In Which I Dance Into Chaos and Out Again

Tonight I tried something new, and all by myself (although John was the one who discovered this in the first place, he had too much work to complete to go tonight). I was even able to transport myself - I not only found the cab stand BUT ALSO got a cab, and THEN I almost successfully give him directions as to where I was going (we found it eventually).

Now what was this I was trying? That would be a 5Rhythms class. What exactly IS 5Rhythms? To quote Wikipedia:

5Rhythms is a movement meditation practice devised by Gabrielle Roth in the 1960s. It draws from many indigenous and world traditions using tenets of shamanistic, ecstatic, mystical and eastern philosophy. It also draws from Gestalt, the human potential movement and transpersonal psychology. Fundamental to the practice is the idea that everything is energy, and moves in waves, patterns and rhythms. Roth describes the practice as a soul journey, and says that by moving the body, releasing the heart, and freeing the mind, one can connect to the essence of the soul, the source of inspiration in which an individual has unlimited possibility and potential.

That, it seems, is the technical definition.

What is actually is: dancing around like CRAZY! We wiggled and we woggled and we rolled around on the floor and we jumped up in the air. We moved our limbs like robots and we moved them like they had no bones. We made round shapes and angular shapes and big shapes and small shapes. We moved fast and we moved s l o w. And we danced for three hours, just me and the two middle-aged instructors (one Australian, one British), shakin' our hinies however they felt like shakin', until we all finally collapsed onto yoga mats for 15 minute naps.

In short, it was noodle dancing ecstasy. I'll be going back.

In Which We Utilize a Rental Car

Our favorite Athens folks Christina and George came to visit (last weekend)!



We rented a car and, for the first time ever, actually explored Crete a bit. Off we drove to rubbly ruins at Knossos, home of the fabled minotaur lurking in his labyrinthian home (there was no trace of him remaining, hard as we looked).

Knossos is as equally well known for its more recent history. In 1900 Arthur Evans, an archeologist-cum-British gentleman of independent means, bought the site and promptly conducted massive and thorough excavations, not to mention reconstructed buildings and frescoes where he saw fit and according to his own ideas about what was what. He's a controversial figure, to say the least. George, for one, was a bit less than thrilled, especially in regards to Evans' rampant use concrete in place of wood (etched with whorls to give it that authentic look). Also, in re: image to the left there, the durned thing uploaded sideways. Please tilt your head 90 degrees counter-clockwise in order to get the proper perspective.

John was a sicky poo for the whole weekend, although he did his best to participate. "Participation" for him often meant just being in the car... he was able to wander around Knossos a bit but generally speaking, he most often looked like this:

Not to be dettered, we took off from Knossos and into the mountains in search of that ever elusive Untouched Cretan Lifestyle, i.e. we kept looking for THIS guy:



We were not as successful as we were hoping, though we DID spot some black-clad widows and a few glimpses of potential male candidates through the windows of the traditionally-male cafeterias. Sigh. I hate when my tourist ogling instinct is thwarted.

That night we ate at our second favorite restaurant - one on the water that happens to have live Cretan music on the weekends. The most entertaining part of the evening was twofold: Fold 1 - Clandestinely staring at the table of gratuitously, shall we say, affectionate teenage couples at the table next to us. The double date went from spells of heavy public make outs to moments of awkwardness, i.e. when they weren't making out. I tried to take a picture using the ol' "pretend to take a picture of John when REALLY getting the other table" but I think they were on to us.

Fold 2 - there is a woman who earns a living by entering Chania restaurants, dumping a bunch of key chains and lighters on every table along with a card that explains that she is deaf, mute, and destitute, and that each little toy is 4 euros, please help (the card is translated into a few different languages and, to look REALLY professional, is also laminated). One such toy that evening was a mini-revolver, which I assumed was a lighter. When I picked it up to try it out by squeezing the trigger, I dropped it and shouted in surprise when the darn thing SHOCKED me with a majillion volts of electricity (obviously an exaggeration, but OH MY GOD it was so weird). I stared at it with hate and mistrust until the woman came back to take it away, relief quickly followed by regret at not buying the toy. What was I THINKING?! It would have been HILARIOUS to have other people try!

Our last day with Christina and George was spent driving along the west coast to enjoy the gorgeous coastline. Up up up we went through twisty and mountainous coastline roads (I continually forget that I have a certain fear of heights until I realize the very act of looking at the view out my car window makes my feet sweat), and down down down we would go to dip our feet in the water and take as many snapshots as possible before clambering back in the car. We saw millions of goats - they sometimes caused traffic jams. Luckily a traffic cop was there to guide us through.

