Out of the Umberella,

So, as I said in the previous blog, you don't brag about your holiday until it is something to brag about weather wise, so yeah, until yesterday, every day would start brilliant, and then the clouds would start rolling over the paper looking mountains and bring with them a hell of a lot of rain and despair. This is not what we come to Greece for! Thank the Gods, it seems to be all cleared up now. But here is the question, what the hell do you do on a beachy holiday when the weather takes a turn like that? Around here there are a few answers. 

The first full day here, we went down to a lovely little village further up the coast called Kardamilli. There's not mass amounts there, but it's a nice little change of scenery with another square that glorifies the men of the Mani and their part in the libation of Greece from Turkish rule. (As a point of interest, there is also a statue in Kalamata celebrating the women of the Mani, who held the shores of the man, whilst the men took back the mountains). In the end, the best thing to do was to sit on the balcony and watch the world go by, but you can only do that for so long. 

So the next day came, and we decided that, whilst we had the weather, we would walk along the coastal road to Agos Nikalios - a pretty little fishing village about fifteen minutes drive up the coast where there is a taverna that serves cheese pies and spinach pies, and is called Gregg's. They also have some kick ass sangria. We were just about to head back and the weather decided to turn as well, so back to Gregg's we went for tea and biscuits whilst we waited for the worst of it to clear. On the way back, Mum and I saw a tortoise, which made me far, far too excited. 

The rest of the days have been a beautiful amalgamation of sun, sand and sea, with an excessive amount of food for an evening meal. Most have been delightful, only one has been utterly disappointing and even that was more to do with the service because their baked feta was TO DIE FOR. 

By the looks of things, we're about to have a fashion show on the beach, commentated by Takis the parrot. Kalimera. 

From a Little Corner in Paradise,

I think the general rule is that you don't post a blog about your lovely holiday spot until the weather is something to brag about, so ner ner na ner ner, it's been 30* here today, and it made me feel a bit dizzy....

Going back to one place in Greece isn't something my family and I tend to do, but we all agreed that Stoupa was worth it, so here we are, and I can't say that we have been disappointed. Last year we tried to cram an awful lot into one week, so there were a couple of things we unfortunately missed out on, and we're trying to hit them this year in the two weeks we have, as well as repeating some of our favourite things from last year. 

Rather than rely on the tour operators this year, we decided that we were going to hire a car, because the Kalamata one way system really isn't that difficult to navigate, but that wasn't going to be the first problem. Kalamata and Stoupa are both shielded by a pretty vast mountain range that make the weather somewhat unpredictable and also a little bit volatile at times. The Gatwick flight (my flight) was left circling the run way for half an hour as there were two thunder storms over Kalamata airport and there was a German plane that air traffic control wanted to get down and clear of the runway before we made our 'final descent' - otherwise known as that terrifying moment where everyone who doesn't like flying is convinced that they are about to die. 

Last year, I couldn't stop laughing because the customs office wasn't even manned, but this year topped even that, because my mother was waiting for my baggage at the carousel even before I made it through passport control. She later told me that there was a sign that no one was to pass through the sliding doors into the arrivals lounge, but no one was paying attention, so why would she? 

So before too long we were off out of the airport car park and towards Kalamata proper, with my dad and I attempting to remember the way around the one way system ( I have made the round trip more times than my parents, because of the trips I went on last year) but we somehow made a wrong turning through the system, however all was not lost. The general gist of it is to get all the way to the other side of the city and all the way to the sea front, turning up the road that goes into the mountains by the big posh hotel that looks kind of out of place in Greece. When you get onto that road it's pretty much a straight (hahaha, no, like Greek straight) road all the way to Stoupa. As in no junctions. Thankfully we have it about sussed because we're doing another airport run on Sunday to get Ben. 

With the delay and the drive, we didn't arrive 'in resort' as the Thomas Cook people say until about half past three in the afternoon, and with all the stuff like checking into the apartment, unpacking and sourcing water that is actually drinkable, it very soon got to hungry o'clock and we needed to choose which of the tavernas would be the first to stand the test of time, and memory. 

