Day 1
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Yiannis has never had a volunteer on his farm, so he gives me a tour, asks me to hang his laundry, and leaves for his quarry. I'm left with his dog Roxy in PARADISE. Roxy is adorable. The birds chirp, the bees buzz, the waves crash. There is WiFi. A dishwasher. A FRIDGE! A shower head that attaches to the wall! Yiannis explained his children are with his ex-wife and his girlfriend is recovering from her injury in France. Peace, quiet, and pasta.
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I take in the lemon trees laden with fruit, low hanging clouds, white spiral shells. Naxos is like the palm of a sleeping giant. I'm excited to work.
Day 2
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Yiannis confesses he has nothing for me to do, so he drives me to his Turkish friend's house. Necmi lives on a plot of land next to Dimitrios. They're both artists, and very strange. 40yo Necmi inherited the house from an elderly couple, and the entire property is overgrown; now he has to weed-wack, prune trees, and tame bamboo on acres of land. This man does not own power tools. Thus, we are tackling the jungle with two pairs of scissors. Necmi says this is his meditation, though he is not religious.
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We chop up orange wood for fires and collect blood oranges, called sanguines, from the ground. We lop off thorny dead branches, and cover the wounds with a Pepto-Bismol colored wax. Necmi speaks great English, but will stop talking mid-sentence, like he's entered another world. He says he runs a marathon to the Post Office every day, and unripe bananas are bad for my stomach lining. (I don't say a marathon every day is bad for his knees.)
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After 4 hours, we have blended orange juice. Necmi does not squeeze his orange juice. He blends the oranges, skin and all, and instructs me to drink it in a minute otherwise it will lose vitamins. We have lunch with 60yo Dimitrios, who shows me his sculpting and painting studio, and Necmi's zen garden. Necmi is the outdoorsman; Dimitrios is the alcoholic. He speaks quickly and his hair looks like Einstein. He gives me a ride back to Yiannis' in his Nissan, which is missing the front third. The roads on Naxos are treacherous, and they don't have drinking and driving laws. I can imagine what happened.
Day 3
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Yiannis has never heard of ADHD but he HAS it. Oh Lord he has it. For two hours, I try and help him hang photos and make lentil soup, but he is doing fifteen projects at once and he's too distracted to teach me a task. It's a beautiful day. I go on a walk, and when I return, Necmi and Dimitrios are here. In Greece, every meal is outdoors with neighbors. We talk about Tarantino.
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I'm living in a mitato, a tiny dugout house with mosquito nets and summer camp bunks. I have a stomach bug (or I ate too many lentils), so I read "The Adventures of Sherlock Homes" on the toilet and go to bed early.
Day 4
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Another pruning day at Necmi's farm. We meet the neighbor's horse. For lunch, Dimitrios has purchased wild goat, and makes the best meal EVER: spaghetti bolognese, cabbage salad, steamed nettle, fresh goat cheese, bread, wine, and sanguines. His girlfriend, Britt, has returned from her three month sabbatical in Norway. She's a snowbird who follows the snow. She has beautiful white hair and lets me try her chocolate.
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That evening, we attend a municipality shadow puppet show in Chora. It's beautiful. No clue what happened. We go home, get drunk, Yiannis beats me in chess, and we stay up late talking.
Day 5
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I make fried eggs and a laborer drives up with farming equipment. He doesn't speak any English and I don't know where Yiannis is, so I offer him a cookie and we sit together and watch the quarter-sized hail. Yiannis wakes up hungover. He and the laborer take shots of raki, and I make the guy a cup of OJ with the extra sanguines. Yiannis says I'm proper Greek.
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Yiannis teaches me planting: the seasons, the moon phases, and watering. We plant tomatoes and melons. We fix his motor bike and turn old wine barrels into planters. I manage to royally fuck up lasagna. I tried to pre-cook pre-cooked noodles. I keep thinking this time, THIS TIME, I'll make something edible. To their credit, the Greeks will eat anything.
Day 6
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Yiannis drives to Chora for business, and I spend an hour walking around the cobblestone neighborhoods and empty boardwalk. I stop by a patisserie and eat breakfast in the park. Dude. The trash cans here are HUGE. They're like dozen-foot-deep porta-potties, with mouths the size of shields. You could throw a body down there and nobody would ever know. Nightmare in Naxos. Murder in the Mediterranean. Sickness in the Cyclades. I'll write the full series.
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Dimitrios picks me up and drives me to his cousin's home on the south side. The beach faces Paros. I suntan and wait for him to finish family business.
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Afterward, I haul trees at Necmi's until I'm sunburned to a crisp. Lunch is parsley pesto and swiss chard. The Greeks don't like basil. Dimitrios invites me to attend his 2-week sculpting class in September and camp in the zen garden! Wow!
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Somebody send me a purple shampoo. My hair is gold as the McDonald's arches.
