In Which the Morning Goes Awry

Today I managed to break both our coffee mugs. One is completely shattered and the other one is now missing its handle. Apparently my dropping skills are so advanced that the first mug, taking its trip down from my hand to shatterville, managed to catch the handle of the other mug that was peacefully drip drying on the stool below and rip it right off.

So I went to go buy new mugs at the grocery store and also to pick up a few other things. I spent the next hour knocking things over and out of place and desperately trying to undo the havoc I was wreaking by shoving things back onto shelves and onto display tables. The check out girl had to price check about half my items because there were no labels and I forgot to weigh some of my produce so THAT had to be taken care of and meanwhile the line was growing and the people in it started to mutter in incomprehensible Greek. I finally booked it out of there and alarmed myself time and again by the sharp CLANK of the new mugs dinging against each other, regardless of the extra bags wrapped around them (thank goodness, they stayed unbroken).

Now it's closing in on lunch time and I decided this morning that it wouldn't be THAT hard to just make sandwiches here even WITH our limited resources. This is going to involve wielding a knife. The way this day has been going so far, I should have remembered to stock up on band aids before I left the store.

I think eating this entire bar of chocolate will probably help.

In Which John and I Set Some Limits

John and I often find ourselves with one main topic of discussion over dinner every night. We don’t decide on them beforehand, but generally we end up focusing on a Main Theme that defines the entire meal. Themes in the past have included “Truth: What it Means to Be Honest, What it Means to Lie, and How to Tell the Difference”, “Desire: What Causes It? Do We Have Control? Why Do We Desire Those Things Which Cause Us Harm?” and “The Heart is Not a Pump: Rudolf Steiner’s Refutation of the Pressure Propulsion Premise of Heart Function”.

Last night John brought up the following topic: “Appropriate Limits to Fawning: When is Enough Enough?” John was curious, you see, as he has recently felt as if he’s been fawning over me too much. He confessed he often resolves on his long daily walks to cut it out, but then, as he put it, “It’s not MY fault you’re so extraordinary.”

Well! What a problem to HAVE!! We set about figuring out how to limit his spontaneous bursts of accolade-laden monologues, working to find the line where heart-warming appreciation turns into an awkward/uncomfortable recitation of virtues, leaving the one being praised feeling uncertain about motive and exhausted by living up to the standard the fawner sets by excessive extolling of excellence (“Don’t worry,” he reassured me, “I don’t think you’re perfect – I’m well aware of your faults.”).

After much back and forth, much discussion of what it means to fawn, what it means to be fawned over, past experiences on both our ends of each role, etc, we came up with a concrete and satisfying agreement on the future role of fawning in our work/personal relationship (which is entirely blurred at this point… we spend almost our entire day constantly in each others’ company, and if we weren’t so good at being friends this whole endeavor could have turned into a major disaster). The terms are as follows:

John will henceforth keep the fawning on the DL. We decided deserved appreciation and compliments were fine, but if a compliment starts to go on a little too long and it feels like the beginning of a fawning fit, I will signal him to stop with a brief cutting motion of a finger across the throat. However, if I am having a particularly bad day and am in desperate need of a copiously complimentary pep talk, he has agreed to be available to fawn on command, and when my ego is sufficiently swollen I can gently bring the talk to a close with a conductor's sweeping "fin". John, by the way, put in the caveat that I was allowed to fawn over HIM if I felt so inclined.

“Whew!” John exclaimed once we had gone over all the details. “I’m really glad we figured that out.”

He paused. A grin tugged at the side of his mouth.

“Hannah!” he said as he began to laugh. “You need to put this conversation on your BLOG!!!”

In Which We Chave Chappy Cholidays in Chania

I made a photo album! With captions! And this whole blog entry is going to be just a big ol' link to the album (click on the pic below)! And if you already saw my Xmas album on facebook, then you can just SKIP this one 'cause it's the SAME DURNED THING!!!

