Category: Greece

Posted on

Back on the road

After Dias, we were officially back on the road, packing, unpacking and changing locations almost every day. First night we stayed in Akrata, north of Peloponissos, in a lovely camping with genuine Greek hospitality and very beautiful sea. Akrata used to mark the half-way stopover on our way to Lehaina every summer: I never knew there was such beautiful sea over there.

Driving was a bit of hell, it was clear the kids got un-used to the camper and we had to build it up again. Especially Alex was looking around scared, with a what-the-hell-is-this-all look. He clearly had no memories of driving and because he cannot move while in his chair, it was no fun at all. The driving part was even worse the day after, nightmare really! As if this was not enough there was an increasing number of people packed everywhere. Which exploded that very night, because we could not find anywhere to stay. I knew it would happen one day and that was the day. The only available spot in an area of campings did not fit us, so, ups we have an issue. It took a lot of talking and talking, and before I collapsed from tiredness I was able to persuade a nice lady to let us free camp in the parking space of her camping – without electricity though. Giving us electricity was a red line, because she had reached max capacity and the night before a fire had started in the electrical cables. Fair enough, there were pine trees all over, no thanks, I’d rather live longer. HThe landscape was nice, with a wide beach, clear water and a bar. And four rows of umbrellas, you cannot have it all.

And then we went to Lichnos, our last destination in Greece, closeby Parga. We were 40km from
Igoumenitsa and had checked the tickets million times to verify we indeed depart from that port. You could notice an overall risk averse attitude from both of us, to avoid another drama – at least we learn from experience.

Lichnos is a camping with quite some reputation, because of its beautiful landscape. It lays in an amazingly beautiful bay, with rocky high edges, trees and thick sand in the middle. Really very beautiful.

The reviews mentioned very arrogant personnel, but we thought this must have been of a one off angry guy that got probably pissed off at the reception lady. It happens. How wrong we were! Let’s say the management there and reception people are the definition of the people you don’t want to have around you when on holidays. And in general. Their arrogant, unhospitable, ironic and fake attitude was impossible to miss and will be hard to forget. Every time we needed to interact with them we were almost fighting with Martijn: ‘No, you go this time’. ‘No, you’. *frustration*.

And how the camping operates, with extraordinary high prices, dirty toilets and overworked staff, is probably a good reason for a complete shutdown. Such a pity these businesses exist, solely relying on their popularity and monopoly, knowing that whatever they do or not, they will be full anyway. I feel very sorry about all foreigners (so 80% of the people there) that drove all the way from their countries to experience this. I also hope they won’t stay with this image as something representative of Greece, this would be such a great pity.

Nearby city Parga was no different. Beautiful, but over the top crowded. The amount of tourists was bizarre, a real invasion. Again: unless it is off peak season and you don’t want to be treated like simply a number, do not go there.

After 3 nights we left Lichnos, heading to Igoumenitsa. Every time I leave Greece I get this knot in my throat and it feels as if a part of my heart stays behind. The feeling doesn’t get any better with the years and now that I have kids it probably becomes worse. I am so lucky to have been born in this paradise, raised with the Greek values, among incredible people and in places that have inspired zillion artists all over the world. And cannot help feeling terrible for departing to a more ‘comfortable’ life, leaving behind a nation that could use some of the help from all of us abroad in its current dramatic situation, to emerge from the shit it entered the past decade. I may advocate from abroad and educate others, I can visit Greece often and raise my children as half Greek, but still I am not there.

On our way to Igoumenitsa we refused to do anything at all that could jeopardize us being on time. We arrived 3,5 hrs earlier – ok, we exaggerated a little. Imagine our faces when we heard there would be a minimum of 3 hrs delay on the ferry. YOU CAN NEVER GET THESE STUFF RIGHT. Ever. And we did what everyone else did: camped in the harbor:

I brought souvlakia, we put Alex and Gioia in bed and just then the boat arrived. Kids out, lots of crying from the little fatboy who was forced to wake up, entering the boat, queueing for the cabin key, someone that felt sorry for me with two kids flipping giving me priority. Thank you stranger! Gioia ended up sleeping at midnight that night – personal record.

We were thrilled to be back in the camper the day after: by far the best and most comfortable accommodation. Back to bella Italia, even Ancona seemed not too bad. We spent the night in an agri-camping, in a beautiful green hill with view to wineries and a village with a castle. We were alone when we arrived, Gioia had her private playground – quite a contrast with the panic of Lichnos. Martina would come to find us after work for dinner, last time we met was 7 years ago in our housewarming party in Amsterdam. Che bella Martina! Sweet, funny, energetic, so lovely to see her again and catch up on everything that happened in between!

And then, the official return trip started. No more friends visits, parties in the mountains, chilling next to the sea, lunar eclipses and lovely people. We have one week to go back and if you think this is comfortable enough, I will say yes and no.

Last night we found a nice camping again, in a hilly green landscape, so we realized this last week can still look and feel like holiday instead if a race. We spent quite some time with the 4 of us in the swimming pool and ate like pigs in the camping restaurant. Hopefully one day I will be back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but this can never happen in Italy. Also not in Greece.

