April Fool's Day!

HELLO FROM GREECE! I made it safe and sound. I left Dublin at 8am, and got to the Hostel in Athens at 11pm. Wonderful. That includes a 2 hour time change and 6 hours at London Luton Airport. All in all, not too bad.

Athens, however, I would not recommend to anyone. It is huge, congested and extremely dirty. Actually, Greece is a pretty dirty place in general. And when I got to the hostel, I had a lovely surprise in store for me. They had "overbooked" the hostel, but told me not to worry. That they would put me up in the hostel next door. Well, let's just say that the hostel next door was lacking in just about everything. I'm not going to go into too much detail, well, because there's too much detail. Let's just say that if I hadn't slept on the cold, linoleum floor of the Airport the night before, I wouldn't have appreciated the bed I was lying in.

I got up the next day and made my way to the bus station which was, of course, another adventure. The bus ride was 6 hours from Athens (Yahoo!) and I had one minor incident with that too. At one of the stops, I got off the bus to use the bathroom. When I came out, the bus was gone. I started to panic because my bags were on the bus (also because I was supposed to be). An older woman started talking to me but it was all Greek to me...smirk (I had to get it in at least once). After a few minutes of her sentences becoming more pronouced and louder and me still not understanding a word, I walked away almost in tears. I walked up to the ticket woman and asked if she spoke English. She said she did, but that was an overstatement. The only thing I understood was "Come back in an hour". My eyes bulged out of my head. Just as I was about to completely lose it, a military guy walked up to me and said "He's just gone to refuel, he'll be back in a moment". I could have kissed him.

A man on the bus tried talking to me, but again, we didn't speak the same language. I pulled out my little Greek phrasebook (Thank god for that purchase) and we had a conversation that consisted of pointing at different phrases in the book. Boy was I glad to be off that bus.

So anyway-to make this the longest blog entry ever, I made it to Monemvasia. It's a GORGEOUS town in southern Greece. The people I'm working for are wonderful and the house is absolutely beautiful.

First of all, they rented me a car. And I feel like I'm driving my little Echo again, only smaller. I've attached a picture of it, I love it. I miss driving so much, it feels so great to be behind the wheel again. Of course, last night I got it stuck in a ditch at my friend Usha's house. I know Dad was there chuckling when I had to tie the back end of the car to the front end of Usha's van and she had to pull me out. Usha said I seemed like a pro at that. I just laughed and said "you have NO idea".

My day starts with waking up at 7:30 and looking at the Aegean Sea through the glass doors at the foot of my bed. I let the dogs out and feed the cats. (4 dogs and 4 cats). I then take two of the dogs, Rupert and Kukla, for a walk through a grove of Olive trees and wildflowers overlooking the sea. It's a great way to start the day.

Brian and Jillian (whose house I'm watching) have organic gardens that I'm allowed to eat my way through. Unbelievable. They have a few different types of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, onions, beans, carrots, artichokes, beets and many different herbs. For fruit they have banana, date, orange and lemon trees, grapefruit bushes and strawberries. They have Almond trees and of course Olive trees. Not all of the fruits and veggies are ripe yet, but I have had some unbelievable food so far. They also have a spring up the hill that I bring big glass water jugs up to and fill them. Now that's fresh.

But don't you worry, to keep consistent with my life, I was happy to see construction vehicles next door. Luckily for me, there is a Hotel being built about 100 yards away. The work starts at about 7am, 7 days a week, and goes all day. It's nice to see that my construction curse knows no limits.

So that's all for now folks. I could go on forever, but instead I'll try and update this more often. I've attached some photos, but I know they're pretty bad. The one of me is in town at a Taverna, having a coffee. The others are of the car, and then 3 of the dogs. Rupert's the one in the basket, Zoe is the blond and Kukla is the little one laying on the roof of the Horse stable, with my clothes drying in the background. And oh yea, by the way, it's cold as hell here. Thnk god I didn't get rid of all my sweaters.

Love you and Miss you-Me