Happy Holidays!

Christmas with Farmer John

In Which the Holiday Season Makes Itself Known

It is Christmas Eve Eve.

This afternoon I panicked about stocking up on food supplies in anticipation of everything being closed on Christmas Day leaving John and I without a thing to eat. Because I am such a good shopper I ended up with bananas, apples, and about ten different kinds of cookies and pastries.

To get into the holiday spirit, I am listening to my new favorite online radio service's Christmas channel. Thanks to AccuRadio (found because Pandora does not operate in Greece), I have now learned that pretty much everyone has released a Christmas album. Like EVERYONE. Some are better than others. For instance, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen sing "Merry Christmas, Baby" right now (he is singing directly to me, I think). It also seems to be the case that David Bowie and Bing Crosby sing a Christmas duet! Wonders never cease.

Lastly, I just decorated the Lab to be in tune with the Christmas spirit. Prepare to have your socks knocked off.

The whole effect (notice shmancy golden strands wrapped around Lab couch):

Close up of the artfully decorated tree:

For real lastly, apparently there's this holiday called "Hanukkah" that my people celebrate, and it started two nights ago! Incredible!!

In Which Poseidon Makes Himself Known

Last night I gasped awake, shaken by a soul-shattering crack of thunder and accompanying raindrops hell bent on breaking through the skylight above my bed. The storm raged and whirled as I cowered in my lofted nest of blankets, convinced the Greek Gods had decided to make a reappearance to say it loud, say it proud. It was violent to the point I was uttering reassurances to myself such as "this building has survived 400 years and there's no reason it shouldn't keep on surviving... there must be storms like this all the time! No big deal! holycrapgonnadie no no Hannah, you're fine." After reverting to the childhood remedy of a nightlight and hiding under a pillow, I was finally able to drift off once the storm had gotten through its worst.

I wandered dazed into the Lab this morning, preparing myself for a day's work after a somewhat sleepless night. John came stumbling in soon after, his eyes smeared and bleary and his complexion pale. I had forgotten his exposure to the elements was greater than mine - his superior views and larger space, so wonderful on beautiful days, resulted in screaming winds and banging shutters with a pervading chill his small room heater was unable to contend with. On the longest and darkest night of the year, John battled with the elements to latch his shutters closed in the wee hours of the morning, stepping out onto a roaring balcony and taking in the surreal 3am sight of angry waters flooding walkways below, fighting against the permanence of the lighthouse, and reaching raging sodden fingers up towards his ankles in a surreal attempt to drag him down in their swirling depths. He eventually shut, locked and barricaded himself against the storms outside, finding sleep for only a few hours as pale daylight crept into his room.

By the time we forced ourselves up this morning the torrential rains and electric accompaniments had stopped. The wind, however, pervades. In the light of day, the weather outside is more of an incredible phenomenon than a midnight phantasm, and watching the usually placid harbor waters roil from the safety of our windows is quite the sight to behold. And so, for your viewing pleasure:

In Which We Eat Some Fishy Dishes

The place was deserted which we really should have taken as a sign to keep on moving, but then again, John and I have yet to figure out the generic Greek hour for lunch, often finding ourselves venturing out to seek food when everyone else is occupied elsewhere. So we sat down, checked out the menu, ordered some fish soup for John and a big ol’ whole bream fish for me. We live on the water, after all. It should be fresh, right? ...Right??

John’s soup came out. It REEKED of fish. If I’ve learned anything from my fisherman father, it’s that the fishier (lit.) something smells, the fishier (fig.) it is. John and I both eyed it suspiciously - two large slabs of what MUST have been seafood languished in a murky green broth dotted with floating spots of orangey oil. John trepidatiously dipped in and took an experimental sip. His eyebrow shot up. “This is, hrm, salty,” he remarked. “Almost unbearably so, in fact. Huh.” As we amiably chatted and waited for my dish to arrive, he would every so often dip into the soup again, screw up his courage and swallow a bit more.

