Woke at 6:30 feeling fine. brushed teeth, packed up and waited for the cab which showed up promptly at 6:55. The driver checked our tickets, our taxi voucher, loaded up our luggage, and drove us to the ship. The drive took less than 5 minutes. We could have walked it in 10. Now we had an hour and a half to kill, no breakfast, no coffee. I was not happy but Ari and I talked about the effectiveness of castle walls, why sieges worked, learning Greek, what Kalymnos will be like, and the time flew by.
The ferry to Kalymnos is a small local boat called the Dodecanese Pride. It is fast but makes several stops. From booking the tickets from Kalymnos to Athens I learned that I should have flown. Ari flies at half price because of his age and the inter-island fares are cheap. Ari and I are flying back to Athens for about $80 each. The two ferry tickets to Kalymnos were about $50 each, so I bet I could have saved half a day by flying and paid virtually the same price.
On the ferry they broadcast a Greek Orthodox Sunday service and I was struck by how much more similar it seemed to a Orthodox Jewish service than other Christian services; a lot of chanted prayer by men standing around, vestments that looked like they grew out of tallitim, no mehitsa but women in a group away from the men.
Ari and I both got a little seasick on the trip out, nothing bad just some queasiness. We soon recovered and read, played computer games, and even got a short programming lesson in. I'm afraid it was not my most shining moment as a teacher; I assumed knowledge of HTML that Ari didn't have and lost him. Instead of working through it, he gave up and I decided to let it drop for the time being and come back to it later.
We arrived in Kalymnos and were met by Elleni and Yannis, a charming couple. She teaches Greek language and literature at the local high school so I have judged her qualified to teach Ari a few more words and he is a civil engineer. They drove us to their house where we'll be staying the next two weeks. It is stunningly beautiful with views of the sea and the mountains. Ari, who is hour most socially adept child, immediately befriended the children Vasilis and Ireni, who to my delight speak mostly Greek. They played soccer, foosball, hide and seek, tag, jump over the ball, etc. while I wrote this.
They have goats, chickens, dogs, and cats. Ari is enjoying this.
Later in the afternoon Ari and I walked down to the local beach and had a late lunch. His left sandal completely fell apart so we had a slow walk back. We discovered that there is a restaurant that serves Chinese, Mexican, and Greek cuisine near the beach which I can't wait to try it.
Ari went out with Vasilis to a friend's house but I insisted that he make the visit short so that he could get to bed at a reasonable hour but when it was time to go to bed Ari9 discovered ants in the bedroom and freaked out. Our hosts came up and sprayed, but Ari was so upset that he slept in the living room.
A note on Hungarians:
Until now I had trouble understanding some aspects of Hungarian language, culture, and thought. For example, in Hungarian the word for watermelon is Görög digne, literally Greek melon. I never understood where that came from, but when I arrived here my hosts showed me that they had a watermelon waiting in the refrigerator for us and thinking back to all of the Greek meals where they brought out watermelon at the end and the pickup trucks selling watermelon by the side of the road, I have concluded that maybe not everything Hungarian is designed only to confuse me. Watermelon is truly the Greek melon.
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