Cretan Odyssey

Part the Seventh (and Last)

It is Thursday, 07 May, and I am in my last week here. In a few days, my Air-BnB host will take me to the airport and I'll fly to Athens where I'll hang out for a night before the flight home Wednesday. All logistics on the other end have been arranged, but thanks for the offer.

Today is Dash-2's 25th birthday. Hard to believe she was just a tyke of six when I first encountered her. On our meeting, ice cream cones were had, and she babbled away happily in her booster seat from the backseat of her mother's urban assault vehicle. Her older sister was a little more reserved, as I think she suspected I might not be temporary. She has grown into a whipsmart, hard-working, accomplished, and beautiful young woman, and I am proud to call her my daughter.

This may prove to be the final dispatch from this trip. I'm really not sure. I could very well hold off on posting it until next Tuesday morning when I vacate, and handle anything interesting in the transit within my first return to homeport effort.

To say that I have settled into a routine here understates things. At home, my routines are sometimes interrupted by the delightful intrusions of domestic life. Such do not exist here, so the only thing that shakes things up is the weather. I have seen a massive amount of the town and surrounding suburbs through extended walks, some of which are visually pleasing and some of which are less so. I am amazed as I walk that in a first world country, a member of NATO for heaven's sake, in the (many, various) roadwork projects I encounter NO ONE on jackhammers is wearing either hearing or eye protection.

Speaking of long walks, through the magic of AI, I was able this morning to lay out a five mile walk about my awesome little town of Easton that starts and ends at the YMCA where I exercise with the ladies. On days where the weather permits, I can “low intensity aerobics and strength training" with the ladies of the Easton ton, and then power walk afterward. I will see if the Kitten wants to join in, but she prefers a less regimented and scheduled approach to things.

One of the regrets I will take with me when I leave is that I will lose accesss to the magic hands of Despina, who will massage me Monday afternoon for the fourth and final time on this trip. She has a little studio off a busy street upstairs from a cafe, and I usually have a latte beforehand, and follow up with a long walk before dinner. I have done a passable job of sampling the local dining fare, having visited seven different restaurants while here. There are three within a stones throw of my crib that I tend to hit most often, one in particular with a couple of attentive young waitresses who dote on me and who know my preferences (ochi psomi, parakalo!)

I beat myself up quite a bit for tackling my Greek language studies with less fervor than I thought I would, but at this point I think I got it about right. There's a lot of English spoken here, and the ability to handle twenty or thirty simple Greek phrases goes a long way.

I shaved this morning after not having done so since the morning of 12 April. In the meantime I had two weeks of novelty and ten days of itching and realizing that it aged me at least five years. Knowing full well what a relationship foul I have committed with this closely-shorn haircut, I decided to end the misery today rather than expose my inamorata to twin horrors on my return. This necessitated a trip to the local grocery to buy shaving cream this morning, which was an easy tack-on after my trip to the Stadio.

As a non-smoking, non-drinking, white male who is not morbidly obese and who monitors his vitals, I have a fair chance of another 30 years on this planet (both parents also cracked 90). One mystery that is forever solved I think is “are my looks improved with a beard?” The answer is a resounding no, and I think that I can go slowly into the West without another run at it.

Last Day

It is Monday, 11 May, just after daybreak, and it is my last full day in Chania. Tomorrow, Nikos will convey me to the airport for a midday flight to Athens, where I'll perch near the airport for a night before the flight home Wednesday.

The weather has settled into what this place is famous for this time of year, glorious sunshine and hi's around 80. My fellow tourists have responded, and the major sites down in the Venetian Harbor are quite busy, along with the shops purveying all manner of chotchkis to the gentry. At the end of my trip, I am indebted to the owner of the first place I contracted to stay in for selling the property and returning my money, as I was able to rent a far better place just out of the hubbub but within quick striking distance of it. The proximity of the stadio, the little store, the coffee shop across from the stadio--and the quiet--all served to make this place a far better nest. There is a barky little lapdog across the street who objects to pedestrians violating his/her visual territory, but other than that, quiet has reigned. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've heard a siren once while here.

