Alonnisos, Day 4

Today I saw a nice side of my land-lady. After saying “Hello” in Greek to her on my way down, she ACTUALLY SMILED!!! It just goes to show, fascists are just misunderstood people.

I had breakfast at a venue that had quite attractive waitresses. There was a brunette and a blonde… no, I will save descriptions for a more drunken and lascivious venue. I ordered the bacon omlette for breakfast, which was an oily affair, but certainly hit the morning-after-a-boozy-night spot.
I headed to the Internet café after breakfast, and checked e-mails, updated Facebook status, and updated my blog as well, before heading down to the port for a late catch-up with the others (roughly 2pm – hey, I’m not claiming that we’re saints, here).

Jasmin was on a mission – she had decided to cook food for all of us this evening, and had the bit between her teeth. She raided the supermarket, she raided the local fruit and veg shop, she even wandered up the hill and hit up the fresh produce shop there for parsley, after she had been told that the store was closed. The store was so closed, and the owners were so set on having their afternoon siesta (which they do between 2pm and 5pm due to the heat here) that they gave her the parsley for free. It wasn’t until we explained that we were eating into their sleepy and Ouzo time that Jasmin understood the social faux pas that she had walked into.

We headed up to the Old Town, Chora, and dropped off the food for tonight’s dinner. After doing so, we headed down the hill to a beach that Lapzang and Doolittle had located in the morning, which they swore was excellent for our beaching needs of the afternoon. It took a bit of a Colin McRae rally to get down there, but once we had, we walked out onto the pebble beach (which apparently most beaches in Europe tend to be), and saw many naked people down there. It wasn’t until we had looked at a bit of graffiti, which somebody had taken the time to do in multiple languages (English being the last one), that we realized this was a nude beach. It was quite a sausage fest, since there were only 2 girls getting in the buff (who were further down the beach, aside from another couple that rocked up with a quite older Greek fellow and a girl about my age who went topless).

After a bit of deliberation, we decided to stay there, and went the not-so-nude option (particularly since there was a couple there with their young kids in their bathing suits) and just pottered around. I headed out into the water, but went back in shortly thereafter, since my head was looking something akin to a tomato due to a bad case of sunburn over the past couple of days, but I had brought an umbrella down to the beach, so was shaded from the not-so-bad sun.
It’s actually quite astounding what a hole in the Ozone layer can do in terns of letting a bit of extra radiation through. The sun here in Greece is very kind on the skin… as long as you put a bit of sunscreen on in the morning. In fact, a couple of days after the fact, having put sunscreen on every day, my head has gone back to almost white. Sigh.
As we were leaving, I swear there was a couple of guys nearby where one turned to the other and said “Hansie, can you put a bit of zinc on my monkey?” I think that, more than anything else, made us head back up the hill to the Old Town.

After arriving back up in the Old Town, and having a refreshing shower, we went for a wander to the nearby SunSet bar, which had a magnificent view of the sun setting (hence the name). I don’t think that this was a venue that brought in a roaring trade, since everybody left shortly after sun-set, and most people rocked up shortly before sun-set. There was a number of very nice photos taken… but that was probably the most memorable part of our night there… aside from me knocking Doolittle’s drink over with my bum. Not my most glorious hour.
We had called a taxi, but after the 25 minute wait promised, and the 10 minute leeway we gave the taxi driver, we decided to walk the 2 kilometres back to “Dangerous” John and Jasmin’s place. It was a fantastic little house, in fact I was quite envious of their place.
Jasmin cooked up an amazing pasta for us, which we didn’t end up eating until 11pm, but was very good for all of that, since sunset wasn’t until about 9.15pm.
We feasted, and boozed on until it was time for me to catch the bus back to my lodgings.

Lapzang, Doolittle, John and Jasmin boozed on until about 3am once again.

I feel like I haven’t quite done today justice in the blog department, but then again, it is now 2am when I am writing this, a couple of days after the fact, so I hope you can forgive me.
I will attempt to update ASAP, although if I can get this on the net, this entry is for Wednesday, when the current day is actually Saturday (well, Sunday morning, technically). And I have had a fantastic feast and gut full of grog. Ok – I should try harder.
Stay tuned for more exciting escapades.