As our final meal together, the four of us stopped for a late lunch at the first place we spotted as we left our final beach destination to drive back to Chania. We weren't even entirely sure they were open - there just seemed to be folks hanging out around the general vicinity of this "taverna". But yes yes, they were open, and they ushered us inside, right into the hubbub of family activity. The woman in charge arose and ushered two older boys out of the room. Her two little daughters occupied another table, finishing the remnants of their lunch, coloring in books, and watching the huge television that took prominence off to one side. The eldest of the two girls (Christina, who knows such things as a teacher, estimated her to be about 8 or 9 years old) came over and softly told us everything they had that day. She wrote down our order in careful, looping penmanship, and often looked to her mother for clarification of any of the gentle questions George and Christina posed to her about our options. The mother, at this point donning an apron, was more than happy to oblige. Needless to say, the food was delicious (it was lots of meats and cheesy stuff... George is so good at ordering we never questioned what was put in front of us), and the girl was incredibly adorable and helpful throughout. We almost stole her.

And now? Now it's a weekend later. Dinner with the circus and our new favorite hotel friends tonight!!

In Which I Was Not Drugged (Mom)

I feel WEIRD. I mean, I usually AM a little weird (John reminds me of this at least once a day) but I usually don't FEEL weird. Last night I was standing saying hallo to some folks and about 2 minutes later I had to bolt to the hotel because I allofasudden had to IMMEDIATELY go lie down on a cold floor somewhere. ODD, huh??? (the reason for this entry's title - I told mom and her two questions were "was it food poisoning?" and "did anyone drug you?")


So today I was going to put a big ol' post up about last weekend with all the things we did and saw with George and Christina but it seems uploading all those photos caused my computer to completely reboot (and show the terrifying blue screen) so I thought it wasn't to be today. Maybe tomorrow. But to give you an idea, here's a picture of a goat in a tree (look closely in the center of the foliage):

Also, Sunday night we're having dinner with a traveling circus troupe/jazz band. John got so excited when he saw them he immediately made them promise to have dinner with us (actually, he passed them a note inviting them to a party, a party which he had made up on the SPOT, and after we discussed the fact we only knew exactly two other people who would COME to this party we arranged to take them all out for dinner instead). THAT should be a fun time. What circus, you ask? Why, I have their website right here! http://cyclown.org/

Okay I'm gonna go lie down and embrace the weirdness.

In Which John Achieves Maximum Efficiency

Oh we had so many fun adventures this past weekend because we had VISITORS and also a RENTAL car!! But I'm not going to write about that now. That'll be LATER. The really BIG news in Chania life is we finally rigged up John's treadmill desk after an intensive two weeks of research and planning. What is a treadmill desk, you ask? John explains it to our hotel neighbors below:

John is in LURV because it means he can now achieve his goals All. At. The. Same. Time. Books, Business, and losing his Belly are all SIMULTANEOUS activities! Pretty awesome, eh? It seems there's a bit of a learning curve, however... I give you Treadmill Desk, Day 1:

In Which We Make Some Friends

Hey guess what John and I have us some BUDDIES! We have completely shocked the PANTS off our favorite waiter at the restaurant we frequent every night by bringing in guests not one but TWO nights in a row. HOLYCRAP!

Last night John met a fellow hotel guest in the lobby and invited her and her traveling friend out with us to dinner - the two of 'em are dear old friends from when they were mere tots who are exploring the world a bit while the job market is crap (so they'll be on the road for what, the next 3-10 years?). Turns out they make for great doubles partners on the air hockey table... let's just say we'll be seeing them again during their week here.

AND!! We now have weekend VISITORS who we can claim as our Greek friends from ATHENS. Why? Because we're that awesome (actually, it's more that THEY are that awesome). You might remember from about a month ago when I wrote about my favorite NYC broker getting me in touch with one of his best friends who happens to live in Greece with her boyfriend... WELL, we had so much fun in Athens that they are VISITING this weekend! Even better? I might be able to keep my claim of this as a "travel blog" when we take off tomorrow for some historical sites and small mountain towns full of stinky, noirish Creten men.

So stay tuned! There just might be exciting, travely things to report on oh-so-soon...

In Which We Are Attacked By Adorability

I had a fuzzy wuzzy puppy moment today. It was one of those times where I kicked myself a little for not having my camera. 'Twas as follows:

John and I took advantage of the current ridiculously perfect weather by meandering about and venturing a ways up a eucalyptus lined path. At the top lay a shell of an abandoned building that looked out over an orchard of an indeterminate fruit, and we took a moment to enjoy the view and the sweet aromatics the eucalyptus provided (especially as the trash on our normal dump route was pretty firey today... the acrid smoke lingered over our path as we held our breath and ran through it).

