Greetings from Naxos, Greece!

Lookin' like lollipops on Naxos! Or maybe Lego man and Lego woman...

Welcome to Naxos! One of the Greek Islands in the Cycladic group, Naxos lies 200 kilometres south east of Athens in the gorgeous, ancient, incredibly deep blue of the Aegean Sea. We arrived on the last ferry on Monday night, having nearly missed it due to missing the train to Piraeus (the port in Athens).

We got to the station with 10 minutes to spare, then spent 5 looking for a cab to take us to our dock. Getting increasingly desperate at the lack of taxi's, we decided to run it, only realising the futility when we worked out the dock was at least half an hour's walk. Sighting a cabbie who'd stopped for a fag dockside, he agreed to help us and, after throwing our bags in the boot, took off to dock E1 like a formula one driver, weaving between cars and people with an urgency that was rewarded with a 4 euro tip. But we made the ferry, woohoo!

So we've been here for 4 days now and its fantastic (read: warm), fun (read: beaches, bars and shopping) and awe-inspiringly ancient. Its holds claim to the 6th century BC Portara, or great door, on the causeway which is all that remains of the Temple of Apollo; numerous Byzantine and Venetian churches, a medieval market home to a maze of tiny cobbled streets and traditional mountain villages.

In the spirit of the islanders we decided to hire a scooter and power our way around the north and centre of the island. Being only a little more powerful than your average lawn mower it took us all day at 60 kms an hour, but the scenery was well and truly worth it, and, even better, we got to wear lego-man helmets (see above). Stu took his off after a while as it was squeezing his enormous brain and clouding his judgement, better that than scoot off the end of some giant cliff face because he could no longer see ;p


As you have probably also worked out by now, yesterday we went horse riding with a local company called Naxos Horse Riding Club. The owners are British and were just lovely- one of the reasons we decided to come to Naxos was because it offered horse riding and I'd been banging on about it for ages. Stu, being a sport, was keen as well and as it turned out the lady's husband is a photographer. So, I got to go riding and Stu got to talk cameras. Perfect! He had a lovely, quiet little grey mare called Rita and I got a fiesty little tart called Marissa. But they were gorgeous, wonderful horses, and you'll see some more pics after we get home!

This is a pic of just one of the market streets lined with shops and restaurants which creates a fun 'old meets new' ambience. Most of the stuff in the shops in the old market are handmade and consist of clothes, jewellery, art galleries, tourist kitch and so on but its all really lovely and makes you want to stay and linger among the stones and white washed walls, wishing you had more euros and space to bring extra stuffs home.

Anyway, onto a few things that I've discovered on my travels this time around:

That "Freddocino" doesn't actually mean coffee and freddo chocolate. Freddo is espresso in Greek apparently, and I got myself all excited one day in Athens at the thought of a lovely iced-coffee with a freddo dipped in it - then tried to hide my disappointment when I couldn't see Freddo anywhere. Hmph. Despite that, tis a yummy iced coffee/chocolate frappe :)

That if you look at white wash without sunglasses, you will go blind.

That your hair will start to wash itself when it hasn't been possible to wash it for 2 or 3 (or 7...) days. I thank an inconsistent water supply in Accra for this realisation.

That a man who will stand patiently while his girl tries on frocks at 11pm is definitely a keeper. Summer wardrobe is now sorted for the approximately 3 hot days we get annually in Tassie tho...

That France and Greece have the best pastries, ice creams and desserts in the whole wide world!They are a sweet-tooth's paradise, yum yum yum.

The toilets in Syntagma Square (Athens) McDonalds are sans seats - Stu thinks its because people were using them to sniff drugs off. Thats all well and good but it makes for an unfortunate amount of thigh-burn when you don't want to sit on the bowl. Its alright for men. Sigh.

That I like donkeys. They're super cool and I want one.

Island time! A brilliant invention, though somewhat annoying until you realise what everybody's playing at. Shops open at 8:30 in the morning, close 3 til 6-ish, then open again until 11-12pm. It makes for a fun, party atmosphere along the paralia at night (dock front, or where its mostly all at).

Where are all the olives? We ate loads in Morocco and I think we've eaten about 3.2 here so far.

We went to the doctors here today, Stu had been having some pains in his chest like he'd dislocated a rib or something and it had been giving him a bit of grief lately, so we enquired at the hotel lobby about a quick doctors' visit to see if there was anything they could do or recommend. They said the best place is the hospital, you'll pay 3 euros and its really quick. So, feeling optimistic, we set off. Walking in, we see the receptionist in a white coat with her (or a) kid, running around her legs. She quizzes Stu on what the problem might be, then says "go through here and turn left, you'll see 3 beds and you can see a doctor here."

As she's explaining this a rusted and dented-looking ambulance pulls up, and 2 medics roll in an old, fat, semi-naked man on a guerney who appears to be a mysterious shade of blue and rather limp. The medics disappear with said blue man on guerney and we set off to find this room, only to be met by what looks like an emergency scene. Feeling like we shouldn't be here, Stu says "it'll be ok, we'll come back tomorrow if I get any worse." On our way out we see the receptionist-masquerading-as-doctor again, who tells us to go with her and she'll organise someone to see Stu. She leads us along a hallway where we meet a guy who says "ok come with me I'll get the doctor." Guy takes us to a GP's office and things are starting to look up until no one comes along and we're starting to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Finally a woman walks in and says "what? What do you want?" Explaining for about the 4th time what the problem is she rushes us out and into the emergency room, where Stu is plonked down on a bed and a dim-looking doctor asks for his name. She later tells me she has studied English for about 9 years but I seriously doubt the validity of this when the questions we ask turn into sign language. If you've ever tried to sign ARE THE SAMPLES READY YET, CAN WE GO? CAN YOU TAKE THE NEEDLES OUT?, you'll understand that this is actually very difficult.

Something clearly gets lost in translation because all of a sudden Stu is strapped to a bed and wiped down with that alcohol stuff. I'm ushered out, the curtain is pulled and I'm told to go wait. Uh, ok. He can't stop laughing which doesn't help. 10 minutes later the doctor comes to the waiting room with a blood sample and tells me to go with her to the cashier where I'm to pay 44 euros. 44 euros?! What happened to 3?! So we cough up with the dough, the sample is sent to the lab and I'm told I can go and see Stu. When I get there, I'm ordered to help him with the urine sample (omg) and at this stage the poor boy is attached to a drip. What the??! At the same time, a body, which appears to be the same shape as the limp blue one that was wheeled in earlier but is now covered up, sits in the doorway of the emergency room. When I stick my head out the curtain I see all the doctors and nurses sitting round having a chat. Lord help us.

Stu manages to do his own urine sample (hehe) and I give it to a nurse, who labels it and then tells me to take it over to the lab. What?! Why couldn't she bloody well do it??? In the meantime there are 3 children out in the hallway being given an almighty thrashing by their mother. Oh dear.

Facing a long and painful wait its not long til we run out of patience, and I decide to go and find the doctor and ask about the status of the samples. She stares at me blankly and I go into sign language mode, re above. Another doctor wanders past and she flags him down, he tells me that Stu is fine, everything is ok and we can go. Well, duh, we knew this! All he needed was for someone to look at his chest, ask the appropriate questions and go from there. Instead he had to go through all this which was completely unnecessary and what for? Struth. Afterwards he discovers he needs the reports to make a claim on travel insurance so we have to go back. I opt to wait outside lest I see any old dead men hanging out on guerneys in the doorway. Sigh.

Anyway that's about it, I think this blog post is well and truly big enough but I hope you've enjoyed it and we hope to hear from you soon. Love Stu and Cat xo :)