back in the cave...

...safe and sound listening to old episodes of 'this american life' that i have stashed away on my ipod. (did you know you could visit an 'immersion museum' in indiana and be a slave for a few hours if you wish? talk about white guilt.)

fortunately the day that i like to call 'me as ol' one-eye' continued pretty well. as the pain in my eye began to subside, in true form, pain in my toe did start to come back in full force. however, i will take that any day. a little limping vs. cat scratch (fever) in my eyeball? easy. i came across some dang sweet vehicles.






















































after leaving Loutra and my nice, but overpriced hotel room i drove back to Hora. i had liked the cafe and thought i would head back there, explore the 'main town' and see about staying there fri night. well, there are only 7 rooms in Hora and it was Easter weekend in Greece so oh well. the other waiter at the cafe made it his mission to find me a room on the island. we decided on Merichas (i had been hoping to stay in a quaint-er place, but impromptu travelers cannot be choosers...or something of the like) and it was done. i roamed the small streets, bought a baklava and a "chocolate dream creamy heaven" thing ( my name for it, not the official mind you). i left my laptop at the cafe. something very wonderful about greece (the islands anyway) is the lack of suspicion of one another. it exists in small town america too, this is true, but perhaps not as deeply?








































after visiting with my new pals i sped off to Merichas to find my new room for 2 nights. i went to the restaurant that also serves at the sort of 'leasing office' of the inn and arranged a deal. after settling in, i went down to the waterfront for an ouzo. i started chatting with a pair of people at the next table...exchanged the 'where are you froms' (as people here tend to think i am english or irish)...and we quickly realized that she, ag, knows and danced with one part of the couple i am house swapping with! ag was in ny for a year until last nov on a dancing research scholarship and was in the same company as n! she and t were in kythnos on easter holiday and she is childhood friends with the owner of the cafe we were at. i was then privy to all the ongoings of a traditional greek easter celebration, which was excellent! at 21:00 the "tomb" of jesus is carried around by men of the village and everyone falls in line singing a prayer song in ancient greek (none of the greeks i was with knew exactly what they were saying because the language isn't in use much) and carrying a candle. once the appropriate path has been taken the "tomb" and its carriers stop. everyone, for luck and to signify a new beginning, is to pass under the "tomb". apparently, if you are a man, you get hit hard on the back 5 or 6 times as you come out. this is to make you strong, fill you with uh, manliness? i'd rather just stay my plain ol' self and not get whacked unexpectedly. afterwards, since it is bad luck to blow out your own candle, everyone continues to walk around and visit and wait for their candle to burn out. haha. we sat and drank some wine instead.













































saturday was beach day. i opened up the balcony and made myself some greek coffee.

























but first i wanted to see where this sign for "Kastle", which i had passed numerous times, takes you. i think there may have actually been a castle somewhere. if there was i never found it because i was too busy playing off-road racecar driver, climbing over fences, and making sheep wary.


















































































something doesn't quite fit here, right?






i went in to check it out:

























minus some animal droppings, pretty uneventful, but i'd wanted to see.





































and apparently if you jump on these mountains your clothes magically fall off.




















after i had spent, some may say, a ridiculous(ly fun, thank you) amount of time perfecting my reverse-slide-and-turn-with-take-off-peel-out, all in my fiat panda, i decided to head for the beach of kolonna. on the way down i found this guy.






(doesn't he look soft and fake?? like he might be from 'science of sleep'?)























and this guy who did not run away from me.












and these were mite disturbing fixes to me.

























kolonna is special because it is a two-sided beach made up of a small passageway connecting the mainland of kythnos to a tiny island...























i read a really great article about transgender children. i decided that, should i birth anything, i hope that it doesn't have any gender identity issues and we can just fuck its head up inadvertently on our own over the years. you know, like normal parents.

as i was leaving i noticed a woman topless with her back to me. the thought, "hmm, she has a nice back" came to me. i walked on, skipped some rocks, and went in for one more dip before i left to eat something in Hora. but first, more sheep.


they noticed me, then promptly shut me out. awww....come on guys.







and someone in Hora is 'extreme'...



















apparently it is tradition to eat this baked pastry, cheese bread thing that i can't remember the name of, sorry. my nice waiter, g, who btw i had run into as 'one-eye' in my search for a doctor (he had told me 'no your eye is beautiful' and laughed haha) told me there are tourist types of these and mother-made types. he kindly gave me the latter. and free beers.
after chatting for a bit, he introduced me to three of his friends (all 3 have e names and in my attempt to be at least somewhat discreet with others' lives on the open web...to all 5 of you who are reading this haha...they will be ev, ev2, and el)









they were very inviting and interesting. i had just come from kolonna and they said they had as well? they had been there for most of the day. we hadn't seen one another, despite the beach's size. then it hit me...three females..."were one of you topless today?" haha. el said, "yes, i was" haha. "well you have a very nice back and because of that i do remember you guys being there" quite an entry line to strangers, eh? we hung out for awhile, they are all from athens. whilel there, i was telling them about ag, she and t walked by a few minutes later. they joined us and we were all one big, motley crew.


we decided to regroup and rejoin at midnight for the traditional easter...fireworks? they don't use them for new year's, easter instead. it is in a way celebrating the new anyway. i got there just in time, where i saw the entire town (including the two waiters from the anonymo cafe, the girl who sold me the baklava and chocolate, the woman who had been pumping my gas...you really wouldn't be able to do anything wrong anyway!...someone would catch you that had just given you a coffee hours earlier) it was 3,000€ of fireworks and lovely!














this is ev2 waiting for her candle to burn out.


























we sat, had drinks, and talked about government. theirs and ours. it got more interesting when the cafe waiter got involved...i sat and made up in my head what they were saying...cause it was all greek to me (da dum ching!)

that's it for now...time to watch the rest of 'charley varrick'.


oh and did you guys hear about this?
http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/kmsb20090324jc-greek-fisherman-old-statue-bronze.687b62c3.html
no big deal, greeks find figures from the 2nd b.c. just lying about.