And then, from one corner of the building, a small black puppy came trotting out and spied us standing there. It immediately froze - it wasn't sure what to make of us. It's little nose sniffed once or twice, its tail gave an uncertain wag, and it came no closer. Instead, staring straight at us, it gave a sharp bark or two.

There was a rustle of movement from the other side of the building.

Three more tiny adorable baby dogs came tumbling out of one of the archways to see what the commotion was about. They used their tiny puppy legs to stumble to a properly safe-but-curious distance from John and me (at this point, I might have squealed). I immediately dropped to my haunches and held out an open hand and it was only a matter of seconds before I had four balls of fur licking the salt off my skin and succumbing to scritches behind their ears.

DAWWWWWW SO CUTE.

John and I then had quite the time getting back on our walking route - the little nuglets insisted on following us back down the lane. This would have been fine except for the fact CARS often passed by on the connecting road and we didn't want to be the cause of puppy roadkill. After about 15 minutes, we finally made our escape when I hid behind some bushes and John gently herded them back up the road. They followed him back down almost to the end but luck was on our side - a brief distraction had all their heads turned and John quickly joined me in the camouflage of the shrubbery. We inched our way up the road and were relieved to find the puppies had been sufficiently fooled. No dead baby dogs on OUR collective conscience. Whew!

They kind of looked like these (four black ones and one brown one) except I can pretty much guarantee you that unlike THESE pups, they WEREN'T purebred dobermans:

In Which Not So Much Goes On

I kicked butt at air hockey yesterday and won five out of five games. The subsequent gloating resulted in my obvious defeat today, though only by a game and wasn't close to the thorough schooling I gave John last night (to be fair, his rusty nail was a little strong at dinner and he wasn't quite as competitive as usual).

We generally like to go get food and then blow our money at the arcade.

Otherwise the weekend has been quiet and cozy. It's rainy and blustery outside, meaning John and I have both holed up with books and computers and not done much of anything. I change out of my pj pants only for those occassions that call for leaving the hotel, and THAT I can keep down to only once or twice a day if I try hard enough.

Tomorrow is once again Monday, however, and even though that doesn't mean much in this small little world we've created, I think I'm obligated to at least go to the grocery store - one of my jobs is making sure we have all our staples on hand, and as that only really consists of coffee and cookies and we're out of coffee, off I go.

In Which Funcles and Felines Both Play a Role

The other day John decided I was a Cat Person because I spend a lot of my time here in Greece checking out the feline population (it's not my fault - they're everywhere and a bunch of 'em are cute. Not to mention, the ones that AREN'T cute tend to have some sort of fascinating deformation that begs to be ogled).

Now, in and of itself, I do not mind being a cat person. I like cats, after all. But John had decided I was a Cat Person who must be bought Cat Things. This, THIS was the point where something had to be done to correct this impression. I could already see my future unfolding in my head: John buys me one or two cat themed items. I bring them back to the states. Friends in the states see these cat items. They think to themselves "oh! Easy gift idea! Hannah = cat things!" Allofasudden, my life is filled with kitty tape dispensers, kitty water bottles, kitty magnets and kitty sheets. For. The. Rest. Of. My. Life. I know this happens. I've seen it. Heck, I'm GUILTY of it: Jill gets anything leopard print. An old housemate from college gets stuck with giraffe-themed items. I give DeBob, well, cat things (but only few and far between! And only the GOOD ones!!!! Right, DeBob? ...right?). And when John said, "Hannah! I saw this great CAT LAMP I think you should have! You have to come see it!" I immediately and unequivocally said "OH HELLS NO JOHN. YOU ARE NOT BUYING ME THAT CAT LAMP NO WAY NO HOW."

He was a bit shocked by my strong reaction. He was hurt that I didn't want to even SEE the lamp first, that I just destroyed his lampy dream without giving it a second thought. He thought I LIKED cats. Why wouldn't I want a lamp that looked like one??

Later that day I decided the best way to describe my relationship to John to other people was as an Uncle. A fun Uncle. A Funcle!!! John reacted the same way to THAT idea as I had to the cat lamp (to refresh: no way no how). In fact, he told me that every time I used that term he would be buying me another cat-related item. I told him every time he bought me a cat-related item I'd be calling him my Funcle. We had reached an impasse.

Fast forward to today, January 7th, and the National Name Day for Johns in the Eastern church. It's a big deal, apparently. It's as important as a birthday (if not more important). Obviously, I got John a present.

I call it "Preemptive Strike".



(And oh, by the way. We ended up popping into the lamp store regardless of my protests. The lamp in question wasn't EXACTLY like this one, but it was pretty darn close.)

