenzy, guzzling and chomping away at the bread in your hands. It’s a remarkable sight, and today we’re all at it, buying bread from the beach restaurant to feed to the greedy little blighters. It’s like watching girls at a shoe sale, as they force each other out of the way, showing no regard to life or limb as they swarm in ever increasing numbers. Fantastic stress relief to watch, mind.
Getting chatting to the waiter in the bar that evening, he starts telling us how many languages he speaks :
Him: “I speak, French, English, Italian, and Spanish, but I do not speak German.”
Me: “Thanks to the British!”
I thought it was funny, but the Greek staff turn a tad surly. Honestly. Bloody Greeks. You’d think they invented civilisation or something, the way they act.
And so Friday. Our last day. Much of the same; beach, swimming, and reading. At one point my brother in the sea calls out that he can see an octopus, and so, thinking quickly, I sacrifice Jenny to it. However, it turns out to be a normal Cephalopod and not the rising of Rl’yeh as I’d feared, but you can’t be too careful, that’s what I say. That night there is another large electrical storm, and so I sacrifice a couple of goats to Zeus and manoeuvre Jenny under a convenient lightning bolt to reanimate her. She may be a brainless shambling zombie, but who’s to notice the difference, eh?
Home again, Home again, Jiggetty Jig.
Saturday. Off for breakfast and then the Flying cat (“Boing! Meeeoooow! Splosh!”) back to Athens Piraeus. From there it’s a coach ride back to the airport. As we drive through Athens I’m pleased to see all the great monuments they’re building to commemorate my visit to their land; Jenny assures me that “Olympos 2004” is how they spell “Welcome David” in Greece.
I remember when I really liked airports; whenever I was in them I had a feeling of travel and of going somewhere – they always had the 1960s’ jet-setter lifestyle feeling to me. As time goes by, I’ve lost that. The more airports you see, the more you realise they’re all the bloody same; huge ‘convenient’ hanger like buildings with sod all to do but sit & wait, or be force fed things to do. Oddly, the very worse, most unappealing, cheapest airports are the ones in the US – with one exception. Glasgow. It’s a stinking pisspot of crapness and I shall never return there.
Athens airport used to be one of the worlds crappest airports, but thanks to the infrastructure boost from my visit (Olympics indeed!), it’s new, shiney, and just like everywhere else. As our plane is delayed by an hour or so, we have plenty of time to sit, wait, snooze, read, and politely refuse to buy huge stuffed donkeys in sombreros and large bottles of interesting local liqueurs.
The real error we made in this holiday was booking our return flight through Alitalia, Italy’s national airline. Italy is a great nation that has produced many great things; the Romans, Armani, Lamborghini. However, punctuality is not, and never has been, an Italian trait. Our plane is late .We only get back to London because our connecting flight in Milan is late. And when we get back to London, we find they have no idea where our luggage is. Somewhere in Milan. Or Athens. Hopefully. Possibly.
It’s Tuesday now. I still have no idea where my socks are. If this keeps up, I shall have to turn my underpants around.
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no subject
Date: 2002-09-17 09:11 am (UTC)Airports
Date: 2002-09-18 03:09 am (UTC)I will let you know what Pueto Plata airport is like when I get back. I don't think that you will want to compare tans DR is lot hotter than Greece has been this year.
Re: Airports
Date: 2002-09-18 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-18 05:16 am (UTC)Any chance I could impose on you for one for raggedhalo?
*looks hopeful*
Re:
Date: 2002-09-18 05:26 am (UTC)