Day 16 -- A Lazy Day

Woke up at 5:40 to the sounds of chirping birds, cockadoodledooing roosters, bleating goats, and barking dogs or more accurately, woke at 5:40 because of the sounds of chirping birds, cockaddoodledooing roosters, bleating goats, and barking dogs. Ari woke up about 10 minutes later to the sound of... I told him he might as well come into the bedroom and go back to sleep on a real bed. I even offered to wake up with him for the day if he wanted me to. He climbed into the top bunk as I put in earplugs. The next thing I knew it was 7:50. Ari was in the living room playing with his tablet. We got dressed quickly and had a nice breakfast of eggs for me and a grilled ham and cheese for Ari.

The veranda where we ate breakfast

After breakfast we headed for the beach where Ari had a great time jumping in the waves until about one o'clock when we headed back for lunch with everyone, including the other guest family staying here (A children's book illustrator staying with her son).

At lunch I noticed something that I won't mention lest my wife take away my parenting license. As I sat talking to the adults after lunch Ari came running in because we had a Skype call from Andrea, Joshua, and Zachary. It was really nice to see their faces, even if the kids were too rambunctious to allow for a real conversation.

Ari with a view of Kalymnos in front of the house.

I forgot to mention one of the most interesting things from yesterday. Apparently, on Kalymnos it is customary, even though it's illegal, to celebrate with dynamite. Yesterday, we heard explosions echoing of the mountains. Yannis told us there that there had been the deaths and uncounted fingers lost over the last twenty years. Ari has suggested that we rent motorcycles. There are no helmet laws here. There's a reason I chose to put those seeming nonsequitors in a single paragraph.

Day 17 -- A day at the Beach

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of roosters who just came from China and must still be suffering horribly from jet lag. Put in ear plugs and went back to sleep. When I wrote up again it was light and everyone else was at breakfast. Ari was clearly not a fan of the goat's milk rice pudding but was trying to be polite. I quietly took his pudding and ate it.

Eleni asked him what he liked to eat for breakfast and he told her about banana bread. She was quite shocked and a bit horrified. I gave her the recipe. The cloves really threw her for a loop.

Ari and I took Sasha with us on today's adventure.  We went to town and walked the length of it in 15 minutes. It was beautiful but small. Then we went to the beach. The kids swam briefly and we went back home.

We had a bit of screen time and a programming lesson. We finished the guessing game and moved on to battleship, a great game for teaching arrays. Didn't get very far, but we're making progress and Ari's  learned some new concepts.

After programming we headed to the local beach, where the waves are higher because the kids enjoy playing in the waves more than swimming in calm water. I watched Sasha and Ari disappear under the waves, abandoned all hope of reading and stood watching them like a hawk. When they got too far out for comfort I went toward them to tell them to come close to shore and saw just how hard it was to get to them through the waves, so I decided that the only safe thing was to swim with them. We swam in the waves until I was cold and made them get out. By that time Sasha was so cold that he told me his fingers were numb.

Ari and I headed out to dinner at the Chinese, Mexican, Greek restaurant. The Greeks don't do spicy but it was nice to have a change anyway. On the way home from dinner Ari said "Today was a great day."

Ari fell into bed exhausted, or more accurately he fell onto the couch where he has insisted on sleeping since we arrived. I couldn't even rouse him to brush his teeth.

Day 22 -- My Son is an Angel

View of Kalymnos from the Monastary

This morning after breakfast, Eleni, Elina, all four kids, and I piled into the car and Eleni drove the seven of us to a monastary high on a hill. I got what looks like a great photo of the bay below. I'll post it when I get home.

We went into the monastary's church, built into a cave on the side of the mountain and Elina lit a candle for her mother's quick recovery. Ari was fascinated by the metal plates (each about two by four inches) with various body parts stamped on them that you could place on a peg to pledge a certain amount to the church conditionally, if the saint cured your (or your loved one's) ailment. Later, when I Skyped with Andrea she laughed because they were so like the small ceramic statues of body parts used to beseech the healing gods at Epidaurus. "3,000 years and it is still the same," she laughed.

Children swimming in the Mediteranean

Eleni had a long exchange in Greek with a woman working there who proceeded to dab holy water on the of foreheads of each child. Eleni explained to me that she told the woman that we did not believe in holy water but the woman insisted that the miracles that followed it's application would make is believe. She then explained to Ari that he must now behave like an angel.

We came home and I took Sasha and Ari to Kantouni beach, which is the kids favorite beach because it has the biggest waves. Ari has become quite the lover of frolicking in the waves. I usually stand on the beach and watch the kids like an eagle because I read an article about the increase in mortality rates from relatively tiny delays in responses by distracted lifeguards. If they go too far out I wade in and if the waves are high enough I go all the way out to where the kids are.

As soon as we got to the beach, as part of my continuing effort to have my father of the year award rebooked before my other children find out that Ari awarded it to me and roast him on a spit over a raging fire, I realized that while I sun-screened Ari in the morning, I didn't bother with the area under his t-shirt. I offered a choice of a short swim or wearing his t-shirt in the water. He chose a short swim and I promised we'd come back after lunch.