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Day 7
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Yiannis says I can have the day off. I write my novel. He goes to the quarry with his friend Iasonas, who I ASSUMED would be 40 and hard to speak English with, but no, he's 25, built like Scrat from Ice Age, and has a lip piercing. I habitually crush on anyone with eyes. Iason is an Athenian art student (win) graffiti artist (win) marble sculptor (win) who hasn't yet served in the military (win) loves Facebook Marketplace (win) does 100 mile cross-country cycling without brakes on his bike (red flag) makes his own instruments (win) and he's a man (damn).
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Iason and Yiannis plant grapes, and then we drive to Dimitri's. They give me the biggest wine glass and they keep filling it! (Cue Jennifer Coolidge: "These Greeks! They're trying to kill me!) Iason does a spot-on Necmi impression. Yiannis tells a story about his very first AirBnB visitor, a woman who worked at Texas Instruments. He asked her what musical instruments she made, and she huffed and said they made calculators. Then he asked, "Are there cowboys in Texas?" The way I LAUGHED. I've told this story to Americans and they don't think it's funny but the Greeks think it's HILARIOUS.
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Yiannis blasts Greek music while I write my novel, he writes emails, and Iason does art. Iason asks me what I'm writing, and I say a very intense death scene while Yiannis yodels, which has the whole squad laughing. Iason about my relationship status. I say I'm single, and I've had five relationships. Iason shouts FIVE? He doesn't believe me. We all go outside, burn grape branches, and stare at the moon.
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Day 8
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I work. Iason is working a 12 hour day with Yiannis at the quarry, making marble lamps. I go on a walk and find a dead seal. I work more. I finish the Sherlock book and the Sherlock fanfic. I feed Roxy.
Day 9
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I wear my cutest shirt and text several friends that I'm having a sexuality crisis but honestly, I'm just bored. When Yiannis and Iason get back from the quarry, they arrive with Ariadne, a beautiful landscaper. Yiannis gives me several gardening tasks to do I do the tasks. Then his voice booms,"Satori stop working so hard!" I join them as they talk about Greek mythology in Greek for hours. They pass around a cigarette. When I get back from the bathroom, Ariadne's eyes are red, and I ask if she's okay. It was weed. I missed out.
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Yiannis says he wants to sell his marble lamps on Etsy in America. He shows me a picture of a lamp Iason made with a naturally-occuring penis in the marble. They call it the Big Dick. We make cross-faded plans to become Etsy business partners. Dimitrios shows up. Iason lets me try out his digital drawing program, and Ariadne talks to me about Vasillis. She knows him well. She says it's hard to be the only woman in her landscaping business.
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When everyone leaves, Iason asks what I see in the marble lamps. I say spider webs and neurons. He says, "I see the future glowing."
Day 10
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Iason makes me a full Greek breakfast and asks how I'm getting home. He explains the Athens bus system. I've romanticized moving to Greece, and I've convinced myself I will see everyone again. (It's the liquor talking: alcohol is a coping strategy disguised as fun, and Echo's death hit hard.)
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Yiannis drives me to the ferry, where Vasillis calls Yiannis' cell phone to tell me goodbye. It's a cold farewell, due to the wind. The ferry back is punctuated by the delightful noise of violent vomiting. I buy a sad, disgusting burger. In Athens, I hike to my AirBnB, an apartment bigger and cheaper by day than my house back home.
Day 11: Athenian Bonus!
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We're back to spending exuberant sums of cold hard cash. To make up for yesterday's burger - worse than frozen White Castles - I treat myself to souvlaki. The metro staff are on strike after a train crash killed 50 students, so I take the anticash cab to the Acropolis Museum. It's like the cash cab, but it robs you.
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I learn about the different marbles used in kore sculptures and browse ancient graffiti. I buy an overpriced lemonade and watch pidgeons peck a piece of salami. On the three mile trek home, I enter a beauty shop. The shopowner doesn't know English, so I pick a random color from the red section. I call Hudson for five hours while my hair turns copper, and redownload DuoLingo.
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Yep. One month in Greece, and the only words I've learned are coffee, yes, good morning, good evening, & good night.
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Day 12: Igoumenitsa Unlocked!
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I sleep through the supposedly beautiful five-hour coach ride to Igoumenitsa. Look at a map, and you'd expect pristine beaches and gorgeous water. No. Igoumenitsa must be where Susanne Collins derived inspiration for District 6, because it's a hellhole. 1) IgouMENitsa was named for the fact that not a single woman lives there. 2) It's a sea of concrete on a bog, populated with mosquitoes, frogs, and the faint scent of stomach acid. 3) Did I mention I am the only woman in this restaurant, and the server gave me a caesar salad when I POINTED at pizza?
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I order a gin and tonic at the ferry station. Once again, they have never heard of a lime.
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Don't even get me started on the ferry boarding process. In my head, it was an island ferry. A whale-watching ferry. A fairy princess. No. It's a cargo ferry. Which means every passenger is a 40yo man driving a truck, and I am the singular pedestrian waiting for the ferry to dock while I avoid the line of trucks. I'm hangry, I'm tired, I'm hauling a 35 lb backpack, and I'm ready for Italy.