Eressos Montage

So we haven't blogged for a bit, but we've been here in Skala Eressos on Lesbos for about 10 days or so. This entry is kind of a compilation of things we have done on the island:

We're staying on the lower floor of a house that belongs to Eleni's relatives. Because this floor isn't connected to the one above it, we essentially have our own house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room. The house is maybe 150 yards from the actual beach. The entire town consists of about 20 bars/restaurants, a couple grocery stores, some random other shops and a couple actual houses (but few as close to the beach as we are). There are two roads, both parallel to the beach. The first road is just a string of restaurants set up along the sand, and the higher road has a movie theater and deadends into the house we are staying at.

Each night the outdoor movie theater plays a different movie, so we check and see what is playing then decide whether or not to go. So far at least a few of us have gone to No Country for Old Men, Made of Honor, Iron Man, P.S. I Love You and The Happening. Mike and Mark were the only ones who went to see The Happening, but they came away immensely satisfied because it was a wide cut that had the boom mic in every single shot. Literally, every shot except maybe five. Both of them were also convinced that it was truly intended as a comedy because 1. Mark Wahlberg can act, and he has the exact same furrowed-brow expression in every shot 2. A lot of the lines and situations were intentionally very funny 3. There's no way anyone could think the majority of the movie was suspenseful, including a director who has directed very scary/suspenseful movies in the past. Key lines (from memory) include:
"Why you eyeing my lemon drink?"
(Mark Wahlberg to the math teacher): "Don't go to Princeton to get your wife!" "I have to. Would it feel better if I threw some numbers and statistics at you?" "Yes!" "There is a 62% chance that Princeton won't be hit."
"Are you trying to steal my stuff?" "No!" "Are you trying to murder me in my sleep?" "What?!! No!!"
(Said by the math teacher, dramatically, to a hysterical woman as they're about to die) "Do you want to do a math riddle?" "Aaaah, cry cry..." "How much money would you have if I gave you a penny on the first day of the month, two pennies on the second day, and so on?" "Aaah...20 dollars?" "No, more than that." "30 dollars?" "...keep going..."
(Said by an army guy, after a town has been killed): Cheese and crackers!
There were probably a lot more, but the boom mic was too distracting for us to pay attention sometimes.

Once the town runs out, the beach continues, and just outside of the main cluster of buildings is a shack where you can pay to go tubing or waterskiing. One of our first days here, Mike, Eleni, Sam and Mark went tubing behind a boat. In Greece, there is no need for "waivers" or "regulations" or "safety," so the driver basically drives in a rapid series of circles until you get thrown off the tube. We got thrown off the tube, but it was so much fun.

Past the shack is a river (it runs into the ocean during the winter) that is filled with turtles. We have sat out on the beach there a couple of days, and eaten at the cantina right next to it. There are a couple types of restaurants; the ones that are big Greek tavernas that serve lots and lots of delicious fried cheese, salads, skewers (souvlaki), fish, etc., the smaller cantinas that serve crepes, "toasts" (grilled sandwiches, always ham and cheese), drinks and desserts, and the cheap gyro stands that you can just get a quick meal at. The cantina near the turtles served crepes. At many of these restaurants we have broken glasses.

Alexis, Eleni's cousin who lives above us, owns a boat that he will drive us on anytime we want. So far, we have taken it to a different beach a few minutes away that is much less crowded. We sat on the sand as Mrs. Marmarelis kept making Aaron look up and everyone else just kind of relaxed. Several of us tried to play "Beach Ball" (smashball) with little success. After a while we ate at the cantina on the beach, which was more taverna style. Mr. and Mrs. Paulin are here as well, so we ate with them and traded stories and political views.

Back at the main beach, there is a large (35 feet or so) rock a little ways out into the ocean. We rented a paddleboat and paddled out to the rock which has several spots you can jump off of. We picked the second highest one and everyone jumped off. Some of us were more scared before the jump; some of us who lacked depth perception were more scared in the air. Sam landed in a sitting position and got major bruises on her upper thighs. In order to help get certain people psyched for the jump, Ramos' name was mentioned. Once everyone was back in the water, we had all formed memories in our brains.
The paddling continued to a secret cove called "Minavra," which is the Greek word for "Minerva," which is strange because it's really "Athena." At any rate, the cove is completely surrounded by rocks and is shaped like a claw. There are lots of sea urchins in it. This blog may be unexciting but it is factual. Eleni is making a mud mask right now. I kind of want to add another Happening quote now: "Plants respond to human stimulus. They proved it with tests."

