Boats, Beach, and Village Goodies

beautiful cut of beef from France

     Somedays we are very busy visiting friends/family or working on the house. Today we have a break from working on the house and it is raining out. The kids were excited by the Cretan rain storm. For the kids, everything is new. The storms are different.The appliances even make different sounds than ours. The washing machine has longer settings than ours. ( 1 1/2 - 3 1/2 hours for a wash load). The food tastes better. Exponentially better. So much better I would contemplate living here just for the real flavors of the food. The people that live here are the true foodies. Good food, grown locally and made at home is an integral part of their day.  Honey recently harvested, grapes cut and eaten during the season, pomegranates waiting to be harvested, Cretan fruits and vegetable awaited for and then eaten in season are just a few examples. At the butcher's today, it was unlike any experience I had. The butcher spent time telling us how he would cook certain pieces and where his meat came from and who his suppliers were. He told us to cook this cut of meat as a stew with onion and let the meat flavor the sauce. (But, we are feeding Theo so we fried it instead as a steak.) One could tell the butcher loved to cook and cook well.

a friend brought us pounds and pounds of grapes, harvested that day

honey, wine, sikoudia, tomatoes, rakomalo- all local, grown harvest or made by friend/family  and dropped off our house by each day!

grapes= Our lovely friend Alexis dropped this off on his way back from harvesting grapes

     I also  love Greece's laid back attitude and love of children. My two are kissed and patted on the head by many people. They tolerate this knowing it is a custom and it brings the old people happiness. When our kids' heads smell like cigarettes, we know someone has patted their head during the day somewhere. Here's a link for Greek fish  http://www.greecefoods.com/seafood/

Here you will see the boats in the old limani in Kolimbari. Paul  took Mano to the limani while Theo was studying and Mano hopped from boat to boat, as Paul did as a child. They ran into our neighbor Chiriako there.  Chiriako was prepping his boat for a 3 am fishing outing.  He told Mano fascinating stories of his time as a sailor in the Carribbean.
There is  new part of the limani( port). ( I'll insert a pic here when I take it) was  built next to the old one. This  is a sore subject for many.  Typical Greek inefficiency, corruption and mismanagement of funds and lack of foresight is evident.  The new port was built as a port for cruise ships. The cruise ships never came. Instead, the creation of the new port resulted in altering the natural break of waves and resulted in the devastation of the main public beach in town. Now, the strip that houses restaurants  is threatened with massive waves in the winter.  It has also forced the town to place massive boulders along the once beautiful beach to prevent further erosion.  ( I'll upload a picture here).

The Beach- a few days the waves have been rough and the kids have stayed in the surf. Finally, today they were calm and wonderful. Great place for kids! There are also tide pools near the monastery. Right by the beach  there are plenty of great places to eat or get ice cream.

Theo, Vasili, Paul

naptime in rocks

Mano swimming in the Med. 

We also had dinner with Nectarios....this trip is punctuated by gyros. Each trip is something different but this one for some reason...gyros.

Gyros- meat, french fries, tomatoes, yogurt wrapped in a pita. 

This was our dessert. The antithesis to american desserts. This was itty bitty
and free at the end of the meal. Jello on top of custard on top of crushed graham
crackers. Not really Greek but still good.

Kolymbari used to/kinda still is called Ribyiana. Ribyiana is more so up above Kolymbari and will bring you back to a bygone era. The small streets that create a maze, houses from Venetian and Turkish times, old fruit trees and more... Here is an enticing pic for tomorrow's post.

old,handmade cistern outside of old house

if you look closely you can see the old way of supporting a roof with
calamia or bamboo supports

The back is cemented!