Greece, a vacation from my vacation.
Alternate titles could be:
"There's something about Kanelli"
"My first nude gig!"
"Three naked sirens sing in three part harmony in the Mediteranean Sea..."
"Love, luck, and Doty".
"Don't sleep in your skivvies in Athens unless you want those skeeters to have a smorgasboard."
I just realized that none of these are very funny unless you're me. Oh well. Anyway, I arrived in Athens, an no sooner had I walked out of the baggage claim with my backpack than George, Kanelli's friend, appeared smiling in his bright pink t-shirt (so I could recognize him...the funny thing was that there were like 6 guys in bright pink t's at that airport that evening...weird). George was going to go down to the village where Kanelli's family has a house anyway, so conveniently he just picked me up along the way! So, whap, boom, sciddadle, and we were on a 4 1/2 hour drive down. We talked organic food, Greek dishes, U.S. meat production and slaughterhouses...you know, polite small talk. ;)
Let's tell you a little about Kanelli. I met Kanelli through Dan, my friend in South Africa who is really more like a brother. When I was singing and visiting Dan in S. Africa, a lovely singer came to one of my gigs. Later this singer and I shared dinner, and after that an amazing day where she took me to Khyelitsha to a school there that she supported that provided education to (mostly) orphaned children of AIDS victims. Together we donated food and Kanelli told me about the work she was doing with the school (computer classes, etc.) to help them help themselves. Anyway, now you know Kanelli is a special person. So when she invited me to Greece, I jumped at the chance.
Neapoli is a village in Southern Greece inhabited almost solely by locals and visited in the summer by Athenians, like Kanelli, who flock to its unbelievably crystal clear beaches. There's one bar in town, one main strip, one butcher, a few little markets, some tavernas, and three or four coffee/dessert shops. Oh, and a baklava shop, of course. :) Kanelli's house turned out to be a three bedroom, 2 and a half bath gorgeous white place on a hill overlooking the sea. My bedroom had a crossbreeze in it from the windows that faced out at the hills and a local church...the wind blew across me in the morning (okay, afternoon) like the sweetest alarm nature could ever sound. EVERYONE should be able to experience at some point.
Kanelli, her boyfriend Vangelis, and George and I were joined by Kanelli and Vag's guitarist Stellios and his girlfriend Lotte (hereto referred to as "Doty", but you have to say it with George's Brooklyn accent or it's not funny), who's also a great singer! We all did a gig at a local place called "Bellini's"...they rented sound equipment, the place was packed to the gills, and we were outside in front of the sea...does it get better than THAT?!
So, as you'll see from the photos, most of what we did was eat. Eat, beach, eat, beach. It was kind of like that for 9 days. The beaches didn't have that many people on them, as many folks go to Santorini or Crete or other islands...this allowed us to cavort around naked on various beaches. Punda beach, and even one that had an ancient petrified forest! Raph, you's have LOVED it. What was so lovely was to be surrounded by wonderful, warm people, good musicians, who appreciated a great meal and a nice bottle of wine. We cooked (I made my jerk chicken), we talked about silly things, we philosophised...it was the perfect vacation. The thing about the village is that people don't go to the beach early, as the sun is too hot and damaging. So we woke every day at about noon. Ate breakfast/lunch (this usually involved nutella, bread, greek yoghurt, and fruit) on the terrace looking out at the sea, dawdled around for a bit (or went to get an ice cream), then off to the beach somewhere between 2 and 4 p.m. It stays light and warm out all evening there, so we'd stay at the beach until between 8 and 9 p.m. Then we'd go home, shower, dress, and go to a taverna either in or out of town. Once we'd stuffed ourselves to the gills, it was usually between 11 and 12, and we'd go to the village main strip, have an ice cream, chat, and always be surprised when 5 minutes went by and it was already three in the morning. Rinse, repeat, and that was my 9 days.
At the end of the trip I went to Athens, saw the Acropolis, and did a workshop that went splendidly! Let's take a minute to talk about the Acropolis. As I may not have said before, the amazing thing about Rome is that all the the huge ancient historical buildings are right there in the middle fo the city! I hadn't seen anywhere like that before (except Kathmandu, now that I think about it). Anyway, back to Greece. We studied this stuff as kids, but we in the U.S. are just so generally self-centered taht we hardly recognize that there's an entire WORLD out there outside our borders! This suddenly hit me as a hiked up to the Parthenon. I'd spent my childhood hearing about ancient Greece in class and history books, and somehow it had hardly occured that this place actually, REALLY existed! There it was! In front of my eyes! AMAZING.
So, that's the story of my wonderful Greek vacation. The 9 days went faster than any consecutive 9 days of the trip thus far. The weather was stunning, the people even better, and the food, well...unparalleled. Actually, the food climbed the ranks high high HIGH and tooks its place beside Thailand as the best food of the trip (official rating announcements will come at the end of the trip in the wrap up section).
Hope you enjoy the photos!
http://picasaweb.google.com/leibolicious
love,
sar
"There's something about Kanelli"
"My first nude gig!"