In Which My Limbs Surprise Me

For all of my exotic locale, the majority of my jobby life is spent staring at my laptop and typing various things. Today I had my feet propped on the coffee table while I slouched in the comfy chair with my computer in my lap, tippity tapping away and getting things done. I can't exactly remember if my feet were crossed or what, but about ten minutes ago I got up from my supine position and basically tripped all over myself. One of my legs had stopped working - it didn't want to walk, it wanted to float up in the air. Every time I lifted it to move a step forward it kind of raised itself a litte higher than it should have and decided bearing weight was a task it was NOT interested in. I stumbled a bit drunkenly around the Lab and was secretly glad John was out and about so I could weave around the room with no witnesses.

It felt a lot like that trick where you stand in a doorway and press your hands as HARD as you can against its sides. After about a minute, you release and your arms just float up of their own volition. Except in this case it was my leg. I didn't even know that was POSSIBLE.

I wonder if I can make it happen again.

In Which We Play Air Hockey

The clattering sound followed by the "oh no" at the end is the expression of dismay caused by the puck neatly getting past my defense and sliding into my goal. You can see the evidence as I pan down, the puck mocking me from the "this means John got a point" tray.

Needless to say, I lost the game.

In Which We Toast to Auld Lang Syne

At 10:00 last night John popped his head into my room to announce he was all done with his calls to the states and maybe we should find some food and see about this whole New Year's Eve thing. We both kind of sighed. Celebrating New Year's can sometimes feel like a major burden - both of us had been worried all day about making it all the way to midnight without desperately wanting to be asleep in our own beds. Luckily we had hit upon a brilliant plan: eating a super late dinner. This way, our bodies would be tricked into thinking it was actually dinner time and not two hours PAST our normal eating hour, thereby enabling us to ring in 2009 with very little effort on our parts.

But where to go? What to do? Our extraordinarily vague plan was to "eat" and then "maybe check out that jazz club our hotel guy used to own that is apparently close by." We rallied our cantankerous selves to the occasion by dressing ourselves in festive garb. Check it:

John sports his sassy new glasses, newly dry cleaned shirt and his blazing blazer.


And, erm, you can't exactly see my festive sparkly belt, but I AM wearing sparkly eyeliner.


So out we ventured. We automatically turned our feet towards Tamam, our absolute favorite dinner spot approximately 20 steps away from our hotel home's front door. It was suspiciously dark, and in a state of increasing panic we pushed our noses against the window just to make double, triple sure that it was actually, truly closed. Crap!

In a daze, we turned our feet to the harbor front. We quickly devised a list of other restaurants we knew of (that wouldn't give us food poisoning) that might be open. Options were limited, and we quickly determined that we really, really should have made a reservation. 20 minutes and three restaurants later, I was pretty sure we'd end up back at the hotel with that bottle of almost empty Retsina, dining on the piece of chocolate cake in our fridge and finishing off the chocolate Christmas mouse we had yet to partake of.

With one last option and with no great hope, we asked the last open spot we could find on the harbor if they had a table for two. It was pretty packed - expectations were low. But then! Wonder of wonders!! Hiding amongst the celebratory patrons was an empty table right in the corner where the people watching was at its best.

Giddy from our coup and a bit loopy from hunger, John and I took our seats and immediately set out to order half the menu and some toasting beverages from our new favorite waiter in the world, the Albanian Angel, decked out in a blinking Santa hat. John and I both decided to order concoctions with names to start the night off - apparently, Angel was sorry to inform us, I couldn't order a Black Russian because the bar couldn't handle specialty cocktails due to the volume of patrons that night. Undettered, I put in my request for white wine. John had been about to order a Rusty Nail - curious, he asked if he could still get a whiskey. Angel said of course! John then asked if the bartender could put some Drambuie in with the whiskey? Oh absolutely!! Drink orders taken, Angel flew off to fulfill our requests, and I was left wondering if I could have procured a Black Russian by requesting vodka with kahlua instead.

But no matter! As you can see below, they came out just FINE.



And then what?? Things got pretty silly between drinking on an empty stomach, our flitting Angel, and food that was, if not good, at least mediocre to fine (i.e. we didn't feel the need to fob it off on stray cats). The New Year rang in with the live band striking up a festive tune and fireworks erupting over the harbor, and I discovered John looks especially good when photographed in black and white, even MORE especially with those new GLASSES.






We tottered our way home around 2 a.m., taking the long way back in an attempt to fulfill the only other item we had on our itinerary that evening, i.e. the finding of the Fagote, the jazz club we had been so determined to patronize. We obviously did not find it.

We did, however, end up eating that Chocolate Mouse.















Happy New Year!