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 :(.