The night before Melina and Francesca (Melina's friend from Dartmouth) left, we sat on the beach with Vasilis, Eleni's uncle, and played guitar. We sang Beatles songs, some Cat Stevens, and some Rolling Stones. Unfortunately, although we purchased a guitar in Athens and have been playing it nonstop around our house, none of us knew many songs all the way through so Vasilis played most of them. He would take requests and then try to figure out the chords, which meant that a lot of verses had rhythm only accompaniments. It was a lot of fun and we'll probably do it at least once more.

A different day we visited the ruins of Sappho's palace. HISTORY BREAK: Eressos is the hometown of Sappho, a famous Greek poet whose erotic love poetry to women spawned the term "Lesbian" after Lesbos, the island Eressos is on. Most of the restaurants here are owned by lesbian women (from England), and several lesbians make pilgrimage visits here. For the most part, these aren't the lesbians that you see advertised in pop-up ads but rather the lesbians that you see on the news explaining that they are very much in love if only they could get married. At one dinner, people kept staring at Mark so much that he thought something was wrong with his face (nothing is); in reality a lesbian couple was just making out in the middle of the restaurant behind his head. Anyways, Sappho's palace was pretty cool; one underground room we could walk into. There were other ruins that more closely resembled a castle that Eleni called Sappho's palace, but we were skeptical. Later, as we were walking down into the village, Eleni pointed out and called it Sappho's ocean, at which point we no longer recognized her as tour guide.

The last sentence of the last paragraph was false.

Some days we just stay in and watch Band of Brothers. Currently we are on episode 7. Whenever anyone gets injured, we offer to give them morphine.

Speaking of people getting hurt, Mike got a back spasm a few days ago. It was after we had gone on the "Flying Fish," a large raft that is pulled behind a boat and then flies up vertically into the air...kinda like parasailing on the water on a raft. Mike was hanging out in front of Parasol, the main bar here, when he got the worst spasm he's ever had. We all gathered around him for a while- he was lying down on the street while we got doctors. When the doctor came, she gave him two giant shots of liquid with the biggest needles we had ever seen outside of Seattle ZING still kinda bored of this blog.
Mike was ultimately fine, but there was talk of getting an ambulance to take him to Mytilini (the other side of the island) for x-rays. After a long verbal battle with the Greek doctor, Mrs. Marmarelis succeeded in keeping Mike in Eressos, and her womanly instinct for less treatment proved correct.

Today we made pesto pasta and Mark got to serve. It had chicken in it along with pork because the shop only had so much chicken.

Yesterday Vasilis took us on an archaeological walk around Eressos. He pointed out some old Mycenean ruins as well as some churches and ancient temples. It was a very nice time of night to walk through the hills. We saw land that belongs to Caitlyn Calfas' family. Apparently Eleni is related to the Calfases, and they are from Eressos! Who knew! Caitlyn did because she told Mark on Facebook.

Last night Eleni's Greek friends took us out on the town because they were disappointed with how early we had been going to bed (1, 2 AM). So, except for Aaron whose stomach has been bothering him for a while, we all had about two dozen (mostly diluted) shots through a combination of straight drinking and playing games like Buzz and Never Have I Ever. The Greeks were gunning for us, using phrases like "Never have I ever eaten at Taco Bell," "Never have I ever been to an NBA game" (Sam hadn't), and "Never have I ever lived in Los Angeles." Then, around 3:30, we went to get burgers in the Platia and head to the nightclub NAOS, which had a lot of lights. For most of us, it was more than we had ever drunk before, and while (perhaps ironically...) none of the boys actually got overly tipsy, it was a quite a night and a slightly rough morning. If this blog were being written by native Greeks, this last paragraph wouldn't have even made it in because it's pretty much assumed that you do this every night. The fact that we have not has led to verbal threats by one or two of Eleni's friends, who fortunately are often too drunk to carry through with them.

And now we're pretty much caught up chronologically. We'll hopefully do another entry before we leave (we're renting Vespas tomorrow, and that is sure to entertain!), but it's so lazy here that there's really too much time to write another one.

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