Gerogia’s uncle drove us to the airport in the morning so we
could catch our 10:55 flight to Kos.
We got to the airport at 9:30 and the bloody e-ticket
machines were either out of paper or incredibly slow loading. We eventually got
our e-tickets and checked in. Customs in Athens were the strictest out of any of
the other airports. They made me take my laptop case out of my carry on bag,
take my laptop out of its case, open it up and take out the battery, which is
kind of understandable considering they had a bomb explode in their
intelligence service office the day before.
The flight to Kos only took 50 minutes and was fine, we got
a cookie on this one unlike the Qantas flight. We arrived at Kos and got in a
taxi straight away to go to Mastihari to catch the ferry. We got tickets for
the ferry last minute and the captain of the ferry invited us up the front of
the ferry which was pretty cool. The trip to Kalymnos took 30 minutes and was
pretty choppy.
George Frazis (our teacher) met us as we got off the ferry
and we went to a cafe, I had my first frappe of the trip. After the cafe we went
the hotel to drop off our bags. After the hotel we went to the school where we
will do all our studies and got a chance to go online for the first time in a
while which was good. I also got a chance to skype Luke and have a chat to him.
After the school we went to a little cafeteria/bar to watch
the soccer. We met up with George’s brother here who is on holidays from
Athens, he and his wife invited Georgia and I in to look at their new house
which is amazing, and has one of the best views I’ve seen. We watched the soccer,
drank some coffee and chatted with the locals, George’s cousins children were
also there and the youngest seemed to derive much pleasure from incessantly George’s
brother, who often referred to the child as malaka, thiavolo and skatouli. I
also got a chance to call home at this stage
After the soccer we went to George’s father’s grave with his
brother because it was George’s fathers birthday, we met the priest (who was
also George’s best friend through primary and highschool and) there and he said
a little blessing for George’s father. Papou would be proud of me, the priest
put his hand out to me and I only shook it, I refused to kiss it.
After the graveyard we went to get something to eat at a
restaurant, it was pretty tasty, we had Kalymnian salad, stuffed lamb (mouroui)
and other mezethes. At dinner we were
privileged enough to hear many yiayia-esque lectures from George’s brother
about how he dislikes the names Greece and Greek because the Turkish gave them
to the country and the real name is Hellas and they are Hellenic people.
Apparently it got him in a bit of trouble when he was captain of a ship and
refused to right that they were from Greece on customs forms, he said they were
from Hellas.
After dinner we walked through the mazes that are the back streets of Kalymnos and ended up
back at the hotel where we watched the soccer again (and you know how much I loooove
watching sports) and went to bed.
