Expat Life: My Big Fat Greek Birthday!

The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.

--Frank Lloyd Wright

Sunset - The Stone House on the Hill

Some birthdays are bigger than others. And some birthdays are better than others.

My 65th birthday, celebrated in Greece on Monday, was one that will be remembered as being both bigger and better. Let me tell you why. . .

Why Bigger?

Age is a bad traveling companion.

-- Proverb

Hundred year old olive trees

There’s no denying it, 65 sounds old.  By most measures in today’s world, it IS old. Well, maybe not compared to olive trees here in the Peloponnese or Greece itself, but still. . .

Speeding towards Hydra island a few weeks ago

It is an age that comes with constant reminders of how fast one is speeding towards ‘the ultimate finish line’. About six months ago the first 'red flags'; the paperwork and forms began arriving to apply for retirement. In other words, I took the first steps towards becoming. . .ahem. . .a ‘pensioner’.  How can that be?!?! (The good news is that next month my first 'pension' payment will be deposited into my bank account.)

Our last forwarded mail packet included a letter from the U.S. government. Inside was my Medicare card. . .the U.S. government’s mandatory health-care program for senior citizens. The directions said to put it in my wallet and never leave home without it. Thus,I am now a card-carrying old person as the card I carry identifies me as a Medicare recipient! (BTW, it doesn’t cover U.S. citizens outside the country.)

A contemplative moment on Kefalonia island

With all those red flags of advancing age, a vagabond like me starts thinking differently about travel. I found myself one day last week calculating how few years I/we likely have left for travel and how many trips could reasonably be fit into those years. ( I didn’t like those numbers, so quickly quit thinking about it.)

Bottom line: No longer is the world at my/our feet, just waiting to be explored on future travels, someday.  Now, I am thinking of travel planning as a race against time:

 'Let’s go (or do) while we are still able.'
'We can’t keep putting off (certain activity or outing); we need to do it while we still have hips and knees that work.'
'Let’s save that for when we are really old gummers.'

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.

-- Seneca, 4 BC Cordoba, Spain – 65 AD Rome, Italy

In recent years we’ve forgone those wrapped birthday gifts choosing instead a ‘birthday trip’ (what would you expect from travelers like us, right?)  A mid-July birthday falls in the height of travel season and the height of high temperatures, so we’ve learned to delay my trips to a more tolerable time of year. On the other hand, why put off travel even for a month or so? Perhaps we should go somewhere soon. . .

Gerolimeneas harbor - Peloponesse

Why Better?

'Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.'

-- David Bowie

The Stone House on the Hill - July 16th, 2018

So here I am, now living as an expat in Greece, thousands of miles from the world in which I’ve always celebrated my birthdays.  What to do?

Well, I decided to celebrate as I had planned to do a few years back.

[Back story for those of you new to the blog: We came to Greece to purchase our home in July 2014. Closing was set for the day before my birthday. I’d planned to celebrate the new home and the birthday at some Greek taverna, flinging my napkin and shouting, 'Opa!'. The deal fell through. We spend the birthday bouncing between the bank and hotel room, wiring our funds back to the U.S. Not the celebration I'd envisioned. Fast forward. . .]

So . . .I finally had that party at a Greek taverna. . .at the edge of the sea. . .within walking distance of our home.

Voulimeneas taverna overlooks this beach

And how glad I am that fate had forced me to wait because. . .

Let the party begin

. . .by now we know the tavernas in our area and I could pick one that holds a special spot in our hearts.  The family that runs the place have taken us (and every other expat they know here) under their wings and made us welcome, have helped us in times of need and who simply make us feel like part of their family.

The setting was perfect. . .Elena made sure everything else was as well

“Tell me how many people. Tell me what food you want. Do not worry.”  Elena said to me. It was that simple.

Bouquets came from my own Greek garden

. . .and now I have a garden so I could make my own table decorations using olive branches, sage, mint, geranium and rosemary cuttings mixed with bougainvillea and lantana blooms.

The Scout picked the lemons from our tree and I made the cake

. . .we could harvest lemons from our tree and I could make myself a lemon birthday cake.

