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Published: November 9th 2010
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Malia's main beach - aka meatmarket Sooo, hello my friends. Yes, again, we are alive, and yes, we know we suck. Again. But whatcha gunna do?
If you can cast your minds back to our last blog, written approximately around the time of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, you may remember that I was writing about our teaching adventures while we were in sunny Crete (I was writing from Crete, we didn't teach there). Even though that was way back when, in the interests of completeness this update is all about our travels in Crete and Portugal, and what we've been up to between then and now (sneak peek: we're in Italy at the moment!). (Also Drew deserves some credit as he did write a bit of this one while we were in Crete, it's just been languishing in My Documents until now. So there's a bit of a mix up with the I's and what nots. You'll decipher it.).
We were slightly apprehensive as we fell out of the sky and landed in Crete; we had requested a quiet holiday from our travel agent, only to discover that Malia (the town where we were staying) is sometimes described as the 'Ibiza
Crete of Crete'. Our fears were soon put to rest when the representative from our tour company explained that Malia has lots to offer everyone, 'whether you like house, trance, drum and bass, hard-house or 80s'. Not to complain though, as we had a wonderful time in Crete, and found that even Malia had more to offer than getting pissed and hooking-up (GPHU).
Crete is a sizeable stepping-stone between Africa and Europe and was home to the Minoans, the first advanced European culture. It's somewhat a cradle of European culture, although most of it is hidden under layers of clay, stone and kebab wrappers. On our first venture outside of Malia we travelled to the palace of Knossos, home of King Minos (for those Classics fans out there, yes, home of the Minotaur). The palace was different to the other ruins we'd later encounter as it had been partially rebuilt, with rotten wooden supports replaced with faux-timber made from concrete. Some of the more cultured tourists scoffed at the supposed desecration, but I really enjoyed having something to look at as I often feel like I'm praising the emperor's clothes when I 'ooh' and 'aah' over ruined foundations.
The
Crete most interesting discovery that we made at Knossos (apart from the fact that wandering around ancient ruins in the midday Creten sun is inadvisable) was probably the copper piping; the Minoans, in about 3000BC (I can't remember the dates, I only remember thinking that I can't even begin to imagine people living on that very spot FIVE THOUSAND years ago!) developed robust systems of copper piping to carry drinkable water from mountain springs to the palace, and to take waste water away again. Crazy when you think that Modern Greeks have to buy bottled water due to the poor quality of the piped variety. I suppose it's a trade-off between not having convenient drinking water and life with a Minotaur. Toughy. Our time in Crete was mainly spent on the beach, but we did manage a couple of other touristy trips, including Heraklion (capital of Crete), Spinalonga (an island where lepers were sent to live out their lives until about 50(?) years ago - very moving and slightly creepy), Agios Nikolaus (one of the four main cities on Crete), Arkadi Monastery, Rethmyno (another of main cities) and Fodele (supposedly the birthplace of El Greco (it's been discovered that he was
Drew and a midday fishbowl - why not? actually born elsewhere; not sure why the bus stopped there but I suppose the village relies on tourism now).
These trips only took up a few days out of our 3 weeks on Crete, mainly we spent a lot of time at the beach, which required a quick trip down Malia strip - a long collection of grungy open-air restaurants hawking English breakfasts, interspersed with dingy clubs touting profane drinks. I didn't realise how prudish I was until I was offered a Sexy F'er, Head F'er, Crazy F'er or Sex on the Beach, and I chose sex on the beach (the drink) just because I didn't want to swear! However, once we had made our way through that den of iniquity (which is no way a reflection on Crete or Greece itself, just on the type of people that tend to frequent that resort!), we were rewarded with an amazing beach, crystal clear water, blazing sun and cheap sun lounger/umbrella combos. Bliss! Needless to say, after 3 weeks on the beach and by the pool, we were pretty tanned - the guy who ran the hotel bar told me I looked like brown chocolate! But he was a bit
Success! creepy in all regards, hawking 'sexy Greek boy or girl' along with cocktails and light snacks.
Anyway, after an relaxing time in Crete we jetted back to London for a brief one night stopover before heading to Portugal with a group of friends that we made while working in Nottingham. Portugal was AWESOME! We spent two nights in Lisbon, which is such a beautiful, fun, vibrant city with a great atmosphere (and excellent cheap drinks) that I think we all wished we could have spent a bit more time there. Highlights include wandering around in the sun and coming upon amazing views around every corner, drinking 1 Euro drinks out of plastic cups on narrow bar-lined streets, going to John Malkvich's nightclub and seeing Grandmaster Flash (the seminal Hip-Hop DJ, not a really good chess player in the nude), and having lovely, long meals for only 10 Euro.
After an all-too-short time in Lisbon we jumped on a coach/bus and headed down south to Albufeira on the Algarve, for 5 nights of sun, sand and Super Bock (Portuguese beer). We stayed in some lovely apartments and pretty much just hung out by the pool or at the beach
Drew on a beach in Malia (Crete) (swimming as nature intended) , consuming beer, sangria and red wine (Dunedinite Drew picked us out a bargain 20 litres for 15 Euro) and eating everything with copious amounts of Peri Peri. Not much information I know, but you can check out the pictures.
After Portugal we were back in the UK and headed down to Southampton for a few nights (as we do) before staying with Nic in London for another few nights while we looked for a place to live. The plan was to live and work in London for a couple of months, before travelling around Italy and Germany and then coming home. We found a place to live, and Drew found a teaching job in Camden, but I couldn't land a job in cut-throat London (every man and his dog is picking over temping scraps these days). So, we thought, why stay in London and let it suck us dry when we could be out and about travelling again? So I spent a solid 2 days planning a trip for us, and one week later we had upped sticks and hit the road again, embarking on a whirlwind tour of Italy, Austria and Germany, before
Knossos Palace, Crete heading back to Scotland and the UK. And now here we are, in Italy, telling you all about our lives once more, and hopefully being more on time with our updates.
There, done. That wasn't too hard, not sure why we procrastinated for so long! No internet at the moment though so this will have to wait a wee while longer before seeing the light of your computer screens.
Ciao belli.
P.S. Due to not working in London as long as expected we've cut our trip short by a month (but hey, a month less of work is no skin off our nose), so prepare for our arrival in mid December.
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