Our apartment is just up the road from two of our old favourites 'Yesterday and Today' and 'Pefko' and no one was really in the mood for a walk (and I was in the mood for my free 'half kilo of wine' as a lifetime member at Pefko so off we went to there. The feeling of 'it's good to be home' doesn't even cover it. Some people think that they were born in the wrong era, I was just born in the wrong country. Everything for the wine to the olives and the stuffed potatoes was utterly divine. I fell into bed more than happy that night. 

I wishi. Could say that the weather for the first two days was as glorious as today, but it wasn't, though my mother and I still managed to get a couple of sun burns to prove the contrary, but more on that later. It's getting close to midnight here and I don't want to be wasting sun light tomorrow morning. 

 

Does It Feel Like a Tuesday?,

My very simple answer to that one is no, it does not feel like a Tuesday. 

My university timetable this year means I have a three day weekend (Saturday to Monday) and so the start of my week (Tuesday) is where I get 'that Monday feeling' aka the first day of the new week where pajamas are banned as a wardrobe option and you have abandon your duvet and hope it will take you back later. Normally, it doesn't really bother me so much, but today, it's driving me nutty. 

Part of that is due to the fact that my Tuesdays are normally a reasonably easy day. Come in, sit through two hours of lecture and then go home, but today I have a meeting at lunch and am working this evening. And I spent the weekend in Budapest. Yeah, that makes 'that Monday feeling' even more sucky than a hangover.

For those of you who didn't already know this, I turned 21 just under a week ago, and after puzzling for a long time as to what I did actually want for my birthday, my parents and I agreed that a little weekend city break was the perfect option, and Budapest held some kind of appeal even though I had less than no idea what was there other than the River Danube. Even so, the trip was booked, we were packed and ready to f*off to another country for a few days - the only obstacles being getting up at 3am and driving to Stansted. Ugh. 

What I found amazing - other than the pilot not knowing that in order to land, we must first take off... - was that when we landed, the sun was bright and the temperature was creeping it's way up to 22◦ and then it stayed there for most of the day. I was as pink as one of the Care Bears that evening. 

It was a weekend of a lot of walking - a lot of the interesting architecture and the shopping district is all down by the river, which we were staying about 2miles from - but the chimney cake and the views definitely made up for it, and even the Terror Museum was well worth a look, even though there wasn't much of it actually translated into English (and where it was, the mistakes were kind of distracting!) 

Something that was more interesting (as in, well, that's odd) than interesting (as in, ooooh, that's catching my interest) was the set up of our room. I haven't quite figured out why the bathroom had a window that looked out into the bedroom, but perhaps I don't want to know the reason. Don't get me wrong it's frosted up to normal human shoulder height (so up to the level of my nose) and there is a blind over it, but the design flaw to that is that the pully for the blind is on the OUTSIDE! It's rather peculiar, but as long as you are sharing with someone you trust or don't mind seeing you in the shower, it's not too odd I guess.

I can't decide if the best part was that I got to spend so much time with Ben (sorry, I know that's cheesy :P) or the fact that he ordered breakfast in bed for us on our last morning there. Drinking Hungarian fizzy wine and having dippy eggs and pancakes was a pretty special way to start our last day out there, and shopping was obviously the best way to end it. 

Something to keep in mind is, if you go to the same shops we have over here, the pricing is going to be the same, but it doesn't require going off of the beaten track in order to find something local and a lot cheaper. I was really surprised by the relatively low cost of food, and even cheaper cost of alcohol, though I wouldn't have been quite so surprised if there were the same amount of stag parties on the plane out there as the plane coming home. The fact that you can get a shot of Jaeger, or Unicum for as little as 290Ft (about 80p) in bars on the main street makes it pretty attractive for such events. 

If you want to take a look at some of the photos, you'll have to check out my Instagram or Facebook. :) 

Greece 2013,

For this to make the kind of sense that it should, I ned to explain a little something.