Friends and neighbors helped ease me into 65

. . .and I could surround myself with friends and neighbors who make up my new world. Some who are new to our ex pat world and others who've helped us over the hurdles we've encountered along the way - some who've known us since before the house purchase. All who've enriched our expat experience.

Sunset from Voulimeneas taverna

And I concluded as the day came to an end:

Age is irrelevant. Ask me how many sunsets I’ve seen, hearts I’ve loved, trips I’ve taken,

or concerts I’ve been t. That’s how old I am.”

-- Joelle

That’s it for this week. Wish I could have invited you all to join us – what a party that would have been!  But we do hope that where ever your travels – in real life or armchair – take you this week that you will find a reason to celebrate something.  Fling a napkin into the air and shout, ‘Opa!’ – you’ll feel 10 years younger, I guarantee it!

Linking with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend

Greece ~ Summertime and the livin’ is easy. . .

“Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.”

                                                                           -- Jenny Han

A summer's eve at The Stone House on the Hill

The cicadas, those miniature merrymakers of summer sambas, have filled our Greek world with their song since late May. They are the troubadours who herald in the summer season known here as kalokairi, summer.  On this Monday afternoon, their sizzling melody seems as intense as the Mediterranean sun’s rays.

My garden is wilting, the olive grove dry. . .

They aren’t the only ones singing. In recent days while doing my morning chores at The Stone House on the Hill I’ve been humming a customized version of that Porgy and Bess tune, ‘Summertime and the livin’ is easy. . .’, substituting ‘my garden is wilting, the olive grove's dry. . .’ for 'the fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high'.

Summer - the Messinian Bay looking toward Kalamata

Summer, kalokairi, arrived bringing temperatures in the high 80’s and low 90’s (30C and up), sunshine and blue skies. It is a season that has beckoned us for three years to stay longer. This will be our first summer spent entirely in Greece.

And so far we are finding it to be as postcard pretty as it appears in those tourist promotion photos!

In the past month or so, we have had houseguests with whom we’ve toured our area. Other times we’ve headed out on own. Sometimes we go no further than our village or our deck to remind us just how spectacular summer can be in Greece!.

(For those new to the blog and our story: we live just south of Kalamata – near Stoupa on the map to the left - in the Greek Peloponnese. We moved here full-time last October.)

So on this sweltering summer afternoon while I am enjoying our recently installed air conditioning, I decided to give you a quick look at summer in our Slice of Greece.

South to Limeni:

Limeni, Peloponnese

Less than an hour south of us, Limeni is the name of a traditional settlement, a settlement of the family Mavromichali.  Petros Mavromichali is a famous leader of the Maniot people back in the first half of the 19th Century, particularly noted for leading revolts against the Ottomans. The settlement is built along the shore of one of the prettiest bays in our area.

Tourist accommodations are dotting the hillsides at Limeni

Today the area is a tourist draw as new ‘small settlements’ – rentals and vacation accommodations -- are springing up on the hillsides overlooking this horseshoe shaped harbor.

Because Limeni and its neighboring New Oitylo village at the harbor (old Oitylo sits high on a hill above the two) are so close to us, it is an easy destination for a long lunch at one of the many tavernas or restaurants that line its long stretch of beach.

This area plays prominently in the area’s pirate history, but that’s a story for another day. . .for now we are now off to another seaside destination, just outside Kalamata. . .

North to Kitries

Whether you  follow the beach road from Kalamata, or head to it from an inland route, Kitries will literally be where the two roads intersect and end. We’d lived here for some time before we got around to following the recommendations of friends and finally visited the place. But once we saw it, we knew we’d be regulars to this picturesque spot on the Messinian Bay.

Fishing boats at Kitries

Kitries was our Sunday drive destination a couple weeks ago. Much like Limeni, it takes less than an hour to reach this small protected boat harbor, filled with an array of fishing craft. Once upon a time, the place was an important anchorage, home to five of the Beys (Turkish title for‘chieftain’) of the Mani with large fortified walls. Any signs of walls are long gone, replaced by tavernas and restaurants.

