Hey Everyone,
We have been in our new apartment for over a week now and are getting a bit more of a taste of Cretan life. And yes, people from Crete are known as Cretans. We know the hangouts of some of the stray (or semi-homed) cats and dogs, including the fattest pregnant dog I've ever seen. We now know that Cretans drive terribly and that when they drive with their hazard lights on, as they often do, it means watch out I am about to do something really stupid. No one wears helmets on scooters or motorbikes, and the coolest thing to do is wheelies in front of the girls.
It is nice here though. Greece allegedly has Europe's lowest crime rate and it seems pretty true. There is hardly any vandalism, for example the country is covered in phone boxes, literally covered, and all the Greeks use them, and not one phone has been pulled apart or wrecked or had gum put in the card slot. Also, at our apartment, the owner leaves a fully stocked bar unattended, without alarms or cameras every day and night in reception, along with a flat screen TV and other stuff without feeling the need to lock it all up.
The apartment we booked for the month is great and is saving us quite a bit of money on accommodation and food. It is one big room with a kitchenette, including fridge, sink and electric hobs, a dining table, beds, TV, cupboards and balcony with a seaview and an ensuite. It is not a clear seaview as we have a couple of buildings in the way but it takes us under 60 seconds to walk there, to Chania's main beach, Nea Chora.
The weather has been sunny 2/3s of the time so we have been on the beach lots. The beach is a sand beach with very clear, mainly calm water - great for fish-spotting with our googles on, which we do most days. We have been getting nice tans in the not-to-fierce sun as well.
We have been looking in the shops in the touristy Old Town. Both the Venetians and Turkish invaded at different times so the town has a Turkish Temple and Venetian buildings surrounded by a Venetian wall. The Old Town is where the tourist shops and restaurants are, where you get hassled to sit down and eat 'very nice food here', and can buy the handmade leather products, oil paintings and jewellery. We have also explored the new town, with its shops Greeks actually use, which is often busier than the tourist area.
Now that we have a kitchenette we can also go supermarket shopping and try and match Greek language products to the correct price. Then we go home and try and figure out how to cook them. Its also fun when the already annoyed checkout girls try and give you orders in Greek and you stare blankly back at them.
We have taught ourselves a bit of Greek, including the sounds of the alphabet and basic greetings so we are getting by. Nearly everyone speaks excellent English though. Sometimes when you're reading all the signs in English, such as 'NO PARKING', and all magazine names are in English and everyone speaks to you in English, you tend to forget you're in Greece.
We have also been occupying ourselves using the 1 Euro an hour internet, the cheapest yet, reading the free English-language books in reception, going to the local food and clothing markets to buy the ingredients for my version of Greek salads and going out to buy baklava from the cake shops with ridiculously nice sweet things.
We also went out to watch the rugby final, where a few people had managed to talk a bar owner into actually putting the game on. Greeks have absolutely no interest whatsoever in rugby. Luckily, two TV channels play English-language movies every night and we can watch Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Married with Children, The Simpsons and America's Funniest Home Videos originals with a very young Bob Saget.
So we have another three weeks of being lazy in Chania and hopefully the weather will stay nice enough for it and then we will be off to somewhere we don't know yet...
Hope everyone is good and well,
Take care,
From
Sophie and Ollie
