Sheep Guarding Llama

Friday.  We all slept in this morning.  I started the day with the daily Hexcells Infinite puzzle.  The breezed through that and then tried a little of the new game Fine Sweeper that I had picked up on sale yesterday.  That was fun.  I made it to level twenty six on my second try and made a pretty impressive top global score for one of my first tries!

The girls took over the Steam system from me to play Goat Simulator.  I noticed today that it supported multiple players, up to four.  So I hooked up the second Steam controller and the girls played for an hour or so on a split screen.  This is so perfect for them.  They had so much fun.  We could hear them all through the house just laughing and laughing.  They get onto the funniest kicks.

This afternoon Dominica wanted to go grocery shopping so we packed up the kids and went to two different grocery stores.  One in the next door village and then down to the bakery two towns away where we picked up cheese cake and profiterole in addition to our bread and stuff.  Then up the hill to a fancier grocery store that we had not been to yet.  It was a good shopping run and we are well stocked after this.

We had decided to go out to dinner tonight, only our second time going out to dinner while in Greece, and wanted to do something low key and near home.  So we settled on checking out the local restaurant which is right down on the main road to the south of us; a very quick walk.

We dropped off the groceries and stuff and dealt with a bit of a parking problem as we could not figure out where to park the car as our usual area for it was full of other cars.  Once we had a solution, which took probably half an hour since we were not very good at figuring out what to do, we walked on to the taverna, which was right around the corner.

This is a little place called the Olive Wood and is extremely small and local.  There are definitely no people coming from other towns to visit this restaurant, it only has maybe three tables and a couple seats at a sort of bar where they are preparing the food, not a bar that you would actually sit at.  Brightly lit and a television up on the wall in the corner showing the football game as you find all over Europe.  This is definitely the local haunt.

We were welcomed most hospitably, people even moved to get us a good table.  There were a couple individuals in the taverna and one large family our group at the back table.  Very small place, we could hardly go unnoticed in any way.

The owner spoke just a tiny bit of English but enough to work out, after a bit of explaining, that we were pescatarians and did not eat meat. However, he then had to explain that he had no fish and that if we want fish we have to come in the day before and request it and then he will go down to the wharf and pick some out for us for the next day.

This is a classic small town taverna like you should expect when travelling to out of the way Europe, especially in the south, and the meal was “eat what we bring.”  It was not quite like that as he would ask us if we wanted things but it was not like they had a menu of any sort and it was little bits at a time.  We got a decanter of the white house wine, which was very tasty, and the girls broke out their new colouring books that they had picked up at the grocery store earlier today and coloured while our food was made.

First up we had a green salad.  Very Greek with delicious oil dressing, lots of parsley and tart flavours.  We really liked it and Liesl even had some.

Next up was fried cheese.  This was amazingly good.  Two big slabs of square, thick cut local cheese, rolled in sesame seeds and quickly pan fried.  He brought one, then the other to us.  Very tasty.

We got tomato fritters next, which were very good.  Then the main meal was an omelet, very similar in nature to a Spanish tortilla, with eggs and potatoes.  It is apparently a very Mediterranean food, but not one that you tend to associate with Greece coming from the US, but I supposed when you think about Greek food in diners it is very much what we think of.  So that makes sense.

We had zucchini fritters then, too. Those were so good.  The girls were happy with the food and really loved the omelet.  They devoured that.

The table next to us ended up sending over a decanter of wine to us and we ended up hanging out quite a bit.  They were having a bit of a party and had brought chocolate cake, too, which the taverna served to us, too.  They recommended that we take part in the local carnival parade when it comes around.  They said that it was much more fun than just watching it, especially for the girls.  They were nearly all Brits who had moved to Prines a decade ago and just settled, except for one that was from Mozambique.  Every one is so friendly and social here. Southern Greece definitely works well for me.

I had to duck out early and run back up the hill for my Wednesday conference call that had been rescheduled until tonight.  I left Dominica and the girls hanging out with the neighbours.

Dominica and the girls were back to the house before I was done with my call.  It was very late by the time that that was done and before long, everyone was off to bed.

