Golden Days

Had the weekend off, so Hanna, Amanda and I decided to roll out to the big port city of Patras to try and get tattoos since it wasn't happening in Amaliada. After a fun week or so of blurry wine filled lunches, drinking beers in the square, getting rides to the beach and back, walking through pine forests to see movies that aren't playing. Swimming in the salty sea, lamp making, grass cutting, more tomatoes, baby kittie playing, bed bug murdering and candlelit dinners of cookies and beer and bread. The three of us are so different but are in perfect harmony when together. We can sit and drink tea and just laugh about stupid shit for hours and hours and never get tired of talking to each other. We are in sync in so many ways- probably because we all spend every waking(and non) moment together. So the weekend came and since the family was going out of town for the weekend they said we could as well. Friday afternoon we packed the essentials for a weekend off possibly sleeping on the beach and who knows what else.
Essential items: Bathing suit, transistor radio, journal, camera, colored pencils, one outfit.
Hanna also brought a phat Dostoyevsky which she didn't read, and Amanda brought soem olive branches.
It only took us four rides to get the 80 or so kilometers to Patras. Firstly Georges cousin, then a few awesome blonde babes, then a threesome with a broken leg guy driving like a maniac and a crazy old dude with a spiderweb tattoo on his arm and a nice lady. Truck stop soda break/bathroom sign stealage and then one more ride all the way to the main square in Patras. Free. Awesome. and done.
We sat in the square of Patras staring and the new elephant sculpture and the fountains and drank a celebratory beer on getting so far. Then spent the evening traipsing around with a harem of greek dudes trying to help us find an open tattoo shop. Of course to no avail, but what can do? life is life.
Trekked down past the port as night came over, down weird streets filled with weird smells and toothless old guys giving us directions. Ended up at the Hotel California of Patras. A big cartoon pig sign with HOSTEL written across pointed us inwards. A Miss Havisham style garden building with green shutters and a funny old man in glasses who for some reason wouldn't sell us one bed for three people. Ate some pizza, greek salad and beers and I passed out. Hanna and Amanda trekked some more into the night and ended up sitting on the balcony with Uruguayan Carneys talking about the Farm-ily which is a pun one of them came up with to describe us, and I am loving it!
The next day tattoos still no go so we decided to throw in the towel- go to a cafe shaded by grape vines and drink some cold greek coffee. And play tavla, aka backgammon, aka i finally learned and am now an addict.
Wandered up some cool old stairs to see the castle in Patras. First stumbled upon a theater and ran up and down the steps and admired the view of ancient greek ruins, old buildings, sea, islands, and the port. These girls love exploring as much as I do did I mention? And next we found ourselves in an abandoned building, walking up stairs to nowhere and grabbing souveniers; old rusty picture frame, newspaper caricature, chain, and diablo? Got busted jumping out of the window by some greek dude, who just looked at us like we were aliens from mars but just kept walking.

Next as luck would have it we were getting hungry and bought some homemade ice cream bars from a bakery. Then wandered down through the carnage of a farmers market, picking up street fruit and veg like bums while devouring our chocolate ice cream. Yeah we're the weirdest girls in town but we totally scored. Big ass bag of grapes, bell peppers, three apricots, tomatoes, more peppers, eggplant, oranges and carrots. Then we picked up some fresh olive loaf and had our weekends' worth in food for about the 2 euro that we paid for bread. Nothing like a little Greek dumpster/street diving to brighten up an already awesome saturday.
Took a bus and a ferry and ended up in Zakinthos. A pretty touristy island famous for a beach with a shipwreck on it. Which we didn't even get close to seeing. And none of us care.
We walked along attempting to hitch for almost an hour with no luck. Fussy tourists aren't so into picking up three babes who haven't showered in a few days. Amanda and I were ready to accept defeat and hail down the next cab. It was getting dark and all we needed was a little beach to hang our hats, if you will. Hanna, luckily suggested sticking it out a little longer and just as she said that a car pulled up and two very cute greek guys picked us up.
The driver(Spiros) kinda had this Turtle from Entourage thing going on and the other guy(Paniotis)had this greek inquisitive hot man thing going on. Hanna and I were discussing their cuteness and she asked what inquisitive meant. My reply: Hot with glasses.
So we told them our story, just a coupla farm girls heading out to the big city for a weekend of mayhem. Even funnier that we are carrying bags of produce(though we didn't tell them what bums we were that we picked all the fruit up off of the street.) And that yeah, we just want to find a beach to sleep on. We don't care where, just not super crazy or touristy. Amanda and Paniotis chat in Greek, Hanna and I prattle on in English, not thinking they know what we're saying. They drive us around this glorious island past farms and hills while the sun is setting and everything is bathed in this beautiful golden light. First we stop at this random cliffside field with a rock beach down below in a little cove. Beautiful we say but eh, kinda rough to sleep on. "If you don't like, we take you to a beach with sand, ella, here we go". And then I realize that we didn't have time to stop in the store and we have fruit but not cheese or beer. eh. problem. Then I suggest out loud that perhaps I can go up to someone's house and trade this bag of grapes for a bottle of wine? And Spiros busts out laughing. he totally speaks english. shit. oh welp. Then the say 'well if you girls like wine, both our parents make wine- we'll bring you some.' Um okay.
So here we are a few seconds later on a gloriously beautiful small beach, close but not too close to a taverna equipped with benches to sleep on! BAM!
We get ready to swim- the guys leave to get us some wine and bring towels. So we all run screaming and laughing into the warm sea. We picnic on street veggies washed in the sea until they come back with the wine. The we drink a little and again go running into the sea. And there I was swimming in the dark Mediterranean sea with the flickering taverna lights illuminating the clear water. I flicked my toes and legs mermaid style and laughed out loud. Laying on my back in the sea staring at the stars in this warm water in this amazing place with my amazing friends. I saw three shooting stars that night.
So we drank some more wine, the girls flirted with their new greek boyfriends, we danced to shakira on the transistor radio.
Sleeping on the beach is so romantic until you wake up at three a.m freezing to death and wrap every scrap of fabric around you in a coccoon to seal in the warmth. I heard Amanda all night long muttering to herself "Ssssooo ffuucckkinng freezzzing". haha.
Woke up to the sunrise. I can't remember the last time this happened. The sun wasn't there and then it was. And slowly but surely our bodies started to warm with the sun. We drank the leftover wine and laughed about our luck ending up in this place. My skirt was wrapped around my head for warmth, a towel mummy-ing my feet. Amanda's sweatshirt was inside out, they both had boyfriend towels for warmth. When it got warm enough I rolled off the bench 'butler but not the maid' style and swam in the crisp refreshing salty sea early in the morning. Hanna got orange juice and croissants, and we napped off our hangovers in the morning light.