Once again, we are in scenic Volos, the big city to which we come once a week for all our internet needs. It’s like heroin. Seriously. (Not that we’d know, dear readers, but just roll with it.) We leave the cafe each week all blissed out, knowing that the USA is still running relatively smoothly and that our e-mail accounts, bank accounts, etc. still exist.
The past week has been eventful…the high point for me was leading a horse tour a couple of days ago with our co-woofer, Hallie.
(As an aside, we very much appreciate that Hallie is a GREAT co-woofer…she works her share, is tidy, friendly, etc. …we had feared being stuck with a sociopath or a severe hippie who refuses to flush the toilet or something.) (Hallie, if you’re reading this, props to you!)
Anyhow. Two young women from Austria wanted a 2-hour horse tour of the Pelion area, so Hallie and I were elected to do the tour. It was a sort of trial by fire, as these two women are some sort of equestrian queens back in Austria. Hence, they got the two fastest horses in Nikos’ herd…and possibly on the planet. Nikos gave Hallie and me a couple of “calm” horses, and the description was apt for Kito, Hallie’s horse, which was the SLOWEST horse on the planet, and which also stopped to eat every 20 seconds. I had Paco, who wanted so badly to hang with the cool horses and imitate them. So when the Austrian girls would say, “OK, we gallop now!” Hallie would get off Kito and walk it, and I would clutch my reins for dear life as Paco attempted to keep up with the Austrians, and whinnied angrily at the fact that I value my life and thus held him back. But it was still an awesome ride, and I was glowing all day purely from the fact that I survived and didn’t make an ass of myself.
The chores have been much the same — lots of gardening, lots of taking down and putting up horse fences as we move their pasture every few days. The gardening is fun because we eat from the garden every day, so there is lots of gratification from that task. We always have some sort of salad, made from onions and olives and cucumbers and tomatoes, most of which are grown by Anika. I did learn, however rudimentarily, how to drive a stick-shift this past week from Nikos (one of our two hosts — husband to Anika, she of the amazing cooking) as we herded the horses. This upped his coolness quotient astronomically in my head, as did the fact that he does the cool trick of fashioning a bridle out of a piece of rope and riding a horse bareback to do the herding.
We have found that there are two Nikoses: Work Nikos and Lunch Nikos. Work Nikos buckles down and teaches you how to drive stick and helps build fences. Lunch Nikos pesters you daily about whether or not you have a boyfriend, and if so, how many. But it’s a trick question, because NO MATTER WHAT YOU ANSWER, IT IS UNFAILINGLY HILARIOUS TO HIM. “None”? HAHAHAHAHA! “One”? HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! “Two”? YOU AMERICAN GIRLS JUST SLAY ME!
He also tells inappropriate stories about his past love life, because his favorite hobby is telling you about how Greek men are the best lovers in the world. But he has taught us also that the phrase “But what can I say? I am a Greek man!” can absolve you of ANY wrongdoing or personality flaws, however glaring.
“Dude, why did you steal candy from that baby?”
“Meh. I am a Greek man!”
“Oh, I gotcha. And why did you rob the liquor store?”
“I am a Greek man!”
“Good point! But why did you punch that little old lady in the face?”
“What can I say? I am a Greek man!”
“You, sir, are a rhetorical genius.”
Hallie and Molly and I have endless fun with Nikos stories. The children — Yanni, Sofia, and Caterina — are officially out from school for the summer, which may make the upcoming weeks…interesting. They are very good at fighting and creating discord. Sofia, for example, throws the kittens at the (giant, remember) dogs to piss them off. Yanni throws away Sofia and Caterina’s toys and clothes to piss them off. Caterina pinches me to piss me off. I, in turn, maturely ignore the stupidity and instead inwardly seethe and plot the children’s slow and painful demises. Ah, the circle of life.
But whenever discord strikes the farm, we have KITTENS TO PLAY WITH! KITTENS! Kittens have become our TV. We each have one we “root for” …mine is Thano, named after a lovely rugger from my college days…and so named purely because Thano was the only Greek person I had ever known before coming here (Thano! You are still probably the coolest Greek I know! Props!). As we eat our meals (which we do on the porch every day…which is a lovely way to eat, with the ocean-mountains-island view and fresh air), we watch the kittens play and make up elaborate stories about Thano and Peanut and Tula and their exploits.
Speaking of meals, people have asked what we eat, and — aside from the salads from the garden — we have lots of feta cheese and tzatziki at every meal, as well as fresh bread. As for main courses, Anika has made us such fare as stuffed peppers, tortellini (with this amazing cream-vegetable sauce), Greek tomato-rice stuff (delicious, despite having no real name), and so on. Also, the milk is 3.5%, meaning that even breakfast cereal is way way more delicious than in America.
Randomly — and I am not joking — I seem to no longer be lactose intolerant. Don’t ask; I don’t get it either.
OK! Molly has put up pics, and this is way long. Signing off until next week,
Danielle
