On the way, she led us past a pastry shop. For those of you that haven't noticed, I wax eloquent about pastries quite often. Those who have traveled with me know I appreciate them more, in many cases, than art and even the female figure. One might say I have a jones for pastry. And I hadn't had a chance to satisfy this jones since we left Aegina, until that morning in Olympia. Having acquired a couple of fantastic pastries there, when we past the shop in Nafplio, I was jonesing pretty bad for another taste, and this one had some local stuff, even some that was the Greek Orthodox version of Kosher - safe for them to eat during periods of what they equate with 'fasting'.
So it was that I conducted a small transaction there to acquire some of these local delights. Unbeknownst to me (scowl) 80 had her camera out, and thus she captured me in my most common pose.
Paying the Pastry-Chef.
The girl to my right in that photograph, who I'm nicknaming QoD, was also in one of her most common poses, near the person purchasing treats. She and my math student, (nickname: Oh-Oh!) were both known to gravitate directly towards whoever was acquiring food, and indeed I think 80% of the goods I purchased in this picture were consumed by the two of them whenever I wasn't looking. I don't mind though. If I had tried to consume everything I bought there I would have probably made myself sick.
Around the corner and up the street, we misplaced an important member of our group, photographer and cinematographer extraordinaire, as well as all around nice-guy, my Dad. Nafplio's streets are narrow and winding, and he had dropped back to film one of the squares. A few quick turns at Vicky's walking pace later, and he was lost in the city. By the time we noticed, we doubted he would pick the right random combination of turns to reunite with us, and I offered to fall back and attempt to locate him.
I fell back a few streets in what I thought was the direction we had taken, but the trip was without success--he had vanished into the city. I took a quick run up a few flights of stairs and cut back across what I had though was my group's path, but found that I had lost them as well.
I had no worries about getting lost in Nafplio, it's a small town and my sense of direction was well honed and calibrated by now. However, I would have preferred to stay with the group, since they were getting a guided tour and Vicky was anything but boring.
A few turns later though, I was quite sure I wouldn't find them, so I gave up and headed towards the water. Our hotel was at the far edge of Old Nafplio, where the new part of the city is beginning, and I was on the opposite side of the old portion, up against the water of the bay, and decided to head for the water, where the city was most open and the likelihood of me spotting someone (or being spotted) was highest, snap a few pictures, and then continue on to our hotel and wait for the group to return.
As I headed down to the water, the wind picked up and I found myself impressed by the quickness with which weather changes in Greece for the second time. At the water level where the once-calm bay was now throwing itself against the small sea walls with enough force to create hands and fingers of water that crashed down near the seafront walkway, the speed at which the storm had appeared seemed to magnify. I stopped and grabbed a few pictures that I'll upload later. Watching the waves crash against the wall it was easy to imagine they were the hands of some angry god striking out against the land, and again I could see how ancient Greek religion must have reflected their search to explain their dynamic and constantly fluctuating environment.
I was spotted by my father before I returned to the hotel, and we two wandered for a time, searching for our group without success. As the weather had already cleared again and the once finicky skies were now mostly blue, we found a small taverna which we thought they were likely to pass on their return to the hotel and sat down to enjoy a bit of Ouzo and pass the time.
Nafplio is a pleasant little town and the park which our taverna faced was quite pretty. We were sitting next to a scooter rental place, and it was here that I first tossed around the idea of taking a long vacation later in life by motorcycle, either purchasing one in Europe or having it shipped, and then doing all your traveling from place to place by bike, and storing all of your gear in saddle-bags and maybe a small pack strapped to the second seat frame. It is an idea that appeals to me and perhaps if I someday win the lottery I'll spend a few months and do it properly.
After our Ouzo was gone we headed back to the hotel and discovered that our group had gotten there a few minutes before us. Happy reunion aside, a handful of us headed back to the highpoint in town that they had visited, so that Dad could get some captures of it for the video he's compiling, and we wandered through town.
As I was rather hungry, we stopped in a local crêpe shop and I ordered a savoury one with some sort of cream cheese, ham, and scallion mixture in it, to take with me as we walked.
This turned out to be a mistake, as the stuff was very soft when warmed, and the girl that made my crêpe had obviously never experienced to go Mexican food, and her attempt and sliding my crêpe into a to go bag turned it from "folded over thin pancake with filling" into "jumbled mess of soft, eggy dough and gooey ham-salad mixture".
Eating it was difficult, sharing it proved nearly impossible without allowing your fellow travelers to basically stick their face in the bag and chomp on the contents. Hipster said it felt like trying to make out with someone's hand, and I had to agree that this was a pretty accurate description.
Covered in yogurt, ham, and crêpe-shrapnel, we wandered through town and visited the peak, where we stopped and got some glorious pictures of the port, which I will try to upload later.
We returned to collect mom and a few other girls who had napped, then headed out again for a nice Greek dinner at a taverna downtown. It was very pleasant and we had a lovely time. The six kids sat together and 80 and I shared some chicken dish and something of which I've forgotten the name, as well as a spicy feta cheese slab that for some reason was in the "salads" section of the menu, despite containing absolutely no vegetable matter of any kind.
Commenting on our fellow diners later on the walk back, Oh-Oh!, who is still in high school, uttered what I declared the quote of the day "I need to learn the Greek word for "Jailbait"!".
On our return, we stopped in a local grocery store and I picked up a liqueur I had never seen before but found very intriguing, Drambuie Cream. It has a fantastic flavour, though it is a tiny bit too sweet for my liking, it makes a great dessert. We returned to the hotel with this and a few other acquisitions (sandwich fixings and snack cookies) and most of us gathered in the boys room where we played cards, told stories, and drank the last of the sweet red wine, the aforementioned liqueur, and a new find - Yes!, a cutty sark product to which I can find no references anywhere on the world wide web.
We had also purchased No! which we consumed later. I shared the Yes! among the group and got in hot water about it later (whoops! Sorry Mum), it turned out to taste like an alcoholic ginger beer ('eh) with some other seasonings and just a hint of scotch flavour. Its antonym turned out to be essentially an alcoholic mountain dew, which was interesting if not necessarily my style.
When I ventured downstairs for ice for all of these drinks, I found our guide and driver sitting with the hotels bartender, all thoroughly engrossed in a movie which I did not, at first, recognize. I decided to wait for a pause to make my request for ice, and in the meantime watch along with them. A grey sky overshadowed a small boy making his way home through a suburban winter environment. The kid walked past a large and heavily dinged up pale blue van, which began to follow behind him, menacingly. The kid, a blond, began to eye the van with worry, and the vans passenger and driver scowled at him. Then I recognized the driver, it was Joe Pesci. And that made me realize that the kid was Macaulay Caulkin, and the movie was the original Home Alone. Here I was, waiting so as not to interrupt three Greek 30-somethings engrossed in an American children's Christmas film in April!
After the pause and after I had gotten my ice, I returned to the room and recounted my story, and we watched most of Home Alone, with Greek subtitles, while we passed the time.
We finally turned in around midnight.
Oh yeah, this was also the day my fan club got officially named, and the High Priest and High Priestess were appointed!
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