Kalymnos Monastary

For lunch we had a vegetable stew with eggplant, zucchini, potato, tomato, and herbs (most of which was grown here), shrimp, goat (also raised here), salad, bread, and watermelon. Sasha doesn't eat goat or shrimp so he got chicken nuggets. Ari ate potato, shrimp, potato, and bread, making his meal consist of perhaps four of the five things not grown by our hosts.

After lunch I talked to Andrea on Skype and Ari had some screentime with Sasha. I took a twenty minute nap and woke up to go listen to Ari's Greek lesson. I'm very proud of both how attentive he is and the amazing progress he's making as a result. In the last few days he's covered past and present tense conjugation and a ton of vocabulary. Eleni is very impressed with his ability to read Greek, which I have learned is far more difficult than it appears. For example, there are for letters and three letter combinations that make the sound "ee."

When the Greek lesson was over it was almost eight o'clock. The family wanted us to come with them to a concert followed by a movie in an open air theater but Ari and Sasha wanted to go back to the beach so, honoring my promise, I took them for a swim.

Shortly after we returned the family did too; they skipped the movie because Vasilis was feeling sick.  Vasilis went to bed while the rest of us sat in the yard and talked. Ari announced that he was hungry. I made peanut butter and jam for myself, Ari, and Sasha.

Aside from Ari and myself nobody had tried peanut butter, so the jar was passed around and declared delicious by everyone. I have promised Eleni a recipe for peanut butter cookies. Eleni served some sort of dessert with three layers that seemed to me similar to a Graham cracker/cream cheese crust, flan, and a very cherry jello.

We sat talking while the kids played chess. once Sasha's mom called him to bed Ari got bored enough to ask me to play. We started playing, but to make it fair, he was not allowed to look at the board; he had to remember the positions and call out his moves. Our hostest was so amazed at this that she began testing Ari's memory, hiding objects and asking him to remember which objects she hid where. This morphed into games of memory (remembering progressively longer lists of animals) and attention (find the killer who winks at other players to kill them).

This week, hanging or with Eleni, Gianis and their friends and family, I've had the joy of experiencing a relaxed sense of community that Andrea and I only had in Risley (and to a lesser extent at 36 Plaza). We often fervently wish we could have that again. I wonder how much of this is possible because of how much more free time I have, because of Ari's amazing  social grace which makes everyone pleased to be with him, because of Greece's amazing xenophilia, and  how much is because I was lucky ending up at Gianis and Eleni's home.

Day 24 -- Last Full Day in Paradise

I slept until a glorious 8:30 this morning and woke up a few minutes before Ari appeared to tell me that my eggs were getting cold.

After breakfast, sunscreening, and changing into bathing suits Eleni drove me, Ari, and Sasha to a beach a little further away than Kantouni. Ari and Sasha played in the waves while I watched them to make sure that they weren't in any trouble and built sandcastles while I watched the bikini clad girls to make sure that they weren't in any trouble. We bought drinks, caught killer ants, played catch and Ari completely soaked his shoes in seawater. Hopefully they will dry because otherwise he's completely trashed three pairs of shoes in one trip and I have no spares and no time to find new ones.

Ari asked if we could go to a taverna for lunch and I explained that we were going to eat with the family.  Much to my surprise, he told me that he really wanted to go because he would miss Greek food and that he wanted me to learn to make it, especially tzatziki and stifado. I think his enthusiasm for Greek food is in part because he has been so happy here that it has intensely good associations for him. I hope that I can help him preserve some of the memories into his adult life.

Eleni picked us up and brought us home for a lunch of lemon garlic chicken, mashed potato, corn, green salad, beet salad, and watermelon. On the drive back, she said that she'd been reading my posts. She wondered why I hadn't mentioned the bikini clad girls in Kos to her yesterday and went on to say that Andrea must really trust me because there was no way that she'd trust her husband for two weeks alone. I pointed out that perhaps it wasn't trust, but a desire to be rid of me that motivated her. I didn't point it out, but perhaps Andrea just realizes that I'm unlikely to be attractive to Greek (or any other) girls.

After lunch Ari did his Greek homework and we worked on battleship. The progress is slow but we've now had the computer place its ships (though we haven't yet made sure that they aren't placed on top of each other).

After battleship it was time for a Greek lesson which was immediately followed by a trip to the beach, the pool, and the beach again with Sasha and Elina. Elina and I sat on the beach and then by the pool watching the kids, enjoying the sunset, and sipping fresh squeezed orange juice.

When we returned home Ari told me again how much he has enjoyed Greece and that he would miss it. These declarations were clearly heartfelt. I  told him that if he continued studying Greek I would find a way to get him to visit again.

Eleni and Giannis made a feast in honor of our departure. Souvlaki, both chicken and pork, cooked outside on the grill, served with pita, tsatsiki, tomato, and potato.  The kids played soccer until the meal was ready. We had music, talked, and ate until we we're stuffed. Eleni gave me the recipe for tsatsiki but couldn't come up with the word for vinegar. She kept saying it came from graves when she meant grapes. We had a good laugh when we figured it out.

Then Eleni brought out dessert, whipped cream with banana on a layer of chocolate, topped with dark chocolate shavings.

Ari went to bed at 11 something but when I followed him in I made him brush his teeth so he was up a bit later. while falling asleep he moaned and said that a mosquito was buzzing around his ear, so I stayed up writing this and guarding him until I killed a mosquito. I hope it is the only one.