Back on the road, we are heading home. I try to ignore the forecast for rain in Amsterdam the day we arrive. I hear you thinking: you cannot have it all. WHY NOT?

Posted on

Leaving Dias, return loading

Eventually we stayed 10 nights at Dias and we loved it. It took me 9 days to get out of the camping, so imagine my surprise when we walked to a nearby taverna the night before we left. I was staring at the olive trees, as if i never saw one before. Martijn had been out twice, once to the super market and once to pick up cash, so his enthusiasm for seeing civilization again was limited.

It was a bit emotional to leave for a number of reasons. First of all: the kids loved it. Alex got the ‘Buddha reputation’ and you could hear a lot of sounds from him, but crying was not one of them. Gioia was making new friends every day and, not aware of the social norms (of being discrete for instance), you could find her constantly at people’s tables, caravans etc.

We had become permanent residents and had a good view of the camping happenings. Daily fights because people would reserve spots and would find other people staying at these spots once they arrived. A snake and the panic before it was exterminated. A baby dog that was found and was adopted temporarily by our neighboors. The enthusiasm when a permanent ‘parent’ was found for the puppy. Birthday celebrations. And then..the lunar eclipse. Oh-my-god! We put the kids to bed and stayed by the fire till 02:30.

Then, it was very nice with the guys. We were synchronized only at the closure of the day, but enjoyed it a lot every time we were together. Giannis and Philippos came too, it has been a while since we last met. Anthi and her boyfriend joined too, we soon became quite a group. Gioia and Stratis love each other and the running-laughing-role playing reached infinity levels every time they met. So nice to see them together! Elena and Alex interacted a bit less, but we know what they don’t: they will be best buddies.

And then…Manolis! Uncle Manolis came by with 2 friends the night before we left, he caught us by surprise! He met Alex for the first time and squeezed his beloved niece.

And finally it was emotional because Vathi marked the most southern spot of our trip. For me, leaving Dias meant the start of heading north, which in turn meant we started the way back. 5 more days in Greece and then the boat again. How is it to sleep in our house in Amsterdam again? What does it feel like to see the kids so short during the day and not all day long? How is it to not be with t-shirts and flip flops? I know people will say its warm in NL, but will it still be warm in two weeks? And how does it feel to not jump in the most amazing sea on the planet every day? I don’t remember anymore.

Two weeks left. We have limited time for the way back, so little room for fuckups. *Big laughter again*. Let’s see.

Posted on

Luckily, half-Dutch parenting

I have read my posts again and realized a couple of things: among others that according to my posts I am the totally neurotic girlfriend with a totally cool boyfriend. Luckily, I still have friends, and people in general don’t mind me being around – relief.

But I also saw me mentioning Dutch and Holland in a pretty one-sided, maybe unfair manner. So, in fairness to the country and all 2-meters tall people I know, I need to say that many things during this trip made me realize how lucky I am to live and raise kids in Holland. Besides having the resources to be able to have and raise kids in the first place, which is not so obvious unforunately for everyone.

Before the trip I checked with the kids doctors if there is anything in particular I should be aware of during the trip. Without a single exception, all doctors and daycare professionals were extremely positive about the endeavour, repeating what a fantastic experience this will be for the kids and the family bonding. They all wished me ‘good holidays’, period. Not exactly the Greek way, where reactions were less enthusiastic and more of: ‘you must be crazy to bring a 5-month old in campings for two months’. It is not possible to avoid stereotyping again, but let’s say on average the Dutch way of raising kids puts way more emphasis on the enjoyment, freedom and parents sanity than on how often and in what way you clean the milk bottles and how often your kids need to eat solids. And this is obviously reflected on the kids, who learn to be free within limits, but still free, and independent. They learn to believe in themselves and their skills early on, trust their insticts, and are happy to see their parents laughing and not losing their mind because there is too much sand on their clothes.

Gioia learned to use the camping toilets being 3,5 years-old. Alex learned to sit unsupported on a dusty mat outside the camper. They both learned to sleep next to each other, within minutes after we put them to bed. Gioia told me she will miss having Alex next to her and asked if he can sleep sometimes in her room in Amsterdam (Sissy -> melting). I can definitely say this is all the result of the Dutch way of empowering parents to do what they feel is right for them and their kids. If it was me alone, we would definitely feed the kids with beef every day – something in the DNA of Greeks, that says meat only is good. Despite research proving the contrary, we know better, because we invented democracy and you need to shut up. Full stop.

Posted on

Some improvements

People, after 6 weeks on the road, we have some improvements to propose in the way things work. We need to make business cases, issue RFPs and get to work. Soon.

1. Toilets that empty themselves, as Martijn suggested earlier. Come on, we can go to Mars nowadays, something should be possible from a technology/ automation perspective. We are open to solutions with reasonable prices.

2. Hammocks that move themselves. We all now how extremely annoying it is when this moment comes that the hammock stops moving and you still haven’t fallen asleep. Unacceptable. We need a solution soon. Something like the mechanism that rotates the lamb in the Greek Easter, adapted for hammocks. Just saying. All proposals accepted.

