All the Monkeys

Dan's first post here. It's a long one, so if you just want to skip it and get to the good stuff, head here: http://picasaweb.google.com/round.the.globe.in.100.days there should be a bunch new pics in a half an hour or so.

After a dull flight to London, I spent almost 10 hours waiting around in the LHR airport. The highlights were:

1. A family (mom, dad, young child) who were trying to get into Russia or Tajikistan on Aeroflot (russian airlines). They wouldn't let them board the plane because the mother didn't have a valid visa. The father was arguing for the better part of 4 hours; he had supposedly pre-contacted the consulates and because he had a valid visa, his wife didn't need one. I left before seeing the the resolution of this problem.

2. A midget wasn't allowed on the plane with his 'excessive' luggage. So in the 10 minutes before his flight left, the midget was busy running around, jumping up and down, and yelling at the baggage guy, while clothes flew in an aggressive fountain into a large plastic bag (his makeshift suitcase). It was as funny as I've described, and I'm not kidding, LHR has some ridiculous policy of one carry-on per person that they enforce like England's God-given right to hard-boil or deep-fry the very vitamins out of all its food.

I met an old South African guy on my flight to Athens. He had been robbed at gunpoint in his home one night. Crime is definitely a problem in SA like no other. His friends told him he was very lucky because he wasn't murdered or raped. He couldn't understand how you could call someone LUCKY who had just been robbed, regardless of the outcome. Anyway, onto more light notes:

We met up with Karen, Amber's mom at the airport, and we've been drinking ever since!

I think I speak for us all when I say Greece rules (of course, neither me nor Karen were in Turkey). The people here all speak English and are very friendly. They have incredible amounts of awesomely tasty food, and cheap Ouzo. So far we've tried two different types of Ouzo, and a mouth-wash like substance called Kitron, made of citrus leaves and alochol and sugar (it's pretty damn good, if only it didn't look like green mouth-wash), three types of beer, and have yet to try three more bottles of wine (two of which were a gift). ALFA beer and Mythos (both Greek beers) are good, much better than Canadian or Kokanee. Amstel is OK, but nothing special.

There was an entertaining event that led to the naming of this post. We left our dismally sketchy hotel (room 41 had fleas, according to Amber and Eric), and headed for the exciting Parthenon, Acropolis, etc. After a nice promenade, full of colorful Greek graffiti, we arrived in the midst of a touristic spectacle. Amber seemed a little agitated with the throngs of photo-snapping gapping tourists and made the LOUD proclamation "Let's get away from all the Monkeys". Sometimes inner monologues should stay inner.

They wanted to charge 12 Euros per person ($18/person) to see all these old sites, so we figure we'll probably hit this up in the early morning before our flight to Palermo when the Monkeys are still at bay.

There was an entertaining 70 year old Swiss guy on the ferry over to Naxos (the island we're staying on) who spoke French. He was an ex-geotech surveyor for dams and water-related stuff who had worked in Greece for years, and he told us about all sorts of highlights on our island, and some of the other ones. He suggested, in French, that Eric and I should ditch the girls (Amber and Karen) and rent a place on the island. "The 'mamas' are the ones who rent the places, and once you have a place, the 'dames' will flock to you" [rough translation]. He was also somewhat crazy, but very entertaining, with other comments such as "You're from Canada, are you Quebecois? No? Well, hmm, you should be."

Naxos is awesome, and I know at least some of you at home will be jealous at our predicament. We've spent a number of meals and hours of drinking and siestas trying to come up with the solution to our life-stopping quandary: Should we walk around the island clockwise, or counter-clockwise? Please make us a suggestion, we may have to spend another few meals and Ouzos on this life-altering decision, with healthy breaks in the sun and crystal clear turquoise Mediterranean sea.

(BTW, Karin, we have stumbled across an entire BAY FULL OF UNI!!! Those are sea urchins for the rest of you, the tastiest of all of the sea creatures. And lucky us, but it just happens to be a full moon, when their eggs are the fullest and most succulent! Hope you are enjoying day old fish in Ottawa. Love, Dan!)

Our plan for the next few days will be to rent scooters (or maybe a car) and bomb around the island, including the natural springs (that the Swiss guy told us about) and its' olive groves and beaches.

There's lots more to write about, but I'd rather spent more time acquiring stories than writing about them.

Hope you all are enjoying your cold summers and long hours of work. Hahaha!

Dan.