"Three naked sirens sing in three part harmony in the Mediteranean Sea..."
"Love, luck, and Doty".
"Don't sleep in your skivvies in Athens unless you want those skeeters to have a smorgasboard."
I just realized that none of these are very funny unless you're me. Oh well. Anyway, I arrived in Athens, an no sooner had I walked out of the baggage claim with my backpack than George, Kanelli's friend, appeared smiling in his bright pink t-shirt (so I could recognize him...the funny thing was that there were like 6 guys in bright pink t's at that airport that evening...weird). George was going to go down to the village where Kanelli's family has a house anyway, so conveniently he just picked me up along the way! So, whap, boom, sciddadle, and we were on a 4 1/2 hour drive down. We talked organic food, Greek dishes, U.S. meat production and slaughterhouses...you know, polite small talk. ;)
Let's tell you a little about Kanelli. I met Kanelli through Dan, my friend in South Africa who is really more like a brother. When I was singing and visiting Dan in S. Africa, a lovely singer came to one of my gigs. Later this singer and I shared dinner, and after that an amazing day where she took me to Khyelitsha to a school there that she supported that provided education to (mostly) orphaned children of AIDS victims. Together we donated food and Kanelli told me about the work she was doing with the school (computer classes, etc.) to help them help themselves. Anyway, now you know Kanelli is a special person. So when she invited me to Greece, I jumped at the chance.
Neapoli is a village in Southern Greece inhabited almost solely by locals and visited in the summer by Athenians, like Kanelli, who flock to its unbelievably crystal clear beaches. There's one bar in town, one main strip, one butcher, a few little markets, some tavernas, and three or four coffee/dessert shops. Oh, and a baklava shop, of course. :) Kanelli's house turned out to be a three bedroom, 2 and a half bath gorgeous white place on a hill overlooking the sea. My bedroom had a crossbreeze in it from the windows that faced out at the hills and a local church...the wind blew across me in the morning (okay, afternoon) like the sweetest alarm nature could ever sound. EVERYONE should be able to experience at some point.
Kanelli, her boyfriend Vangelis, and George and I were joined by Kanelli and Vag's guitarist Stellios and his girlfriend Lotte (hereto referred to as "Doty", but you have to say it with George's Brooklyn accent or it's not funny), who's also a great singer! We all did a gig at a local place called "Bellini's"...they rented sound equipment, the place was packed to the gills, and we were outside in front of the sea...does it get better than THAT?!
So, as you'll see from the photos, most of what we did was eat. Eat, beach, eat, beach. It was kind of like that for 9 days. The beaches didn't have that many people on them, as many folks go to Santorini or Crete or other islands...this allowed us to cavort around naked on various beaches. Punda beach, and even one that had an ancient petrified forest! Raph, you's have LOVED it. What was so lovely was to be surrounded by wonderful, warm people, good musicians, who appreciated a great meal and a nice bottle of wine. We cooked (I made my jerk chicken), we talked about silly things, we philosophised...it was the perfect vacation. The thing about the village is that people don't go to the beach early, as the sun is too hot and damaging. So we woke every day at about noon. Ate breakfast/lunch (this usually involved nutella, bread, greek yoghurt, and fruit) on the terrace looking out at the sea, dawdled around for a bit (or went to get an ice cream), then off to the beach somewhere between 2 and 4 p.m. It stays light and warm out all evening there, so we'd stay at the beach until between 8 and 9 p.m. Then we'd go home, shower, dress, and go to a taverna either in or out of town. Once we'd stuffed ourselves to the gills, it was usually between 11 and 12, and we'd go to the village main strip, have an ice cream, chat, and always be surprised when 5 minutes went by and it was already three in the morning. Rinse, repeat, and that was my 9 days.
At the end of the trip I went to Athens, saw the Acropolis, and did a workshop that went splendidly! Let's take a minute to talk about the Acropolis. As I may not have said before, the amazing thing about Rome is that all the the huge ancient historical buildings are right there in the middle fo the city! I hadn't seen anywhere like that before (except Kathmandu, now that I think about it). Anyway, back to Greece. We studied this stuff as kids, but we in the U.S. are just so generally self-centered taht we hardly recognize that there's an entire WORLD out there outside our borders! This suddenly hit me as a hiked up to the Parthenon. I'd spent my childhood hearing about ancient Greece in class and history books, and somehow it had hardly occured that this place actually, REALLY existed! There it was! In front of my eyes! AMAZING.
So, that's the story of my wonderful Greek vacation. The 9 days went faster than any consecutive 9 days of the trip thus far. The weather was stunning, the people even better, and the food, well...unparalleled. Actually, the food climbed the ranks high high HIGH and tooks its place beside Thailand as the best food of the trip (official rating announcements will come at the end of the trip in the wrap up section).
Hope you enjoy the photos!
http://picasaweb.google.com/leibolicious
love,
sar
posted by sara leib at 7:55 AM
2 Comments:
"AIDS victims"?!?
That's totally un-PC. They prefer to be called "people living with AIDS". Or, in this case, "people dead from AIDS."
I want your vacation!
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