Day: July 22, 2018

We entered the sea hybernation mode, where you become one with the sand, and start cutting sentences in half because it costs too much effort to talk. You know, when your heart beats just enough to keep you going, and the biggest dilemma of the day is beer or wine (or ouzo). This mode.

I will never forget Martijn’s first holiday with my Greek friends, in Irakleia (I know non Greeks never heard of this island). In legendary Irakleia we spent a week, I think, under a tree. This.

[Background for people not familiar with the Dutch way of being: A Dutch that respects himself needs to be active. Very. Active. Sit and chill makes you feel guilty. You need to be busy, efficient and do all types of sports. You cycle to all directions and elevations with all weather conditions, preferrably with the wind against you to prove your Dutchness. And then you do trekking and some climbing for digestion, because you didn’t sweat enough. You get the point.]

So Martijn survived tropical temperatures and because he is not blond and when lying under a tree you can’t see his very Dutch height, people started talking to him in Greek. Ha. Ha. He didn’t have a nervous breakdown and we didn’t break up after this. Relationship crash test: CHECK!

Back to the present: When we arrived at Patras, after a night with me and Alex having become one on the narrowest bed I have ever seen, we had to reboot. As in: throw away all the dairy products (10 minutes was not enough to also empty the fridge), fill the tank and put some order in the hurricane chaos of the cabin. And we drove to Lehaina, to meet my mom!

Introducing Lehaina and ’the farm’ house there needs a whole different chapter, which I won’t write now, but let’s say few people had the chance to spend their summer the way my sister, my cousins and I did. The thing is that we didn’t know whether the camper could make the curve over the bridge to the house. It did! Ole!

We greeted aunt Gianna and the dogs, saw the house, loaded fruits and olive oil to the camper and left to the next camping. My mom had booked a room next to us, so we would spend the next 5 days together at the sea. The camping was truly amazing, large spaces, shadows, sea in front of us and contrary to all norms Dutch-free (full of Germans, though).

Very nice to introduce the campering experience to my mom. At the end of the holiday together, my 63-year old mom, who has not been fond of camping, said: she liked camping and she can even see herself doing this WITH A TENT! Is this not a huge success???

And the sea…man..the sea. Do take notes: Camping Melissa, Kastro Killinis. Looks like this: