Today I was wrapping up the non-stop uploading of pictures and videos that we have from over the weekend. Hundreds of pics and many videos to get uploaded. This is our first big bulk of media that we have had to deal with since getting to Greece. We have managed to get out and see so little, thus far, that we really have not generated the kind of media that we normally do. This was rather a sizeable amount of media all at once. So getting stuff to Flickr, YouTube and Facebook has been taking quite some time and is not exactly done today, but the bulk of it is now completed.
Today was a write and post all morning, and school for Liesl, day. We did not go anywhere as there was a bit to get done around the house. After my calls and stuff were done, it was time to go out for dinner, for the first time in a very long time!
It was eight when we all walked down to The Olive at the bottom of our street. It was very cold and a little rainy on our walk. We were quite cold. Who would have guessed that the southern most point of Greece and Europe would be so cold in the middle of March!
Dinner was amazing. Lent is on so there is no meat on the menus in Greece. It’s all vegetarian for the month. A whole month of vegetarian for the whole country! It is crazy. Of course lots of people are not strictly religious so there is still meat but the rate is way down and going to the local taverna and getting the local home cooking means all vegetarian.
As always, we just “eat what is being served.” We were the only ones eating tonight, there were a few other people there but they were just having a drink and watching the television in the corner. It was cold and the little stove in the middle of the taverna was ablaze to keep the place warm.
Our meal tonight was nearly all seafood. First course up was a sardine paste that was really delicious – heavy lemon on the front end and you dip some nice sesame bread into it. I went through that very quickly.
Next up was octopus on French fries covered in octopus gravy. Doesn’t sound that exciting, but it was absolutely amazing. The girls were not up for trying it, grilled octopus is pretty obviously octopus – no kidding a plate full of tentacles. But Dominica tried it, her first every octopus, and I dug in having had a bit of octpus while in Spain. But this was octopus to a whole new level. Truly delicious.
Even Dominica was really amazing but just how delicious the octopus dish was. She is now a believer. It is obvious why octopus is so common in all of the grocery stores here on Crete.
We had the most delicious dish of roasted potatoes and fresh (from the garden this morning) artichokes covered in fresh dill that vied with the octopus for the star of our dinner.
And, as always, there was fried cheese covered in sesame seeds. So tasty.
There was also calamari which was a huge hit with both girls and they ate nearly all of it all by themselves.
And of course we had a bottle of wine with dinner and after dinner, for apertifs Dominica and I had shots of raki which is just what you do here.
We had to roll ourselves home after we were done with our food. This has to be our best meal on Crete yet. All of it was just amazing and there was a bit of new food discovery. Dominica’s first sardines and octopus and both of our first times having fresh artichokes (which are amazing, no wonder the Romans ate them so much.)
We got home and Dominica was pretty much ready for bed as soon as we were back. She went to bed long before midnight. The girls and I played video games together this evening before getting off to bed around two.