a short ride to rest

Greece

Even a short ride
Is too much for our bodies...
We'll rest tomorrow.......

We continually put off that resting business, insisting that short hops are equivalent to rest, but the truth is that they are not. The last day that we had without riding at all was... well, the rainy day with Ivo in Opatija. That was a couple weeks ago. To recover from yesterday, we're planning to move little today and none tomorrow. Hopefully that's enough.

It was really restful to sleep in that apartment. The blankets were warm and fluffy, but they had weight that pressed us into the beds and kept us from tossing and turning in our sleeps. The sleep was magnificent.

We had to be in Igoumenitsa this morning by 10:30 to meet up with the guy and pay him. Unfortunately, we were so out of it by the time we arrived last night that we'd completely forgotten the name of the place he wanted to meet us, but he'd left us his business card bearing a cell phone number just in case. When we arrived in Igoumenitsa after an hour's moderate ride (during which we saw that the flooding had reached Greece, too; a dam we passed by was overflowing), we immediately sought out a bank machine (so that we could once again have Euro to spend) and a bakery. With our spanikopita and tiropita desires satisfied, we tried to decide what to do about meeting our friend.

Well, no one in the square where we'd eaten spoke English. Might be tougher than we thought. We headed into a bookshop in hopes that the proprietor thereof might have a better chance of it.

Sure enough, he did. We purchased a Greece map from him, then he graciously called our friend for us. After a short discussion, we left the keys and payment with him in the bookshop and headed out to find a place to stay.

We wandered for a while. The first hotel we tried didn't have any vacancy for tomorrow night. We attempted to find an apartment-style room to stay in -- we desperately need a washer for our clothing, and we figured we'd have a better chance in such a setup -- to no avail. Eventually we were pointed to Hotel Acropolis, which we'd seen on our way in and promptly forgotten about. It was along the waterfront and near the centre of town... we headed there and assumed we'd be able to find a laundromat someplace. Just having a place to sleep would be good enough.

We checked in for the reasonable rate of 45€/night, and after Evan chatted up the owner for a while, we asked whether there was a place to do laundry nearby. He seemed surprised; laundromats are not a "thing" here in Greece, evidently. He offered to do our laundry with his own laundry, for free, because he had "such good memories of Toronto." :) He was a really sweet guy.

Hotel Acropolis is one of the breed of hotels that takes your key at the desk as you leave and gives it back to you when you return. It was really charming, actually; I don't think I've stayed in a place like that before. I think we were the only patrons, so every person who worked the desk knew us by voice and had the key ready for us before we'd even made it up the stairs. Additionally, the key had a keychain which fit in a slot on the wall in the room and controlled the electricity: no keychain, no electricity. This made using the in-room refrigerator strange.

But we didn't leave much. We took a quick trip out to the grocery store, another out for gyros, and another to get ouzo at a bar downtown. Mostly the day was spent vegging out and resting our tired bodies while poking around on the hotel's wireless network. A few things of note, however: a real Greek gyro is something different from what we imagine in the States. It doesn't just include meat, but also fries, and it comes with a healthy dose of chili spice on it. Ouzo is best served in a tall, thin glass; when you receive it, it's great fun to put ice cubes in and watch them turn the liquor foggy.

Anyway, a lazy day. We biked something like 20km, but that was plenty. Tomorrow, no biking. Ahhhh..... ^___^