Sheep Guarding Llama

I was awake, without a clock, before nine this morning.  I did not bring my phone to bed, it does not work up there anyway, because it was plugged in on the desk to be sure that it would be charged for today so when I woke up and Dominica was still asleep I panicked that we had slept through the alarm and got out of bed anyway.  It turns out that it was early, but a good time to be up regardless.

What a busy day.  Dominica and I did some work and got ready for the day and got the girls up a little after ten.  We did a decent job of getting out the door and down to Atsipopoulo to go to Momento and get our morning coffee (not going to make any coffee in the house in case it makes a mess) and sandwiches for the girls as it is their last time to get these sandwiches that they love so much (for Liesl it is simply lettuce, tomato and green bell peppers with mayo and for Luciana it is just cheese and mayo.)

We did our final drive into Rethymno and up to the hospital.  Our plan for today was, now that Luciana did her final antibiotics last night, to get a quick test done, make sure that she is all good to go and leave quickly.  There was quite a lot of kids in queue for the doctor, though, and we ended up having a long wait. They came out and talked to us right away, took her temperature and started paperwork, but to get to the lab work was going to take hours (it takes over an hour just for the lab itself to do the test anyway) and we did not have that kind of time.  Around one thirty we made the call that we just had to bail on the process and assume that we need to look into getting some lab work done when we get to Romania.  We have to do an ultrasound in Romania anyway and they will probably want to do this lab work up there as well, so it does not seem like it is all that bad, really.  But it does mean that our entire morning was a wasted trip and a lot of effort that we could have skipped.

We were back at the house before two and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the house in order.  Lots of sweeping, mopping, packing, balancing luggage, charging batteries, cleaning out the fridge, carrying trash down town, etc.  Always so much to be done when moving out.

A little after three Greenways came up and picked up the car which made things so much easier for us.  We were very thankful that they were willing to do that.  Otherwise I would have had to have made a second drive down to Rethymno, cross the whole city, get to their offices, deal with stuff there and then either spend more than an hour (maybe two) walking back up the hill or gotten a taxi all the way from there. This made things very simple and easy.

Our van to take us to the airport was scheduled for five and to pick us up down at the corner.  We knew that we needed a van and that it would be well worth the extra cost to know that we were going to just fit.  Trying to squeeze into the normal taxi with the trunk tied shut to keep our luggage in for a trip of over an hour is not fun.  And we really do not need any disasters on our way to the ferry, there are too many connections to make.

Everyone, except for Dominica of course, is looking forward to having the evening on the ferry.  Such a cool experience.  Ciana is a little worried that the ship will rock and that she will fall out of the bed, however.

Sofia, who owns the house (it is the Villa Sofia after all) came and hung out with us for a little while before we left.  We were all packed up and the house was cleaned and we were ready to go.  When the van arrived early she even helped us to move the luggage down the hill to it and get us loaded up.  We turned over the keys and said goodbye.  Dominica talked to her for a minute while I ran to the corner store (the taxi van was parked by the corner store anyway) to pick up last minute snacks and say our goodbyes to the woman who runs the store as we have seen her every day for the last three months.

Three months!  I can’t believe that our season in Greece is over.

The van was a brand new, luxurious Benz.  Lots of space for our stuff and room for us and then some.  It was great.

The drive to Chania takes around an hour.  It was a beautiful day for a drive.  Great views of the mountains and sea.

The ferry terminal is actually in Souda Bay, famously the home of the NATO base.

It was only six when we pulled into the ferry terminal, a full three hours before the ferry was set to leave port.  We didn’t care, getting to the ferry nice and early and knowing that everything was all set was well worth having time to kill on the ferry itself.  This is what we want when we are doing major travel – lots of spare time and no stress.

We were, I am pretty sure, literally the first people to board the ferry for this trip.  Three hours is a bit of an extreme amount of being early and this is only the ferry for the eastern third of the island so only people from a maximum of ninety minutes away would reasonably consider using this terminal instead of the one at the capital.

Since we were early the ferry operators let us just drive right up onto the ferry with the taxi van and unload our luggage right into the luggage holding cages which was so handy.  This is so convenient.

We went up to reception and checked in.  We got a berth on the six floor just a few doors down from reception.  So easy.  Our berth had a big window, four individual beds, a desk and chair, a full bathroom with a shower and everything.  Small for a hotel room but so much larger than you get on a train.  Very nice indeed.

Everyone is very excited about the room.  This is going to be quite fun.  Going on an overnight ferry is certainly a bit of an adventure.  There is only one power outlet in our room, though, so we are very limited on what we can plug in.  My CPAP will be all set and we do carry a European power strip with us these days but we can’t just plug things in all over the place.

I went down and explored the salon on our deck.  It is a nice area with a lot of room.  We had been hoping that they would have a large menu but they did not, just drinks and snacks, nearly all of which had meat.

I returned to our berth, grabbed the family and we went exploring the ship to see what else they had for us.  In the room were ads for two restaurants that were not the salons that would likely be just perfect.

I should mention that the ferry is enormous.  Bigger than any ferry that I have ever seen.  This is far more akin to a cruise ship that also carries cars and trucks than it is to any ferry that I have ever used.  This is a really, really big ship.

We climbed up to the eight deck and up there we found the restaurants that we had been looking for.  There were two, right next to each other.  One is the self service cafeteria and the other is the fancy “please don’t wear shorts or jeans” place with a four course meal.  They were getting ready but were not serving yet, it was still very early.

I went to reception and learned that the restaurants open at eight, one hour before the ferry departs at nine.  That is not bad.  But it was only seven.  Back to the cabin where we just relaxed for a while.  The girls played with toys.

Pretty much right at eight we went back up to get dinner.  We were all very hungry and Dominica and I were actually feeling a bit tired and were quite willing to eat and get to bed straight away.

We just did the self service restaurant.  We would have been happy with the fancier one but who knows if the girls will eat enough for it to make sense and we were not dressed for it.  Dinner was quite nice and we were just about the only people in the restaurant which is perfect when you have restless kids.  Dominica and I both went for the salmon dinners, which were tasty.

We returned to the room just before nine.  Instead of being the only people on the ship, it was now packed with the salons full and people camping out in stairwells and such.  We got to our room and the girls played for just a little bit longer and before ten we were all in bed and heading towards getting some sleep.

I ended up having to sleep in one of the top bunks because Luciana was scared of it.  But overall it went well.  The berth was very comfortable.  This is the way to travel.  Cheaper than flying and way more comfortable.  And as it goes overnight we really lost no time compared to flying, maybe even got more time on either end because it was so well suited to our needs.

One thing that surprised me is that I maintained mobile phone service way out into the Aegean Sea.  I was still able to post to Twitter and such even when we were nearly an hour out of port!  That was very convenient.

We started a new Twitter feed today for our travels: https://twitter.com/packthekids

That will be the most up to date way to keep up with us as we see the world.

This morning was the change to Daylight Savings Time, or Summer Time as it is called in Europe, outside of the United States.  So we are now back to the same time difference with the US that we had when we first arrived in Greece.  Today is also Easter back home but Easter will not come to the Eastern Orthodox world for quite some time, over a month yet.

In a week when we are in Romania we will remain in the same time situation that we are in now, Romania and Greece share a time zone and summer time situation.  But the movement for this to change has begun with Russia and and Belarus having dropped the Summer Time concept at the end of 2014 (so this is only the second DST change that they have not done.)  With Russia having made the change, the encouragement for more countries to drop it is coming.  The Ukraine has been toying with the idea of not flipping time any more as well.  And California is considering dropping it.  But for the time being, Romania is on Eastern European Summer Time, just like Greece.  One of our rare times that we get to change countries and not change time zones.

Today is our big cleaning and packing day.  Dominica was up and getting the house in order before I was awake.  She already has a lot of stuff packed so there really is not all that much left to do and with the floors all being tile cleaning the house is mostly a matter of a quick sweep, then a mop.  And they are going to do some work on the house when we leave so getting it spotless is not a concern because they are going to generate dust and dirt and will need to clean it again regardless.  That makes things easy for us.

We got our rental car in Romania all squared away today.  Dominica has been watching this really low cost budget rental agency there and has scheduled what is supposed to be a Ford Focus for just seven hundred and fifty Euros (about eight hundred and forty dollars) for nearly three months, can’t beat that.  And that price includes the insurance, too.   It is so cheap to rent a car in Europe that we just cannot imagine ever buying one, the cost and flexibility of renting is just amazing.  And for an extra fifty five Euros we got “all European” insurance allowing us to drive the car more or less anywhere in Europe except for Moldova, Bulgaria and The Ukraine.  We are really hoping that that means that we are able to road trip to Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Hungary at a minimum.

Dominica also got our transport to the ferry all squared away.  We have a van coming to get us at five tomorrow.  It’s less than an hour to Chania so we hope to be at the ferry around six.  We have a berth and are planning to check out luggage so the evening should be pretty easy, much like being on a cruise ship or staying at a hotel.  We have our own room that we can lock up and sleep in and there are restaurants on the ferry so we will be eating dinner on there.

