Day 3

89 degrees and sunny


After a wonderful, quiet, nights sleep we had breakfast outside on the hotel patio pier side. Coffee, tea, fresh squeezed orange juice, breads, hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt with honey, tomatoes, cheese and ham. The atomosphere was serine. Although there we six or eight other people on the patio having breafast, everyone was talking so quietly that we had to almost wisper to talk to each other. Even the motor cycles passing in front of us were quiet. The fishing boats were also docking, but barely making a sound.

Karen, the shop owner from the night before had recommend a beach for us. the night . Our first adventure was at hand - taking the city bus to the beach. "It's easy" she assured us. Off we go - "Wait, was that a shop?" - we only made it a half block when we stopped in a shop - had to get a few items for the beach - beach mats, sun hat, and beach flip flops. We asked the shop owner to confirm our directions to the beach. His directions weren't quite the same as Karen's but we follow them anyway which led us to the main market - more shops!! We took a very quick stoll through the market, trying hard not to buy and harder not to even look. At the end of the market was Town Center where we would catch the bus to the beach. Thank god Karen had written our beach name on a piece of paper for us. We would hold the paper up when ever we wanted to ask for directions, buy bus ticket, confirm with almost every passenter on the bus that we were on the right bus and lastly confirm the stop. We are certain that everyone on the bus knew where we were going (other than us that is). Keep in mind we could not pronouce the name of the beach so we would just hold our note from Karen up. It certainly brough back memories of the first bus ride to school. We were told the bus ride was only a few minutes, so after about 15 we staretd to get anxious and would ask the bus auditor at every stop if it was our stop. At least twice he told us "sit down", waving his hand at us. We decied they know where we are going and will certainly tell us when to get off, so we sat down quiety and waited. After passing several beach areas, we once again got anxious but decided to wait. On our second loop around the beach area the bus auditor seems to realize that we were still on the bus (quietly mind you). Finally, we were told we were at our stop - the same stop we had passed 15 minutes ago!

Apostoli

The beach was a small cove with calm, clear, waters. We rented a couple of lounge chairs and an umbrella. Ufda- we're exhausted! It is hard work getting to the beach. The sand was so hot it burned your feet. The beach boasted our first experince with a "squatting toliet" - no stool, just a hole in the ground and a couple of mats for feet to guide in your aim. This was a deluxe toliet though there was TP - to be placed in the can after use, not in the hole. We had a beatiful day at the beach. We lounged in the water a few times - it was very hot so we had to go in every so often to cool off. We got lunch from the beach snack hut - toasted ham and cheese and a frappe. At the end of the day we were a bit disoriented given our bus route on the way to the beach. We weren't sure where the pick up point was so we found ourselves zig zagging across the streets trying to determine the stop - remember it was close to 90 degrees. All ended well and we found ourselves at our hotel in no time feeling proud of our single accomplisment for the day - taking the bus to the beach.

On the walk back to the hotel we browsed a few shops - eyeing up suitecases which would allow us to trasnport our purchases from the day before and to continue to shop.

No new Greek words to report for the day. We tried to learn please and thank you (several times), with no luck. The map shop owner - a professor - spend about 5 minutes trying to teach us to say "please" and "thank you" in Greek. At the end of our lesson we graciously repled "Thank You" - in English. Give us a couple more days. Maybe we are trying to do too much (that is what my forture said "You can't do it all"). Let's try for "Please" first. Maybe tomorrow today has been a taxing day already.