3. (This is very innovative and needs society mindset change): We need silencers for kids. The kids can still scream, if they want, they will just wear this special thing in their mouth so that the noise level decreases. It is impossible otherwise.

(Citing an average dialogue with Gioia, occurs some million times a day:
Gioia: says something very loud
Sissy/Martijn: ‘Less loud moppie, we are not alone’
Gioia: continues in the same volume
Sissy/Martijn: ‘Shhhh, less loud, we need to respect our neighbours.’
Gioia: ‘Why?’
Sissy/Martijn: f*ck, there we go with the ‘why’ story again.
Gioia: goes on in high decibels, nothing changes
Sissy/Martijn: (with sweet voice, though starting getting nervous): Gioia, I am next to you, you don’t need to scream
Gioia: notices some irritation from dad and mom, but continues making het point very loudly.
The next scene has Martijn and Sissy banging their head on whatever surface is available.)

Healthy people come from healthy families, and you can’t have a healthy family without sane parents. All proposals accepted.

4. We need a smart vacuum cleaner for the campers and the area outside. Something that can be smart enough to know if it is dust, or sand, or food or liquid, that can lift the ladders and the bags on the floor when cleaning and can make a nice ‘beeep’ when done, so you know you can enter your clean camper again. When working outside, the supercleaner needs to evaluate the wind situation and work accordingly. Meaning: if the wind insists on blowing in the same direction with the same power, either do nothing and try again later (no point in cleaning), or keep cleaning and recleaning like a maniac, as per a certain user setting.

5. We have many trees growing in very unhandy for the camper positions. We need a way out – literally. We propose horizontal and vertical saws, placed on the top and sides of the camper that cut what whatever is on the way. We imagine weid landscapes where a square shape is left behind between trees, but we believe people will get used to it and might even like it eventually. High priority.

6. Washing up. We have no clue how to solve this, all options are good options. We are open to suggestions.

Posted on

Why leave?

I will not do any mentioning to the wildfires in Greece. The topic makes me having goose bumps and I try not to think about it.

This vacation is getting to the next level of comfort (and laziness, the two often go together). The kids are 100% used to campering and they are so happy, and in many ways self-entertained, that we can have moments of conventional ‘rest’ during the day. Martijn and I work like in a factory, picking up tasks with eye contact only and performing them over and over again (three times a day washing up, unlimited times cleaning and then tidying the chaos etc). Martijn remains the sanitary person – I will be for ever grateful – and I do laundry (superannoying, but way less disgusting).

Since we left camping Melissa, we came to camping Dias, closeby Gytheio, in the south. We know the area pretty well (Arna is not far) and have been in the camping next door a couple of times in the past. Armand, Alf we wave to you both from the other side of Taygetos! The landscape is more wild, the campings have this ‘semi-abanonded, semi-organized’ style and gather, as a result, more free-stylers. We missed the bright green fences of shiny campings when we first came, but now have become one with our environment and we truly love it.

We came here to meet Manos, Myrto, Sofia, Kostas and the kids, who stay in small apartments closeby the camping.

We are not very synchronized, but meet and share the kids ‘jump up, jump up and get down’ craziness, which multiplies infinitely when they are all together. The parents eat great food together, exchanging stories and experiences when no kid has pied/wants to sleep/wants to eat/jumps up like in an electroshock or is missing. You know what I mean. Yesterday we celebrated Dimitra’s first birthday by the camper with BBQ and birthday cake and all. It was supernice and I think the love affair Dimitra – Alex (signs already visible in the selfie above) started getting a bit too obvious. Alex, she is older. Dimitra, hands off.

(Alex grabs the phone and types ‘hgdxghjj’ every 2 minutes, so I suspect this post will take very long to finish).

We were supposed to stay here for 2-3 days max, but we are already six nights and neither Martijn nor me show any sign of wanting-to-leave. I mean, why leave.

1. The camper is next to the sea. We don’t even need to take our stuff to go swim, just walk, jump and come back. Priceless. Why leave?
2. We have dinner with the moon falling over the sea opposite to us. Why leave?
3. We are with friends, who have kids, with whom we have shared tons of experiences together – someone asked yesterday if Myrto and I are sisters. Why leave?
4. We have the best neighboors on the planet. The 60-year old Germans that speak only German to us, but are so cute. The ones with the VW van of the 70s, a Swiss that speaks Greek with a Brazilian that has a permanent smile, who live in Vienna and also have a 4-year old daughter. What a gift, Gioia is in heaven. Why leave?
5. (I kept it for the end). What an amazing sea again. Wide beach, transparent water, thick sand and the day of crazy winds and rain close to us, with Thailand like landscape. You should be crazy to want to leave.

We started discussing with Martijn what is the minimum number of days we need to leave here to make it to Igoumenitsa for picking the boat.

The sad thing is: 3 weeks left. I know for many of you 3 weeks of remaining holidays sounds like a complete luxury, but for us it is still sad. We will miss everything too much :(.

Posted on

Slow motion

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:

Posted on

Getting closer!

Bella Grecia we are getting closer! I wave to my mom and beloved friends on the opposite side, we’ll see you very soon! We just crossed Brindisi, going even more to the south. In two days we’ll be back here for taking the boat.