Some of Chania’s numerous stray cats caught onto the scent. Two came meowling up to our table, looking piteously up at John and the enticing smells emanating from his bowl. One, especially, was quite insistent with his demands. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure our waiter wasn’t watching, he placed a small piece of fish on a bread plate and lowered it down under the table.

(note: the following video is not of the cat at our table. our cat, for instance, did not sing.)

Watch more LiveLeak videos on AOL Video

Soon after, John pushed his bowl away. “I can’t do it, Hannah,” he said with a tone of defeat. “I can’t even eat enough to be polite. It’s just terrible.”

Soon my own fish arrived – a whole grilled fish smeared with oil and spices and, upon further investigation, also overcooked and rubbery. Does overcooking cause rubberiness? I sure hope so.

John and I ended up splitting the fish – I was pretty over it by the time I had picked my way through one side, and John half-heartedly picked at the other.

The cats meowled. John extracted the rest of the fish from his soup and had me be the lookout while he once again loaded up the plate and lowered it down to the kitties. The loudest meowler took one sniff and immediately shunned the offering, trotting away with his nose in the air. Luckily the other one was not so picky – by the time John once again retrieved the plate, the fish was almost gone and John felt a bit better about the food not going to waste (unfortunately the cat died soon after. Kidding, just kidding).

John, never one to really complain about food, put his napkin down at the end of the meal and matter-of-factly proclaimed “well, that was probably the worst meal I’ve had since I’ve gotten to Greece. Man, was that just awful. We are DEFINITELY going to need to find some ice cream or a cookie immediately after we leave, if only to reward ourselves for getting through this.”

And of course, where do we end up? Curled into the squashy couches of our neighborhood Starbucks, hot chocolate (piled high with whipped cream) taking away the unpleasant aftertaste of old oil and bad seafood, with Rat Pack Christmas carols gently soothing the eerie memory of desperate kitties and deserted landscapes. Though I hate to admit it, Starbucks, sometimes you are a balm to the soul.

In Which I Find Out Something Unsavory About This Country

I thought Greece was perfect.

I should have known better.

I just tried to watch 30 Rock online, and I CAN'T ACCESS IT because of my quote unquote location. Same rings true for Hulu.

WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyy....

In Which We Explore the Day-to-Day of Chania

I've gotten some inquiries about the day to day here in Chania, even BETTER with pictures illustrating it. Here's what I've come up with:

John and I eat breakfast at the same place every morning. The coffee is good, the waitress is kind, and the owner has taken to giving us a hearty greeting whenever we come in. The menu is easy - there's a choice of "breakfast," "simple breakfast," "breakfast [take 2... I still haven't decided how they know which 'breakfast' you're ordering. Tonal? Perhaps an eyebrow wiggle?]" and "american breakfast." We usually go for the Greek yogurt option. This picture, however, tells the story of when we opted for toast. When the waitress came by and asked if we wanted MORE toast, John couldn't resist. He went for it. He stared at his new order wide-eyed and exclaimed he couldn't POSSIBLY eat an entire new order (bringing his total to four (4!!) slices). This picture, as you may have guessed, is the end of that fourth piece.

The water off of the harbor is beautiful and clear (well, most days). Much like the men strolling about, I find myself ALSO checking for fish. In this picture? There are no fish (much like most days).










John and I try to walk every day, stretch our legs out and ease John towards his fitness goals (we have to do it somewhere... cookies are too delicious to give up). One of the routes leads us to the lighthouse, and from the lighthouse is a gorgeous view of the hotels lining the Venetian harbor (our little residence is noted by the red arrow).









Sometimes John has to be put into a time out.














As John as been abroad for four years, he's not as over saturated by Starbucks as so many of us have been. In fact, when we found a Starbucks just down the street from our hotel (/home) he did a little wiggle of delight for all the GOODIES they have there. He doesn't look so thrilled in this photo, but I swear, right before I took this picture he was doing a Starbucks jig.







Sometimes we get nutritious dinners from Starbucks. This is the remains of dinner last night. It was DELIGHTFUL.












This photo is especially for my distoh. Look Claire! Look what they HAVE!!
















Lastly, even graffiti is sweet in Chania.

In Which I Am LEARNING

I just bought Rosetta Stone for Greek because it's time I am LEARNING. I just signed off of my first lesson and what I can remember is how to say "the girl drinks" and "the girl eats" and "the man drinks" and "the man eats." That will come in handy for myself and John - I can now give our waiters and waitresses a play-by-play of our meals.

Speaking of which, John and I have given up on finding new places for dinner. We tried a few and the best one by FAR is the one three steps from our hotel so we just go THERE every night. I bet they're going to be pretty excited when we come in tomorrow and I can tell them what John and I are doing whilst we dine.

Here is a picture of a preggo dog and a headless peacock:

In Which We Find Chania to Our Liking

John is once again sleeping off the sick, pobrecito.

We're in Chania now, an old Venetian port town (city? It WAS the capital at one point...) in Crete. We're staying right on the harbor in an area that during the summer screams of noise and debauchery, but now that it's the winter it's quite peaceful and quiet. We hope to stay on here until the end of January - both John and I are anxious to get settled somewhere in order to organize ourselves for the months ahead. Our current plan is to have a situation figured out by the end of Monday (fingers are crossed).

Here's a picture I just took of myself on our balcony, oohing at the view. I'm learning how to use the self-timer on my camera as well as the gorilla tripod John just obtained. The BEST part about this picture is how ODD it looks... instead of oohing, I just might be whistling, and instead of a REAL background it looks more like an image projected on a green screen. Perfect!


Here are two more for good luck - the first a fisherman I spied on from the balcony (was there anything to catch, really? Was it purely a meditative exercise?) and the second a shot of the moon last night hovering above the harbor, after which I promptly turned into a werewolf (for serious!).

In Which Farmer John Battles His Germies

Farmer John has an ickle widdle cowde today and he is NOT feewing wewll. Poor ickle widdle guy needs attention and WUB and maybe some chocowate. He feews so ucky wucky that he must take lots of nappy poos.



Farmer John has come up with a new way of pronouncing my name in order to get my attention because he thinks I am not being very sympathetic to his needs (I do not know WHY). It goes a little something like this:

In Which Farmer John Steps in Donkey Exhaust

from wikitravel:

"The flip side to Hydra's environmentally friendly transportation policy is the presence of large amounts of what might be termed 'donkey exhaust', so watch your step when walking around."

John accidentally stepped in a large yellow puddle on the way to breakfast this morning. It made me laugh pretty hard.

Today is Greece's general strike. We're going to spend it wandering around this unwheeled island, maybe get so tired we have to take a donkey taxi back home (unless they are ALSO on strike).

I am continually surprised at the lack of noise on this island, especially after the hustle and bustle of Athens (though lucky for us we avoided the noise of the riots). With no cars, no trucks, no mopeds, no NUTHIN' except the occasional donkey bray, this island is almost EERILY quiet. We like eerie, so we're looking into spending five weeks here come the end of February.

Wheee!

In Which I Stare at a Glowing Screen in a Dark Room

I just spent the last two hours trying to force myself to fall asleep. It was not, in the end, successful, and now I am back to this little 'puter until something resembling any sort of tiredness happens.

Today was a PLANNING day. John and I stayed close to the hotel (the farthest we went was around the corner for some afternoon spinach pie, i.e. my best Greek word, SPANAKOPITA!) and basically spent the rest of the time in the hotel greenhouse room looking at the internet until our eyes bled. But! Now we have the next FOUR WHOLE DAYS planned! Tomorrow we take the boat to Hydra and spend two idyllic days wandering about Greece's sole unwheeled island (the only vehicles allowed are sanitation trucks; you can't even have a BICYCLE). At first it was going to be only one idyllic day, but then we learned Wednesday is a general strike (i.e. no boats, no planes, no nada), so two it is! Thursday we boat it back to Athens and then hop a flight to Chania, Crete, where we so far have a hotel for two nights and, beyond that? TBD.

