See Sally and Jane drive in Crete

Seriously, can you believe I am driving a car in Crete? I keep waiting to wake up and say, “wow, I just had the craziest dream.” But in the mean time, here we go. Today Sally and I decided to rent a car and drive to the other end of the island.

Before we left I managed to cook a great breakfast. I finally figured out how not to burn the toast and how to operate the stove so we had bacon, eggs, toast, and juice.

Jay was looking at some pictures and said we were staying on the slum end of the island and all the “good” stuff was at the other end. He, however, did not have any desire to go, so he filled the car with gas, handed me 200 Euros and told us to have fun. I was shocked that he was okay with this since I have been known to get lost in Idaho Falls, I guess Crete is an island, how bad could it be. Worse case scenario, we drive around in a circle until we end up back where we started.

So, off we go to see something beyond the 100 meters up and down the street in front of our villa.

There aren’t that many pictures. Not that we didn’t see a lot, we just saw it going 100 kilometers an hour in Greek traffic. We just kept saying, “wow that’s cool, we should stop there.” as we went whizzing by. We did manage to stop at the world war II cemetery in Chania. It was a beautifully cared for cemetery tribute to the Greeks who fought hard against the Nazi invasion. From the battle for Crete, which was the last place in Greece to be taken by Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill coined the phrase, “Greeks don’t fight like heroes, heroes fight like Greeks.” I even found a soldier from the New Zealand army buried there name David Shaw….maybe a long lost relative?

The scenery was beautiful! Grand, soaring mountains, olive groves, beautiful seaside resorts (all closed for the winter season by the way) and quaint Greek men feeding their mountain side sheep. (All this in one stop too). The Mediterranean Sea is a sight to behold for sure. In our little village the language is not an issue, everyone speaks very good English.

In the bigger cities of Chania, Souda, and Heraklion, not so much. We had to make several attempts before they understood we were looking for a bathroom and we never did find a place to eat. The streets are lined with cafes, but they usually just serve coffee and maybe a little baquette because in the off season, seriously, everyone just sits in these places and drinks coffee and smoke cigarettes.

We did pass one place that had about 40 motorcycles in front of it and there was a Greek Smorgasbord (and I’m not talking about food here either). Oh my! Those Greek men, and there were dozens of them. Unfortunately I was navigating the very narrow streets of Chania and traffic was coming at me from every direction and there was no way to stop, so we just whizzed by and sighed. I did manage to scare the crap out of Sally on the way home. The Greeks are crazy drivers. There are no rules of the road. I think there were speed limit signs, but they only count if there is a policeman around, and there are never any policemen around. So, you pass on either side of a car. You pass even if there is a car coming right at you. It doesn’t matter. So, I was feeling very Greek as we were following a car going very slow (like 40 kilometers an hour) and I did the Greek thing. I pulled around the car, forced it into what we would call the hazard lane, and whizzed by it with another car coming right at me that had to move into the hazard lane as well. Sally was in the seat, scooting towards the floor, screaming, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” I just had a big grin on my face and was
feeling very Greek. Once back at home we discovered that Jay’s worries that he was missing hunting season while he was here were quite unfounded.

It seemed that Esme the furry alarm clock had woken him up just one too many times. Looks like we are having barbecue for dinner tomorrow.