Tavernas at Kitries 

Those tavernas were coming to life during our morning stop and preparing for a summer Sunday onslaught of sun-seekers.

Speaking of onslaughts. We are often asked by somewhat incredulous first-time visitors: "How did you find this place?!”  Difficult as it is for our American friends to comprehend, the Mani, is a popular tourist destination and quite well known on this side of the Atlantic.  Let me show you a section of that beach road to Kitries:

Sun and beach seekers filled the road along the bay

For miles (kilometers) cars were parked bumper-to-bumper on the beach road. The only other place that has looked like this in our travels has been the North Shore of Hawai’i’s O’ahu island during surfing season!

East into the Mountains – Milea

Milea aka Milia village

We never miss a chance to take our guests up into the Taygetos Mountain range, the backbone of the Peloponesse. One of our favorite stops, less than 30 minutes away is Milea (aka Milia) village. The village, actually is located on three levels, but our favorite stop is the section in which the main road cuts through. You can’t drive this route without literally cutting through town (but that could be said of a number of places in this part of the world as well).

Can you spot the Pappas?

When visiting, we pull off the road and park to the side of the church, near the one taverna in this part of town and the nearby small bus stop.  We seldom see signs of residents, although on Easter we finally spotted the Papas in the church talking with another set of tourists.

The village taverna

Philip, a retired-from-New-York-business-owner, has returned to his village and runs the only taverna in this part of town out of the home in which he was raised. He regales us with tales of growing up in the village – back then he walked the old trails and cobblestoned kalderimi to get to the harbor to catch a ferry to Kalamata. The roads we consider tiny are still relatively new in this part of the country. Summertime is a good time to head out on those roads, slow our pace, and sit and listen to stories of yesteryear.

Unexpected finds on the mountain roads include this mural on a shed

“Rest is not idleness and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

                                             -- Anna Godbersen

Kitries, Greece

“Summertime is always the best of what might be.”

             -- Charles Bowden

We hope that whatever the season you are experiencing, that you have the time to get out and experience its sights and sounds! We’ll be back next week and hope to see you here! Thanks for you time today and safe travels to you and yours.

Linking up this week with:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend

Greece ~ Living the ‘New Normal’

‘We have a normal. As you move outside of your comfort zone, 

what was once the unknown and frightening, becomes your new normal.’

-- Robin Sharma

Ice cream for lunch - a new normal in Greece.

Today we ate ice cream for lunch. 

With the Mediterranean sun shining and Grecian temperatures climbing, it seemed the thing to do. 

It wasn’t the first time, as we’d done the same thing two days ago. . .and a couple weeks ago. Giving in to the temptation of this frozen delight is really beginning to be a noontime normal. What I find interesting is how ab-normal it would have seemed back in our lives in the U.S.

Normal has become an operative word in our ex pat lives. We seem to have two standards of normal, the old one and the new one. Since last July when we made the decision to move from our Pacific Northwest home to Greece as full-time ex pats, we’ve had days there and here in which nothing seemed normal and other days when things were remarkably normal.

One thing we’ve learned in the last year is that nothing can turn the context of normal upside down faster than moving to a new country and adapting to its lifestyle and culture.

Normal - conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

Greece - a normal scene

The mere fact I’ve given so much thought to normal and am now writing about it, isn’t normal by my old behaviors. But with more time to think about such things these days, ponderings such as this seems absolutely normal. What I am most surprised about is how quickly we human beings can adapt to new environments.  And that seems to be a key to whether or not ex pat life agrees with you or not. 

I've read any number of articles about why ex pats return to their home countries.  Bottom line seems to be: they wanted the normal they once knew. The challenge of a new language, new culture, new environment was too much for them.  With only nine months of full-time ex pat life under our belts, we are still in the infancy of this adventure; so in our case, bring on the new normal!

Normal is as Normal Does?

On Sunday we went on an outing back into the mountains, an area we'd never explored before. We found four new villages that will require return visits for further exploration. To get to them though, we traveled on roads that once seemed frighteningly narrow and winding. These days those once-unnerving roads seemed quite normal.  A new normal to be sure, but normal all the same.