Also, I just downloaded firefox and three million add-ons and I have no idea how to use most of 'em. Awesome, right??? Hopefully these suckers will keep me amused until I hopefully, finally fall asleep.

PS It seems there are riots going on in Athens. I know this because people have emailed and asked if I am okay and if I'm safe and thank GOODNESS the first folks who wrote told me WHY they were asking because I never would have known otherwise. Apparently this little area John and I are in is a completely sheltered little riotless cove of tranquility. That being said, we were thinking of seeking them out - I AM in the market for a new large suitcase, and I hear the rioters have been liberating items from classy department stores...

In Which Farmer John Successfully Gets In His Pants

From earlier this evening (pardon the epileptic-fit inducing camera shake... I was laughing so hard and trying to be so quiet and the camera was all over the place. John thought I was taking pictures and didn't realize I was filming, which made it all the MORE hilarious):

A bit of backstory: yesterday John and I met with our yet-unkown new favorite people in Greece, Christina and George. Christina came with the endorsement "one of my best friends in the whole wide world" from my favorite real estate agent in New York, so there was no way we COULDN'T track her down and make her hang out with us. George was a super bonus extra, i.e. Christina's boyfriend. Both are Greek, although Christina mainly grew up in the states.

Needless to say, John and I had the BEST time out with them - Christina took us all around Athens and told us WHAT everything was and WHERE everything was and then George and Christina led us to this magnificent little eatery with all of this tasty meat and french fries and magical spicy tomato and feta dish that I want to eat every day.

Anyhoo, turns out she and George are avid and talented tango dancers (this is, in fact, how they met, and that's them dancing on the left there) and so TONIGHT they took John and I out to TANGO. It took a bit of convincing on John's part - he's a self-declared bad dancer. It's not that he doesn't LIKE to dance, he's just been scarred occasion upon occasion by others not responding well to his moves. But! Luckily I had declared just two days previously that one of my goals for this adventure was to teach him to dance, so he really had no choice.

Hence the struggle into his new, snazzy, tight fitting jeans.

As for the tango itself? AMAZING. George and Christina were fun, informative and patient teachers. By the end of the night, John and I were out on the dance floor with everyone else, doing a really good job of staying out of everyone else's way (okay, pretty good job) and honing our 8 step move. We were also the only ones out there collapsing into hysterical fits of laughter, but we're working on our game faces. By the time we strut our stuff again for Christina and George in a few months, we're going to be as passionately serious and debonair as everyone ELSE on the dance floor.

And oh yes, John's dancing phobia? It downgraded into just a strong fear. Boo yeah.

In Which Farmer John has a Healthy Breakfast

Jet lag and I are still in a fight. I woke up today at 1 pm and was shocked to realize the entire morning had fled. Luckily John had not wasted his morning. "I had some pie for breakfast," he told me. "Actually, it was more like cake, which is good because it's healthier."

"HEALTHIER?!" I exclaimed, "how do you find cake to be HEALTHIER?"

"Well," he replied, "cake has, you know, flour. And there was this gooey stuff in it that
just seemed to be very nutritious."

This from the man who has "getting in shape" as one of his top two goals for our European jaunt. He informed me of his entire fitness plan whilst munching on a stale donut he bought at a coffee kiosk in the Amsterdam airport. A lot of this plan revolves around finding enough time to go walking - once he's in a walking routine, he says, the cravings for sweets is cut way down and his diet takes care of itself.

As we can see, he hasn't quite made it to that point. He happened to add, later in the morning, that what made the cake REALLY delicious was the scoop of ice cream on the side.