It is bright and sunny and warm today.  A really gorgeous day.  I got up and posted for a bit, but I had promised Dominica and the girls that I would go for a walk down to the bakery that they like and get them cake.  They had been begging me to do that last night but I was not going to go down in the evening and the weather was not that great. No excuses today, it is really nice out.

It is two villages from our place to the bakery.  It is about four kilometres each way, which is not all that bad on the way there, which is down hill.  So I made great time and was feeling very relaxed as I walked down to the bakery.  I bought lots of cakes, treats and loaves of bread to bring back home with me.

I took a few pictures while I was out walking.  I got a cute one of the German Shepard that lives next door and is always trying to get us.  I caught him off guard with the selfie and he looked calm.  But the instant the picture was done he was trying to tear through the fence again.

The walk back took quite a bit more energy and time than the walk to the bakery.  Carrying the bread and treats, a bottle of water and doing four kilometres up hill slowed me down quite a bit.  The sun was actually pretty low by the time that I made it back to the house.

The bulk of the “day” was spent out on my walk.  But it felt good.  It was probably two hours of walking or more.  Plenty of work to do once I was back home.

We ate a lot of bread and cakes today.  Other than my walk it was a quiet day at the Miller house.

Now it was Dominica’s turn to have insomnia last night.  We were both up until at least five in the morning.  I have no idea when she fell asleep.  So we ended up sleeping in until around eleven.

Today was a lazy day at home.  Homeschooling for Liesl.  Dominica discovered a book about some people that travel a little like us so she was into that all day and we barely saw her at all.

I did some scripting today and posting.  It was a busy day but one with no real events.  Nothing to really discuss, but lots of stuff was accomplished.

January is just flying by.  I guess it is the jet lag, mostly.  In some ways it seems like we have just gotten to Greece, I mean we haven’t gone anywhere or done anything yet at all.  But in other ways it feels very much like home and we are fully settled in and this is just where we live now and it does not seem odd in the least.  I guess the year of travelling has already caused us to alter our sense of normal and this feels very normal now.  We are nearly at the end of our second week in Greece!

Luciana has taken to bringing her Amazon Fire tablet up to my work loft (which sits above the living room directly over the little alcove with the couch where Liesl likes to sit) and putting on headphones and sitting beside me at the desk watching her YouTube shows.

I have our new family travel blog website set up.  The design is not done at all yet, so that needs to be addressed, but at least it is set up and we can start getting some blog entries out.  We’ve also renamed our travel community.  The old links still work but the new one is: dontforgettopackthekids.com

I stayed up late working on some BASH scripting and did my first of my own code hosting on GitHub.  I’ve used GitHub a lot, as we worked with it all last year, and I have had my own account for a while but this was my first time posting one of my own projects there.  Very tiny and no big deal at all, but it is nice to have it set up and doing something.

I was up at ten today.  My jet lag is vastly improved.  I got up at least an hour or more before Dominica was up.  Easily two hours.  I went down to the office and worked on posting all morning.  It was quite busy.  Also tested out the Nylas N1 email client.  So far I am liking it.  It is actually easier to use with Office 365 than Outlook is on Windows!

When Liesl got up, she decided to make today all about hidden object games.  When she wasn’t doing school she was playing hidden object games for most of the day.  She is currently playing the “9 Clues” series.

Luciana remembered the “reindeer catch” that we played yesterday and made me play it for nearly an hour today.  The girls think that catching the stuffed reindeer is so much fun.

We spent a few hours getting the entire family showered and dressed and out the door this afternoon for our first, ever night out in Greece.  Even the girls were asking if we could go out to dinner at this point!  We had no idea what we were going to do until we were out and on the road.

We didn’t leave to go to dinner until well after seven.  We started by driving to the market in Atsipopoulo and stocking up on cereal and some other stuff that we can not get in Prines.  Then hit the ATM to make sure that we are set with cash as we do not come out this way all that often.

After our errands we talked about what we wanted to do for food.  We had seen several little local restaurants open in Atsipopoulo but Dominica felt like going down into Rethymno so we drove down there.