You wanted to go where?

.

The photo above, taken last week during a ‘normal’ trip to the grocery store, illustrates an entertaining new normal for us.  Old normal for us was frustrating bumper-to-bumper traffic jams on multi-lane roads that brought cars to a standstill. In this world’s  ‘new normal’ it just might be a cow that stops us in our tracks!

Whether traveling roads, shopping or cooking, there is usually something that occurs or is required that gives a moment of pause and we have to think a bit harder and do things a bit differently but that’s why we came here. What amazes us is how quickly so many of these ‘foreign’ things have started feeling routine and normal.

Agios Nikolaos on a June evening

As those of you’ve who’ve been with us awhile know, this will be our first full summer here. We’ve had brief samples of both June and July but never have experienced a full three-month run of summer.

“Is this normal?” asked our recent guests a couple weeks ago, when they made their way around tables that filled the village’s main street. “They tell us that the crowds will get bigger in August,” we replied, but whether they are normal size summer crowds we have no idea.  Ask us again next year.

Stoupa beach on a June morning

We had a storm hit this week that brought high wind and heavy rain for a couple of days to most of Greece, including our area. The road between Athens and Corinth was flooded and closed for a short time, and ‘nornally’ dry river beds were filled with gushing water. 

“Not normal, for this time of year,” long-timers told us. We’ve spent three springtimes here and haven’t seen rain like we had this June, but whether it is normal or not, we couldn’t tell you for sure.

Cloudy skies in June - normal or not

Two weeks ago we woke one morning to find our water tanks bone dry. Not a drop of water to be had out of any tap in the house. (Of course, we had houseguests at the time. So the water truck was summoned and tanks of water delivered to return us back to normal.) 

Our water supply comes to us from ‘the Municipality’ (an entity we have yet to clearly understand) and when we reported our drought they seemed surprised at our situation.  The locals tell us that’s because we ‘normally’ don’t run out of water until in August, when the reservoirs are 'normally' pumped dry or the water diverted to the tourist-filled villages along the sea.

Pantazi Beach - near our home

One new normal for us is the lack of travel plans for summer getaways. Our startled friends say, “But you ‘normally’ go somewhere!”  We’ve never before lived in a place as spectacularly beautiful as we do now, so we’ve decided to join those sun-seeking tourists arriving each week in the villages, and enjoy this place we call home.  Perhaps it will become a new normal for our summers.

Mesimeri spent on our deck

Our staycation here has us completing our chores and errands before the clock strikes 12 each day which allows us to luxuriate in a favorite new normal: similar to the Spanish culture’s siesta, we have in Greece mesimeri which means midday and generally refers to the time between 2 – 5 p.m. but also means ‘quiet time’. 

Scenes of the village where we run our errands

This guilt-free quiet time is ‘normally’ spent resting, napping, reading and catching up on correspondence. Then it is time to think about food and drink; sometimes consumed at home and other times at one of the many tavernas, cafes and restaurants that come to life in the summer. Eating and drinking out with regularity is another new normal that we’ve adapted to quite well.

Dinner at Stathi's is a culinary treat - how many mezes can we eat?

We eat different food at a different time in far different settings than we did before moving here. But as with eating ice cream for lunch, going to the grocery store, watching weather and all things here the new normal is feeling quite normal these days!

We hope that your travels take you – armchair or real time – somewhere that is ab-normally wonderful!  Thanks for being with us again this week as we took a bit of an introspective look at ex pat life.We’ll be back again soon with more tales of our Grecian Summer and do hope you’ll be along to enjoy it with us!  Safe travels to you and yours ~

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend

A Summer’s Day ~ And a Greek Island Getaway

The boat was cutting through a liquid sapphire as it sped towards the island of Hydra.

The sky above us, cloudless.

The Mediterranean sun, intense.

It is summer in Greece.

And we were heading to a Greek island.

The Sapphire Sea

We’d dropped our houseguests at the Athens airport and were returning to The Mani, the place we call home these days. With plans for an overnight stay somewhere along our route, The Scout veered us a bit to the south of the main highway that links us to Athens and aimed our trusty Hi Ho Silver towards Hydra, one of the Saronic Islands off the east coast of the Peloponnese.

