Today was a good one! In this vindication cruise, Mykonos day is where it all gets set right.
4 years ago, I was sitting on the pool deck, sipping a Bloody Mary, when my cabin steward came to find me and put me in quarantine.
So this morning, we ordered Bloody Marys at breakfast- determined to have a full reset! We ran into Mike and Diana in line for a table so they joined us and before long Ginny came down to eat, too.
There was one problem, however. The weather forecast said it was going to be 60 degrees- which was ok. But, it also said the winds would be blowing at 50 MPH. I thought surely that must be a typo. I mean. 50? FIVE ZERO? Come on.
The good news was, that was indeed wrong. The bad news was, it was 42 MPH. That’s pretty darn hard to walk comfortably in and is honestly just a bit miserable all around.
HOWEVER - we were going to shore, darn it! The others decided to skip in since they’d all been before and I think I would have too in the same conditions.
There weren’t many who went ashore, I have to say! But the shops and restaurants were all open. We meandered around through the adorable little “streets”- which were sometimes not wider than about a foot more than my shoulder span! All the cute blue painted doors, flowers blooming like crazy, brightly colored scarfs and towels for sale blowing around outside the shops.
We popped into several shops and bought some things- including baklava! I had a terrific sample in one shop. Such a treat. While in there, the shop worker offered a sample to another man who walked in. Here’s how it went:
Lady: Would you like some baklava?
Man: What’s that?
Lady: Baklava!
Man: Say it in English
Lady: Baklava!
HA! He was a good sport and tried it.
Next, we set out looking for a cafe to sit and linger (our favorite activity) while dining on what was sure to be amazing Greek food. The challenge was finding one that was somehow still outside but not directly in the wind. We went round and round and finally found a few that would work.
An interesting thing about the cafe culture in Europe is that there is always an older gentleman standing outside by the posted menu to greet people walking by and inviting them in. It’s not pushy or weird - it’s common. We’ve gotten used to it and even enjoy asking them a question or two. One question is always, “Do you have local wine?” The answer is always an emphatic exhale and, “OF COURSE!” Followed by a sweeping arm welcoming us to a table.
The wait staff are also almost always older men. They are constantly on the move- squeezing in between tables effortlessly while carrying plates of food and glass of wine. They are generally quiet and efficient. Something like, “You are ready to get food, yes?” And you tell them and they leave.
We ordered a bottle of Greek Chardonnay, some fava beans, and some anchovies. We are obsessed with eating all the small fishes while in Europe. After awhile, we had chicken souvlaki and a pork gyro. Too much food but we just wanted to try so many things and thankfully, normally the portion sizes here aren’t American sized:) What a stinking delight.
Then, we refused dessert but a tiramisu was delivered anyone and sorry…when in Rome and all that. And then, our waiters showed up with their local digestif- 4 little shot glasses for us to enjoy together, which of course we did.
We then waddled back to the ship trying to not get sand blasted in our faces or blow off the pier!
Our buddy Stefan, the sommelier, pinged us on WhatsApp to figure out where we’d be dining that night. Thankfully, we had reservations at the Hot Pot (like a fancy soup place) that night and nothing big like the steak house. Definitely not going to be hungry! Anyway, while we were seated in there, Stefan came cruising by with a bottle he wanted to share with us. HOLY COW was it delicious. It was a special partnership between a legendary French winery and one in Mendoza, Argentina. Absolutely incredible- what a delightful treat.
At this point, we must have finally become our vacation selves because we somehow stayed up till midnight listening to the house band in the piazza. We probably needed that much time to digest so I guess it all worked out.
Somehow, the following day we arrived in Athens which meant the first week was up and a whole lot of people were disembarking. This is always an interesting situation when you are staying on board. You never know what the instructions will be as they vary by country. This looked pretty simple - they give you pieces of paper that say “passenger in transit” or something similar to show when you are coming back in so that you don’t have to go through the whole initial onboarding process again along with all the new passengers just arriving.
We didn’t have an excursion planned so we figured we would wait for all the people to clear out and then grab a hop on hop off bus (HOHO) to take us around town. Rich and Ginny were going to do the same so we had some loose plans to find them for that.
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