There are certain things in life that I just don't deal with. It's not that I don't deal with them well, or don't deal with them gracefully or anything like that, I just don't function like a person when they happen. Keep this in mind while reading:

I have a slightly more emphasised version of arachnophobia than some people insofar as I get the creeps at any word to describe them and anything which is generally in the insect category. I also - and I accept that this one is weird because I used to do indoor climbing and have also done some outdoor climbing - don't do well with heights, especially not the cliff drops next to certain roads in Greece. This year we're staying in a little resort in the Peloponnese mountains...

After eventually managing to get the Gatwick Express trains to, believe it or not, London Gatwick, we stayed the night in the Marriott Courtyard Hotel. Except for the exceptionally rude reception woman who checked us in and the rather irritating lack of signal, it was a pretty good hotel, but waking up anywhere at six o'clock in the morning is never going to make me happy - there again, it was necessary to get the plane over to Kalamata airport. We took off at 9:15 and somehow managed to get onto the Greek Tarmac early, and thankfully Kalamata isn't one of those island airports in Greece where space is limited and you look like you're going for your first swim much earlier than planned. You do still have to come at the runway over the sea though. For a little while, it looked like we were going to land in some poor farmers field. 

You'd think that landing early would be great, because it means that the coach transfer can go earlier and then you can settle into your apartment quicker and maybe get out into the afternoon... yeah, that didn't happen. Unfortunately, someone's bag had been damaged in transit, so we had to wait while the rep from our tour operator went and had some big discussion with the Greek baggage handlers BUT the plane was only about half full, meaning the hold could have only been about half full and they always warn you that things can move around and such in the overhead bins, so surely it was more to do with the flight than the... oh, never mind, we got going in the end. 

So, as I mentioned, Peloponnese MOUNTAINS. Shit, right? If you've never seen a Greek road then you probably can't comprehend the sheer terror involved with being in an old coach, with a bat shit mental Greek driver while you're going up roads and around corners which 30, 60 maybe even 100+ foot drops RIGHT NEXT TO THEM!!!! Most of the time, while the rep was encouraging us to look out of the window at the absolutely beautiful (this is his favourite saying by the way) views just to the left or the right of the coach, I had my head buried in a hoodie waiting for it to be over. 

As you can tell, I survived, even though certain roads made it look like we wouldn't. 

This is also not going to make much sense if you have never been to a small Greek village, but the best way I can explain it is this. The Greek definition of a super market that we're used to is less of a Sainsbury's Local and more a very small corner shop the day before they get a delivery. Generally, there's not much choice and if you recognise a brand then it's going to be astronomically expensive and you find yourself running for the hills (quite literally in a way, because most settlements in such places are found on the hills, because of strategic positioning and spring water). What we have this year is basically like the old Woolworth's!!! 

I'm being deadly serious when I say we were like kids in a candy store. There was almost too much of a choice, but I guess that is a really good thing. I even got some Nutella to put on toast in the mornings!! (As a side note to all Nutella fans: because the room temperature is generally so much higher here, that beloved chocolatey spread actually spreads without having to sit it in hot water first. It's quite literally, get out of bed, retrieve bed and spread... :D) 

Monday morning was then spent trying to find the welcome meeting, the over friendly welcome meeting with Stuart - the ex army chef for twenty five years but this is my first year as a rep, and my first year with this company any my first year in Stoupa and say something relevant because they all look bored JAZZ HANDS - and then a general suss out of where everything was, but dinner was something else. 

I think most people know that it takes a lot to make me a foodie, and I mean a lot. I very often cook a shed load of food, but then find that my appetite is nowhere near enough to actually eat it, but here that has changed. (Well, marginally. I want pretty much everything off the vegetarian menu, but having a starter and a main course makes me the kind of sleepy stuffed that is only really acceptable at Christmas or Thanksgiving.) 

My favourite Greek dish - aside from the Quorn versions of things which my mum makes at home - is something so simple it is most often overlooked. They call it cheese pies, they're actually pasties and the Dionysus restaurant in Stoupa does the best ones I've ever tasted. They also do that fantastic thing of giving you bread with the meal, and it's still warm from where they have only just got it out of the oven. My gosh, it's wonderful. 

Anyway, stay tuned for more, because I'm here all week,...