Today's program is--as you will already have guessed--pretty standard. At some point, I will emerge from my pod bedecked for the track, do my old man exercises and running, return and refresh, then head off to the magic hands of Despina for a massage before my final great walk of the town. I will return to the little restaurant with blue chairs by the sea for my final dinner, then pack for the journey home.

The little restaurant by the sea has been a favorite, both for the simple, tasty, fare and the solicitous young waitresses. There are two, and I think they might be sisters or cousins. They know my habits, they are attentive when needed but otherwise leave me alone, which is as I like it. I am no friend to banter with waitstaff in my home country, preferring to keep to the business at hand. There is likely an inverse relationship between tipping and personality among servers in my world, probably another sign of my unfitness for polite society.

My morning perusal of finances reveals that I have been careful with spending while here, which I can attribute to 1) modest discipline including eating a meal a day in the apartment and 2) having received clear instruction from The Kitten to not come home with touristy souvenirs. I picked up little paintings for the girls (I can say this because while one is aware of the existence of this substack, neither has any interest in it) and a little something for the Kitten that I THINK she will like, but this is the month of all three of their births, so there will be tribute in other forms.

As I address you, I am enjoying my second cup of coffee of the day. The third will polish of my supply of milk, and I am too cheap to buy more for tonight and tomorrow, so I will suffer the self-imposed penalty of a bit of bitterness in subsequent cups. My grocery buying/consuming has been pretty good, as it appears that the only uneaten item remaining when I leave will be a little ham steak. Maybe I'll toss it at the barking dog. My dinners/meals on the economy have been generally modest/economical, although some cost imposition occurred as a result of overordering to achieve a critical mass of protein. I think when all is said and done, I will have done well here all around, although four trips to Despina and her magic were clearly not budgeted.

I had a lovely video chat with the Kitten on Mother's Day yesterday, and as we talked, she moved about showing me peonies (cut and yet to be cut) and the rose bush that I had sent to her. As she moved about within our house, I saw little details that I've always appreciated, but never moreso than after deprived myself of them for a month. When I showed up nineteen years ago, I remember seeing trimwork painted out in a very light green colonial hue. It was a detail that I was to that point, unfamiliar with, but as I have been exposed to a number of similarly styled homes on the Eastern Shore since, I realized was not uncommon. Seeing it behind her as she talked gave me both a momentary pang of homesickness and the great joy of knowing I would soon be back home to enjoy it.

Flying West

I've been thinking a little about my flight Wednesday from Athens to DC. Longstanding and attentive readers (H/T Jack) may remember that I burned a ton of United points to upgrade to “Polaris" class for the flight here. I did the same for the flight home, and the great bulk of my banked points are now gone. Such is life. But I've been thinking about the timing involved, and the train wreck of jet lag that looks to be on the horizon. The flight leaves at 1145 Athens time, which means I will have been awake for all of about five hours. Ten and a half hours and several time zones later, it arrives at Dulles at 3:45PM. I am then to Metro myself down to Alexandria and then onto Beth and Robert's place where the Kitten will be poised, then onto dinner with her and Robert (Beth is otherwise engaged).

Essentially, when I arrive at Dulles, my body will be on the “I should be sleeping" clock I just flew from, but there will be quite a few hours ahead of me before I can bed down. So the question, perhaps answerable in the comments by seasoned travelers, is how I should use the luxurious trappings of my Polaris seat. Should I avail myself of five movies and or reading on my Kindle? If I do this, I will be right tired when I arrive and have to power through, not to mention 10.5 hours takes a long time. Should I movie/Kindle for a bit and then take a nice two hour nap? That would “shorten" the flight, but does it make me awake later when I want to sleep? The Kitten and I have a bunk at Robert and Beth's for the night if we'd like (after dinner), but if I am not a basket case, we might drive home (1 hour 40 mins). The only thing I'm sure of is that I need to avoid caffeine after my morning dose so that the decision isn't made for me.

I think this will about do it for dispatches from Crete. I will store up any interesting vignettes from what remains of the trip and add them to my next US-based offering. This will include an excursion into how the theory and reality of this trip compared, and whatever learning I accumulated. This choice will invariably raise the hackles of my friend Captain Todd who will accuse me of “leaving me (him) hanging”, but for the rest of you, I imagine it is high time I returned to scribbling about the mudanities of Eastern Shore life.

Thank you for traveling with me.