Leaving Metochi for Hydra

The Saronic islands are some of the closest to Athens; a quick ferry or catamaran trip away from Piraeus,where the Athens port is located. We opted for the ‘road trip’ way of getting there: driving along the coastline of the ‘first finger’ of the Peloponnese to Metochi where we left our car and took a small passenger-only boat to Hydra. It was an even quicker ferry trip: 25 minutes. (Cost was 6.50-euro per person each way and parking 5 euro for each calendar day).

The coastal road to Metochi; guardrails festooned in oleander

These spontaneous, without set destination, outings are the kind during which one of us will  say, “This! . . . This, is why we moved here.”

This is why we sold our home of 30 years put our old life in a storage unit in the far away U.S. Pacific Northwest and moved to a full-time life in Greece.

A road trip that takes you to a Greek island. No bottom-numbing airplane journeys. No huge suitcases.

Simply a whim and and overnight bag.

Ferry from Metochi arrives at Hydra harbor

Hydra (hee-draw) is one of our favorite island destinations. This time of year, there are plenty of  ‘beautiful people’ strutting along and enough mega yachts arriving at its compact crescent-shaped harbor to give it that feel of Santorini or Mykonos. But it has managed to balance tourism with its small island charm that continues to make it warm and inviting.

The last time we stayed here was on a blustery night in late October a few years ago. That time of year, fFew commercial establishments were open. We followed a local man who greeted the ferry with a sign ‘rooms for rent’ to his hotel.  The sheets were thin; the room clean. The island, simply magical. We vowed to return one day.

We were charmed then by the fact that no motorized vehicles (except a tiny garbage truck) are allowed on the island.  You walk or hire a donkey, horse or water taxi to get around. The harbor area is so compact it is easy to get around on foot.

Aperol Spritz break for harbor-watching

This time of year bars, restaurants, coffee shops and ice cream parlors ring the harbor with outside seating. . .perfect places to sit and soak up the ambiance of Greek island life. Mega yachts share the harbor with the village fishing fleet (fishing and sponge gathering were once major industries here but now tourism takes top billing.)  Ferries and water taxis buzz in and out like busy bees.

Name your destination and these fellows will get you there 

Some of you may know of Hydra because Canadian song-writer Leonard Cohen lived there for many years and penned several tunes there. The island is included in Henry Miller’s 1941 impressionist travelogue, The Colossus of Marousi. 

Mega yachts always add a touch of class to a harbor

This trip we arrived without reservations – on a late Thursday afternoon – we wouldn’t recommend arriving without them this time of year on a weekend or anytime in July and August.  We found accommodations at a charming hotel – Hotel Sophia  - on the waterfront. Opened in 1934, it was the first hotel, they say, in Hydra. Our modern, air conditioned room with en suite, was 90 euros a night and included a full breakfast. (The sheets were thick and wonderful).

Hyrdra Harbor at night

As day tourists headed out, Hydra turned up the charm. The harbor quieted for the night and cafes that had been bursting with diners and drinkers hours earlier emptied. The night’s stillness was broken only by the clanking rhythms of riggings on the ships.

Nighttime scenes and sounds are only surpassed by early morning when the pack horses arrive to take loads from supply ships.

Heading to the harbor in Hydra

The work crew paraded past the entry to our hotel so with steaming cups of coffee in hand we followed them around the corner to the harbor to watch the show; rituals of daily Greek island life that has continued through the decades.

Just one more for balance. . .

If you are planning a Greek island getaway, do put the Saronic Islands on your list. We don’t think you will be disappointed! We plan to return to Hydra—then hop through the chain of island by ferry.

Just a bit more . . .

That’s it for this week from The Stone House on the Hill.  We hope you’ll be back next week for another installment of life in  Greece. We thank you for the time you’ve spent with us on this little road trip. Until we are together again, good wishes for healthy and happy travels ~

We are linking up with a fine bunch of bloggers this week at:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend