Always be early, and always count your change

May 27, 2010
18:36
Plakias & Preveli, Crete, Greece

Two things to remember: always be early, and always count your change. Also, while you may be the most amazingly beautiful female specimen I’ve ever set eyes upon, that doesn’t mean you understand how to use such a complicated device as a camera. But I really appreciate your willingness to try.

I’m going to start by explaining that bit about the girl. I was at Preveli beach today. I’ve seen around town postcards of Preveli beach which has a big rock that kinda looks like a giant mushroom sticking out of the water (you know, skinny base, large top—it’s rare to see rocks formed like that, they tops usually fall off). I thought it would make an excellent picture—me in front of the big mushroom-looking rock. Well, I found that rock, and it is, indeed, exactly what the postcard made it look like.




But because I was alone, I figured I could either set up a tripod, or ask someone that was there to take a picture for me. It just so happened that quite possibly the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my entire life (to be fair, there were at least 20 women on that beach that would’ve also been considered for that title. I’ve probably met a thousand girls that I would categorize the same way—and that’s not counting folks from TV, movies, or models that I’ve never met) was just getting up and ready to leave the beach and was standing in the exact spot I wanted to take the picture from. So I asked her if she would take my picture, and she agreed. The thing is, she didn’t speak much English (and she didn’t speak enough of whatever language she usually speaks for me to know where she was from), but I explained to her what button to push, and told her I was going to walk out into the water a bit. She ended up taking two shots. The first one:




Was of my backside as I was getting into position, and the second one:




She had her finger over part of the lens. LeSigh. But that’s alright, this set is actually more amusing to me than had I got an actually perfect picture of me and the rock. And if I really want a nice picture, maybe I’ll do a photoshop hack.

But I’ve skipped ahead of the story quite a bit. Let me start from the beginning of the day.

The day started out surprisingly great. I think I woke up the earliest I’ve woken up (on my own, with no alarms or anything) since I got here to Plakias, did my exercises and went into the main common room for breakfast. As it turned out, I was actually there too early. They hadn’t even opened up yet—and they open at 9am for breakfast. So I plugged in my computer and started surfing the net. Responding to emails, downloading new TV shows so I’d have something to watch tonight, and you know, regular internet stuff as I waited for breakfast to open.

Once they were ready I ordered my standard two fried eggs and bread with butter, got my chopped and mixed vegetables (and turkey meat) that I had previously chopped up and put in a jar out of the fridge so I could mix them with the eggs when they were ready. I had actually asked Amy, the cook, if she’d be willing to throw in some of my concoction—which was just green pepper, onion, a clove of garlic, and some chopped up turkey meat—into the pan as she cooked the eggs. She told me she wouldn’t do that because it would ruin the pan (?) but she’d give me a pan and eggs and I could do it myself. Me not enjoying cooking I figured I’d let her just cook the eggs how she liked and I’d add the veggies after they were done. I’ve been doing this for days now, and it’s been delicious.

So I had breakfast, had done all my morning internet stuff, and realized it was still quite early. There’s one bus a day that goes to Preveli, and that’s a place I’ve wanted to see ever since I first saw that postcard as I was walking around the shops in Plakias. To add to that, apparently there’s a Greek-Orthodox monastery right near there (called the Preveli Monastery) that you can visit on that trip too. It has a great deal of history. If I’m remember what I read in the museum correctly, it was built by the Venetians (so I’m guessing 400 years ago or so—similar to the old mill and Venetian bridges) before the Ottoman Empire took over. It was somehow instrumental in the war for independence from the Turks (I think this is right—my Greek history isn’t all that great), and, they even specialized in hiding and secretly helping fleeing Jews (and other refugees) get across the Mediterranean into Egypt during WWII. I think I got a couple of nice pictures of the monastery, the grounds, the view, and me in front of several-hundred-year-old walls.



















Those last two with me in them are me standing in front of the oldest part of the building (as far as I can tell), which is where the monks quarters are.




This is the Chapel. Which they don’t allow photography or videography of any kind inside. Which is too bad because it was filled with beautiful guilded works and some interesting stuff. So I did my normal thing and turned on my iPhone recorder and stuck it in my breast pocket so just the camera poked out. Neither the sound nor video quality is great, but now you can get a glimpse into the forbidden world of the Greek Orthodox (are you supposed to hyphenate Greek-Orthodox?) Preveli Monastery Chapel.



Photography and videography was also strictly forbidden in the museum section of the monastery, which I also don’t understand. So once again, I did my thing with my iPhone. This one is longer (about 11 minutes total) because the museum was much larger than the Chapel, and I stopped to read a bunch of stuff. I’m not sure if you can make out the words on the stuff I was reading or not, so sections of this might be very boring for you. My favorite part is a fresco (I’m not sure if I’m using that word right—I should just say artist rendering, that covers just about everything artistic) wherein there’s a guy with a halo who’s chopping off another guy with a halo’s head. Later, another guy with a halo has the chopped off head in a basket and is carrying it around. Now, mind you, I’m no Greek Orthodox religion expert—or even a Christianity expert for that matter, but what the frak? Anyway, this video too has both poor audio and video. But what do you expect from an amateur sneak-videographer.



I think one of the reasons I’ve always been fascinated with and loved churches of any kind (chapels, cathedrals, synagogues, and whatnot) is largely because of the opulence. And, I suppose, the love that’s put into them. They really are works of art in and of themselves, probably because those building them are true believers—they want to praise God, or Allah, or whatever, and they do so by showing off their best handiwork. I also understand creating great works of art that is religious based and donating them to a cause you think worthy (i.e. your faith). But it seems to me, because most of these religions preach self impoverisation for the purposes of spreading help to those that need it, well, it seems to me these beautiful works of art should be sold to private collectors so that the money can go toward helping those the religions claim to want to help. It seems odd to me that churches own vastly valuable works of art. Just think of the Vatican alone. How many starving children could Michelangelo’s David feed if it were sold to a private collector (or even a museum)? Even when I was a devout Catholic, I remember the collection plates. And I remember thinking that the money raised in those collection plates would go to the poor. But after a while I realized that not much of it did. Most of it went to maintaining a beautiful church, and then later, building yet another church. It just always struck me as…I dunno…hypocritical. But despite that, the perceived hypocrisy was not what brought me to becoming an atheist. That’s a conversation for another time. By the way, I used Michelangelo’s David as an example of religion-owned property when in all honesty I don’t know who owns it. Maybe it’s in a museum somewhere. I’d need the internet to look up the accuracy of that statement, which I don’t have access to right now—but you get my point. There are dozens, thousands, probably millions of amazing beautiful works of art (not to mention the buildings themselves) that are so valuable the money raised by selling them might very well end poverty all around the world altogether. But once again, a conversation for another time.

After visiting that beautiful monastery, I wanted to walk to the beach. Many people do this—the bus runs once a day from Plakias to Preveli (and once a day back) and makes two stops in Preveli—the beach, and then the monastery. So to get to the beach from the monastery I had to walk about 1 kilometer back down the road, then follow a very steep decline to the beach.

The walk down the road was actually pretty nice (if not steep). There was a memorial that was half way there (that was closed, so I couldn’t go inside the grounds) that obviously had something to do with WWII. Everything I saw in writing was in Greek, so I didn’t know what it said, but it had two statues—one of a monk, and one of a soldier—and both were carrying rifles. Furthermore I read the date: 1941.




It was actually one of the hardest walks I’ve done since I hurt my back—and maybe one of the more treacherous. The steps in places were crumbling and in fact I slipped and fell twice. That’s not including the time I was walking down the stairs at the monastery and slipped and skinned my knee. I was worried that I might’ve made a mistake trying that adventure—especially since for the first time I was carrying a daypack on my back. I figured it was light enough, and I was strong enough at this point that I’d probably be okay, but after that hike along the road followed by that huge decent to the beach, coupled with the three stumbles I made, my back was really starting to feel it. I’ve been praying to all the gods—ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi (but not the scientologist aliens, they can go screw themselves)—all of them that I didn’t injure myself further or set my recovery back. By the time I got down to the beach it was clear to me that I needed to find a place to lie down. So I did. But before, I went to the only snack bar on the beach for a bottle of water and some information. The water was surprisingly cheap, only 1 Euro (cheap for a place that had a monopoly on water on the beach), and I certainly was thirsty. I had also heard that there was a boat I could take back to Plakias instead of trying to make it all the way back up those stairs and up that mountain to where the bus would’ve been. So I inquired about the boat as well. They said there was a boat, and it leaves at 3pm (which was about 45 minutes away) and cost 8 Euros. So I figured I could take my picture in front of that rock and lay on the sand for about 20 minutes before getting on board the boat that would take me back to Plakias with greater ease, or I could spend more time laying on the beach but have to climb back up the mountain for the 5:30pm bus (which was only 2.10 Euros). Because of the way I was feeling, I decided upon the boat. But I asked the snack-bar guy how I get on the boat—where do I go and whatnot, and he said just go on the beach at 3. He was not very specific. I finished my bottle of water by the time I had laid out in the sun for those twenty minutes (which was glorious, by the way—laying in the sun, not the water—well, I guess both really), and then headed back to the snack bar because I realized I only had a 50 Euro bill and didn’t want to have to make the boat driver try to break that. I thought I’d buy another bottle of water.

This is where the title of this blog comes in—never be in a hurry, and always count your change. By the time I got back to the snack bar, it was only three minutes to 3pm. I asked the guy if we buy the tickets on board the boat, and he said yes. I then asked for another bottle of water as I saw the boat heading toward the beach where they were going to load. While it was true what the man said, they load directly on the beach, he didn’t mention that it would be on the complete opposite side of the beach as where the snack bar was. So I quickly grabbed my change and water bottle and scurried (painfully) to the other side of the beach as fast as possible so as not to miss the boat. I made it to the boat on time, but when I checked the change the guy gave me, he shorted me 5 Euros. I paid 6 Euros for a 1 Euro water. Now, everyone I’ve met here in Greece has been amazingly honest and kind, so it’s very possible the guy just made a mistake. But damnit, never be in a hurry, and always count your change. I swear I try my best to do both of those things ALL THE TIME, and the one time I failed at both, I got screwed out of 5 Euros.

But it all worked out. I didn’t have to try to hike out of the Preveli beach area, I had a nice boat ride to Plakias, and even got some beautiful views of the Crete coastline.




If you look closely at this next picture, you’ll see the three beaches I hiked to that other day—the one with the resort (I don’t know the name of), then the nude beach, then the teeny tiny One Rock beach.




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