Day 9 - Old Chania

We woke up, ate a breakfast served with fresh squeezed orange juice and Andrea went exploring. She came back happy to report that she'd fallen in love with a beautiful town and wanted to go on two snorkelling trips, meaning we'll skip the giant canyon. The first snorkeling trip was today at 2PM.

We spent the rest of the morning walking the town. The kids had quests (to find 5 examples of Venetian, Byzantine, and Ottoman architecture). The town was truly beautiful and pleasant to walk through.

At 2PM we went to sea with captain Evangelos. First we circled an island with a rare mountain goat (only 150 exist, all on this little island) and saw the cree-cree goats from the boat. We then snorkeled in three spots, including over a large troop transport airplane that was shot down in 1941. They served local Orange Juice and fresh fruit on the boat.

We gave the kids more quests, touch the bottom for a point, dive correctly with a snorkel for a point, bring back a rock, a sea shell, and a living thing for a point. We said, as a joke, catch a fish in your hands for 5 points. Ari surprised us by catching a fish. It flopped out of his hands when he brought it to the surface but we were impressed enough to give him the points.

There was a couple on the boat with a 4 year old boy and an 18 month old girl. They'd been living in Athens for two years, but were originally from Tokyo. They were tickled by our ability to speak Japanese and soon Zachary and Makoto were playing Jan Ken Pon.

After our trip I surfed the net for an hour while Andrea explored the jewelry stores and the kids redeemed their points for a trip to Starbucks.

We went to dinner. Found a nice restaurant, sat down, realized how expensive it was and decided we couldn't afford it. We explained to the waiter that we really messed up and would need to leave and he said "Oh no, all the prices on the menu are all for double portions. If you order individually we'll cut the price in half."

After dinner we went walking in Old Chania and I too fell in love with the city. Bustling with people; shopping, eating, drinking, talking... We listened to street musicians playing mandolin, guitar, violin, and a drum shaped like a box that the drummer sat on and got a surprising variety of sounds out of. We visited a Greek book store, ate crepes from a crepe stand, came home and put the kids to bed and Andrea headed back out to get her own fish massage.