In Which I Fulfill Jennifer's Request

Jennifer, this is for you (readers, if you're curious, see comment on previous post):

In Which I Land in the World of Feta

John and I are HERE! We are in GREECE! Nothing much to write about, really. We landed in the airport, went through zero customs or anything of the like (on one hand, it was great - no lines, no waiting, no potential for being rejected at the gates - but on the other hand, no stamp in my passport. mroooo) and are now in our hotel, somewhere in Athens and within walking distance of the Acropolis.

As for the rest of our short sojourn to Amsterdam? I slept until noon yesterday and woke up just in time to go out for lunch and spend 6 hours clothes shopping with Robin and John. Robin did a bang up job of finding John some swanky clothes (that's one new outfit there to the left... we got those pants hemmed, by the way, even though the cuffed look IS pretty awesome), but really, shopping in Amsterdam isn't so different from shopping in NYC (they even have a bunch of the same stores).

My favorite image of the day - This is how John secures his laptop for take off and landing:

In Which We Follow Meandering Canals

Well I am just feeling REFRESHED. Twelve hours of sleep later, I awoke to loud knocks on the door and then, with no answer, someone entering my room. A little perturbed, I called out "HELLO?" and was met with a profusion of "oh I am so sorry! I just came to change the towel! I am so sorry I am so sorry!" and the gentleman proceeded to change my towels while apologizing and then left the room. It made me laugh a little bit, and with that, there was no going back to sleep. A good thing, too, as I'm meeting John for lunch in about 30 minutes.

Briefly: Amsterdam is LOVELY. John and I wandered about for hours last night, following canals and pedestrian streets. The smell of the marijuana drifted up to us every once in awhile, but really, when I first arrived I fully expected it to be a city that just REEKED (at least in the tourist section) but it was not to be so! It's actually just a regular ol' gorgeous little city that happens to have some stuff legalized that we don't! Shock.

Another thing that was slightly shocking: Amsterdam stairs. Farmer John warned me, but REALLY, they are INCREDIBLE. We went over to his friend Robin's apartment last night where she and her lovely husband Dennis fed us delicious cheese fondue and a cheesy berry dessert, and getting up and down to their top floor apartment was an exercise in balance and finesse. No wonder they both practice yoga - they HAVE to in order not to severely injure themselves in their own apartment. I kid you not, they are actually this steep:

And! Here is an awesome picture of Farmer John, Robin and Dennis. The BEST thing about this photo is that in it, Robin is demonstrating the best way to take a photo - apparently it's what all starlets and models use. You suck in your gut, strike an asymmetrical pose, and then instead of smiling (I think) you instead exhale with a little "pooh" sound and hold the shape your lips make (I'm not sure if this is entirely correct - I was pretty sleepy at this point). I'm liking the glamorous smile she's sporting in this photo a bit better, though.

And now off I go again!

In Which I Have Myself a Sit

And I'm off again, intrepid readers!



Having managed to stuff 5 months worth of items into a duffel bag, small international-friendly rolly bag (which is also seriously the best rolly bag I have EVER HAD and also I just bought it TODAY and it has FOUR WHOLE WHEELS!!! Not half! WHOLE!) and backpack, I now find myself sitting in terminal 7 utilizing BA's colorful high backed chairs as I patiently wait for my flight to be called. All, thus far, is on time.


And I sit here, attempting to fill it constructively. As you can see via exhibit A on left, it has been constructive INDEED. I have successfully discovered that 1. built-in computer cameras are a good time, and 2. maybe using it to make odd photos surrounded by those one is to spend the next bajillion hours with on a large, packed flight is not the smartest of ideas?? Then again, perhaps it will make me friends. A better technique, I think, than hacking out half my lung like the man next to me and then swallowing whatever it was back DOWN in such an obvious fashion it was impossible to miss. You, Mr. Man, are NOT going to be my airplane friend.


20 minutes til boarding. The excitement builds.