We are all pretty excited about the ferry experience.  This is one of those quintessential European experiences, especially for Greece.  One of those things that Europeans do with hardly thinking but to Americans is almost totally foreign.  Major ferries carrying people between the mainland and the islands or between the islands.  But, overnight ferries loaded with people, cars, restaurants, entertainment and more.  This is very much a traditional Greek experience.  Everyone uses the ferries here in the islands.  Dominica is quite nervous, though, as she gets terribly sea sick and has no idea how stable the ferry is going to be.

I took out the trash and stopped by The Olive to let them know that we would be coming for dinner around nine tonight.  Then I walked to Atsopopoulo in the hopes of getting the sandwiches that the girls have fallen in love with but, as I feared, Momento was closed and I was not able to get sandwiches or coffee.  I tried hitting the gelato place (called something like Podov) that is on the south end of town but they put their gelato away during the day and that was not available either.  Rather a wasted trip.  But it was a nice day for a walk and I did get to see four baby goats at a farm on the way; they were adorable.

Back home we continued the cleaning and packing.  The girls were just watching shows all day.  Luciana watching LDShadowLady on YouTube and Liesl binge watching Sailor Moon.  They were happy to have a day of doing nothing.

The house is nearly empty.  It is always amazing to me how everything that we have collapsed down into just a few suitcases and magically disappears!

Our plans for tomorrow are to get up early and head to Rethymno General for Luciana’s final check up while in Greece.  Then we have to return the car to the rental place. Hopefully they can either pick it up or drop me off afterwards or else I am going to be stuck walking back from Rethymno to Prines which is very doable but is very much uphill at a steep grade the entire way and with our limited time tomorrow would be somewhat onerous.  They have drive up to deal with the car several times already, though, so I am guessing that this is not going to be an issue at all.  Greenways has been awesome to deal with, we highly recommend them.  They saves us so much money while living on Crete.

After the cleaning and packing was done we had a couple of hours to relax.  I got SGL caught up and everyone played some video games or whatever.  Then, when nine rolled around, we walked down the hill to The Olive for dinner.  The place was really busy tonight, busiest that we have ever seen.  Which is not really all that busy considering how small that the place is, but a family or group of six people having dinner really fills it up.

Dinner was awesome, as always.  And way too much food.  We had salad, domates, bread and tatziki sauce, tomato balls, lentil stew, a plate of fried sardines and Luciana ordered an omelette.  So much food.

Dominica got up and found crumbs all over the floor and, of course, ants everywhere.  This has become our thing, finding ants everywhere.  It’s been the year of ants.  Although this past stay on Crete has been relatively few, considering that we have been here for three months there have not been that many.  So Dominica’s morning was spent Windexing the floors all over to get rid of the ants which I then cleaned up later.

Once the kids were awake we were out to the car and on our way down the hill.  This is our last chance to get out and do anything on Crete and we are heading around Rethymno again as it is convenient and we really wanted a chance to see more of it.  This is my third time getting time to explore the old town, not including the marina area which we have been to several times on its own.

We stopped in Atsipopoulo at Momento to get coffee and sandwiches for the girls.  They just love those sandwiches.  Then we went down to Rethymno and parked in the same spot that we did the other day, it was very convenient.  We are not walking around the Fortezza today, though.  This time it is straight into the old town and staying on the flat ground.  A much more relaxing walk.

We walked east along the south side of the old town exploring some of the streets before getting to the big north – south thoroughfare, Antistaseos, just north of the Guora Gate.  We headed north along the big shopping way and found some places that looked like they would be great for lunch later on.  Then we got back to the Mikrasiaton Square where we had been the other day and let the girls just run around for a while.  They were having an awesome time playing until Liesl got very scared because she got in the way of a truck and was not paying attention to it or the locals yelling to her and did not see it until she turned around from me screaming at her from all of the way across the square and turned around to find a truck right behind her (it was a maintenance truck that clearly was watching her and she was in no danger but was blocking them from driving around the square) and it really shook her up.  So she spent quite some time sitting along on a bench far away from us and not talking to anyone or playing.

When we left the square we stopped at the Gelato.it stand on its corner and got some gelato for our walk.  The girls both got vanilla, of course, Dominica got fruita de bosca yoghurt as she often does and I got Spring Forest (Black Forest, in the US.)  On the walk north from there we discovered a line of restaurants that looked perfect and one had a menu that would definitely suit us so we figured that we would be returning after our walk.

We came upon the famous Rimondi Fountain which was super neat.  We stopped there and ate our gelato.  The foundation is only a small piece of what used to be an enormous Venetian works there, but the hydrolics still work and water still flows from the fountain which, along with its immediate wall and some pieces of an earlier building, remain in the same state that they have been in since the Venetian Empire built them there to provide extra water to the growing city in around 1628, the hydrolic engineering project being started around 1588.  A really cool historical find right in the middle of restaurants and shops.

We did a loop to the north west and returned to the fountain, sneaked behind it into some really quiet little streets and continued east until we got to another main road going north up to the port, Arkadiou.

We walked up to the port and turned east and walked around the Venetian Harbor.  The old Venetian Harbor is pretty much as it was hundreds of years ago and has great views on the current marina area.  There is a lighthouse there that is a bit precarious to get to.  I walked out to it and Dominica stayed back with the girls.  At least I got a few pictures of it.  Luciana really wanted to go out to it, though.  So Dominica stayed back, as the walk out along the old harbor wall would be terrible for her ankle, and I took the girls carefully out and then, at the light house, took them one at a time against the “hug the wall and walk sideways” portion so that they could go all of the way out.  On the way along the wall Liesl discovered loads of sea urchins living on the rocks just below the water line.  The water was almost perfectly clear so we were able to really observe them well.

From the harbor we walked back south the way that we had come and made it back pretty easily to the restaurant, Agrimia, that we had been interested in with the great looking seafood menu.  They turned out to have a huge play room for the kids which was perfect.  Liesl and Luciana went straight there and were there for the whole evening, only returning to the table to eat quickly and then straight back.  It gave us a very relaxing dinner and time to just hang out.

Dinner was awesome.  Liesl got pizza.  Luciana got calamari.  Dominica and I got garlic bread with aubergine salad, seafood risotto and then she got a vegetable risotto and I got stuffed vegetables.  We were very full by the time that we were done eating.  But it was great and we were really glad that the girls had such an awesome time playing all evening.

Everyone was pretty worn out from walking, playing and sun all day so we walked back to the car, it was now dark anyway.  The walk through the Rethymno streets at night was at least as magical as it is during the day.  The old town remains completely gorgeous.

We drove back up the hill to Prines.  Everyone was ready to just have down time.  The girls watched some shows and Dominica started reading.  I figured since everyone was doing their own thing that it would be a good time for me to go out for a walk.  So out I went to do another few kilometres before calling it a night.

I did a nice loop to the north of town.  I started taking the western of the two northbound back streets from the centre of town and ended up looking mostly to the west and returning to the main street via the northern side road that comes into the village at The Olive.

As I walked by the owner ran out and said that I should come in and drink with the locals.  So I ran home, dropped off what I was carrying, grabbed by wallet, let Dominica know where I would be and returned to The Olive to hang out for the rest of the evening drinking raki with the locals.

It was a fun evening.  At first it was just me and a few of the older guys from around the village.  There were several rounds of raki and some snacks… fresh artichoke slices, some olives and then raw broad beans.  We tried hard to communicate, very hard as there were two people who knew zero English, one who knew a tiny bit and the proprietor who knew a bit and me who knows zero Greek.  Later on they left and a couple who own a taverna nearby came in and hung out having dinner and more raki.  I was there till around midnight and closed the place down.

That’s right, today is Liesl’s last day of school before we leave for Romania!  The time has really sneaked up on us.  Of course, we are headed to Athens and the plan is that we are going to be doing some serious history stuff up there.  So that is really an epic field trip for her history class, so you could say that she is doing school for two days there before we leave, but today is the last day of sitting at home doing her lessons until Romania.

Today is another warm, still, sunny gorgeous day – like Greece is supposed to be.

I had a late call today, wrote a little more then played some Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing with Luciana then with Liesl.  We are thinking about moving to three or four Steam Controllers so that we can do these kinds of games as a family more than just two of us at a time.

The girls just played games on their own most of the evening.  Liesl was super excited that Castaway Paradise is on its Easter theme now and had to spend time buying all of the Easter themed clothing items that are only available this weekend.  The whole island is in spring time, which is Liesl’s favourite and she was very happy to just wander the island and explore the new look.  She has basically only played the game in winter and so the island has been under snow for pretty much the whole time that she has had it.

Our hope is that tomorrow we will be heading down the hill to walk around Rethymno some more.  It was so nice the other day we want to see it again.

The storm of the last two days is over and instead we are left with clear air, bright sunshine, little wind and possibly the warmest day since we arrived in Greece.  It is a great day.  Dominica did the laundry and was able to put it outside first thing today.

In the early afternoon the girls asked to walk down to the corner store.  We stepped outside and I ran back inside to get my camera as the day was so nice.  We had a nice walk down to the store and decided that it was so nice that when we got back we asked Dominica if we shouldn’t pack up and run into Rethymno to see the old town with such perfect weather.

It was a rush but we got everyone into the car and drove down and parked on the west side of the Rethymno peninsula right on the water south of the old Venetian Fortezza.  We walked all the way north along the Aegean Sea and all of the way around the Fortezza which was a long walk but the weather was just perfect and the sea was so beautiful.  It was very nice.

We did not go into the Fortezza but walked all around it, it is an incredibly impressive structure and is really a full castle.  Originally Venetian, most of its history it was used by the Ottomans.

From the east side of the Fortezza we went south into the Rethymno old town which Dominica had not even understood was there, I found out (she never goes back and looks at the pictures that I have taken so even though I had been there and told her about it and taken pictures of it, she had no idea.)  The old town is incredible, especially up near the Fortezza where there are just tons of staggeringly gorgeous restaurants and cafes with commanding views of the city behind the Fortezza.

We made it to Mikrasiaton Square, which was probably amazing in its heyday.  Now it is famous for the amount of graffiti, sadly.  It was still a nice central park in the old down, though, and appeared to have an amazing mosque (we are only guessing that it is a mosque) on it.  The folklore museum of Crete is there on the square as is lots of open space.

From the square we left by the western way which, strangely, was a little doorway through a building.  How odd that one of two exits to the largest square in the old town would require going into a tunnel under a building.  It was truly bizarre.

We did not have very much time so really needed to walk briskly and get back to the car.  Everyone was hungry but we did not manage to find a place where we could do something fast like grab a slice of pizza so we gave up and figured that we would each in Atsipopoulo, instead.  Rethymno looks fantastic, though, up on the peninsula and we are thinking about returning on Saturday with lots of time to stroll and time to relax and eat at a restaurant out on the street or something.  There are tons of amazing looking boutique hotels and such throughout the hold town.  Definitely a place on Crete worth staying in if you are vacationing here.  Absolutely gorgeous.

We got back to the and drove up the hill.  Parking was free and easy on the peninsula, although in the summer I wonder if that would remain the case.

In Atsipopoulo we walked all over town trying to find a place that served vegetarian food for us and that would be quick.  We went into three different places and asked.  Two effectively had nothing for us to eat and the third could do pizza but could not do take away nor could they do it quickly.  No dice.

I knew that they could do sandwiches at Momento so we returned there and I got a lettuce, tomato and green bell pepper for Liesl and a cheese sandwich for Ciana.  Both girls were just starving and could not wait for food.  While they ate I had coffee and Dominica ran across the street to get some printing done.  They girls loved their sandwiches.  Both said that they might be their favourite sandwiches ever (except for Subway, of course, Liesl has to add.)

On the drive home Luciana said “What a lovely day this has been.”  We got some great pictures of the city, too.  It was a very good day out, even if was very short.

We got home and were able to park by the church again.  I had a phone call shortly after we were back.  I put in a few hours of writing this evening before taking time to spend time with the girls playing video games.

Dominica even came in to join us this evening, although she was in the room with us and did not really play.  The girls have been excited to play the first of the Fairy Tale Mysteries series from Googi games (in Canada – who, by the way, are so rude as to block their video game company website from Greece, seriously Googi?)  We put in an hour or two on that with the girls basically playing all on their own.  They are getting good at these.

Dominica went to bed before midnight.  Luciana decided to watch some videos in the other room so Liesl and I did not continue on the game without her and instead switched to Emily’s Wonder Wedding which is a time management game.  Liesl enjoyed that a lot, but we just played it for a little bit to check it out.

Our last game for the evening was the old classic hidden object from Spintop: Amazing Adventures Around the World.  The first location in the game that we played tonight was, I think, actually Rethymno and the Fortezza that we walked around today!  Talk about timing!  Absolutely crazy.  The game is a classic hidden object where you just do hidden object puzzles, no adventure game to go along with them like most of the modern HOPA (Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure) games.  Liesl and I had a good time playing that.  It’s fast paced, just one hidden object scene and then one puzzle based on it (like find the differences between two scenes) so no getting bored wondering what to do, it’s just one puzzle right on to the next.