With some magic and good memory, I got us out onto the beach front road by the marina and drove until we found where lots of other people had parked and just got out and walked the beachfront strip – what would be essentially a boardwalk in the States but it is all paved in wonderful, old tile.

We got out and walked the entire water front so that Dominica and the girls could see what the options were.  The girls were just in a mood for pizza, though, and we saw a nice looking place advertising pizza right where we had parked.  So we walked all of the way back and ate at the Living Room Lounge and Cafe.  We had wanted to sit outside but for food they recommended inside.  So inside we went.

Dinner ended up being awesome.  We really liked the place, even though it was packed beyond capacity, and the food was excellent.  The girls both ate really well and enjoyed it a lot.  After dinner they even brought us, on the house, the most amazing profiterole to share with a hazelnut chocolate cream.  It was so good.  Luciana ate a lot of the profiterole.

After dinner we just drove back home.    Relaxed at the house.  Some how the girls managed to stay up until one thirty in the morning!  Dominica was busy playing a video game and lost all track of time.  I was working in the office and did not realize that it was one until, well until it was one. So I rushed them off to bed as soon as I realized.

I woke up this morning to the sound of NATO fighters taking off and shaking the house.  It was probably eleven when I woke up.  It was a good night’s sleep and I am feeling much better today after having had a night of no sleep.  And I feel like I am mostly on a realistic European schedule now, as well.  It is tough for us because we deal with people in the US all day long, especially me, so getting to an ideal schedule for me (bed by eleven, awake at six) just doesn’t work because then I am unable to overlap with people back home.  So it kind of forces us to be on a skewed schedule of getting up very late in the morning and staying up late at night, even though we would prefer to be up with the rising sun, or at least I would.

The girls were up before me today, which is unusual.  But they did not miss a night of sleep like I did.  They only beat me by twenty minutes or so, though.  So not much.

Today was a day of eating leftovers.  Dominica has been cooking at home for every meal since we have gotten to Greece and there are lots of odds and ends to finish up so that we don’t have them piling up in the fridge and going bad.  We are generally terrible about that but today we made an effort and pretty much cleaned out the fridge.  This is awesome, we are eating on a much tighter budget than we have in a long time, maybe ever.  Even in Spain, where food was cheaper, we were eating out and getting prepared food much more frequently.

Life in Greece is very different for us than life in Spain.  How much of that is because we are on a little island, or because of differences in jet lag, or in work schedules or because this is not our first, long stretch in Europe we have no idea.  In Spain we were instantly out and exploring the area, including our first weekend taking a trip across the region by car and staying in another town.  Here, we have barely left the house.  I’ve been out a few times and Dominica and the girls for only one car ride to anything other than the one trip to the grocery store.  Maybe we are just used to things and not that excited to explore any more?  Maybe we are just tired.  We have not even gone out for a single meal, yet.

I supposed, being our fourth long term live in country in a year, we are just used to the constant exploration of new places and are not so excited to get out as much as before and we are so much more tired and looking forward to the chance to just be at home and relaxing.  It has been quite a busy year, we need downtime, too.

Liesl is back to school today.  They have taken some time off for the holidays and the move but today is full school again.  I did her word work with her and she and Dominica butt heads something terrible and it can easily take an hour.  I’m able to keep her on task and we get through it in twelve minutes without the fighting.

I spent a lot of time posting today, it was an incredibly active day.  Everyone has recovered from the holidays, I am imagining.

This evening Luciana talked me into playing catch with the girls for maybe half an hour or more. We played using the stuffed reindeer pillow that Luciana got for Liesl for Christmas.  They call it “reindeer catch” and they had a great time.

We managed to get everyone off to bed nice and early tonight.  The girls went up around eleven.  Dominica and I just a little after that.  The girls begged for me to sleep up in the loft with them again so I gave in.  My back will likely really hurt tomorrow, there is no room up there for me to toss and turn like I need to so my back tends to be pretty sore after trying to sleep in a small bed.  But it keeps them happy and helps them to get onto a good schedule as they are willing to go to bed and actually go to sleep hours earlier this way.