All of Greece

okay, so I'm going to try and sum up 9 days of Greece into a paragraph or two...
We got to Athens last Friday on November 5, and discovered the men of Athens have no fear when it comes to gawking at women. It was quite creepy. They just stare right at you, even straight at your face, and just continue to look at whatever they want. So nasty. We were so worried that Kefalonia, the supposedly magical island we were heading to the next day, was just like Athens. The next morning we gathered all of our stuff and began our 7 hour journey to what we hoped would be an amazing and tropical week of paradise.
After our 3 hour bus ride, and 3 hour ferry ride we arrived at the port of the island. The ocean was clear turquoise blue, and the houses of Sami (the town of the port) were painted bright colors, and had a mountain of bright green trees and grass behind them. This place couldn't possibly have a gross place, it just couldn't! We hopped back on our bus and got taken to Argistole, the bus depot. This place was also along the water, the road lined with palm trees. We realized that we had totally forgotten to write down the address to our hotel that we were staying at, we just had the name of it and the beach it was near. We asked the bus driver how to get there and he laughed, telling us that we had to taxi, the island was pretty much shut down and there was no more public transportation. We were stunned. He told us to wait 5 minutes, so we did, and then he came back and told us to hop on his bus he would take us near there because he had to fill up with oil. We drove for about ten minutes, him showing us the orange tress, olive vineyards, and the beaches that had the best swimming. The bus finally dropped us off on a dirt road, with directions to follow the road and head right, our hotel should be over there somewhere, so we started walking. We turned the first corner and saw the sun setting on the open ocean. It was incredible. I think we both danced a little bit. It was so beautiful! The road continued along the cliffs by the ocean and we saw a sign for Ammes, where we were staying. We saw the familiar image of the yellow building with blue windows And a blue roof, we found our place. Isabella the owner came out to us saying they'd been siting for us, turns out we were the only ones staying there. She showed us our room, which was huge, and opened our doors onto our private balcony with an amazing ocean view. She then left us to get settled in. We danced again! This was the tropical get away we had wanted.
For the next week we enjoyed going to Myrtos Beach, which you should google and drool over, lying in the sun while enjoying the fact that there was practically nobody else on the beach, and that you couldn't hear constant people sounds, just the waves. Oh and the sound of bells! There are hundreds of free range Billy goats all throughout the island, and one of their favorite spots to hang out is on the hills by the beach. We went swimming and ate a healthy lunch of a bag of chips and small Greek cupcakes for lunch everyday. We would come home around 4, shower, and then either make dinner in our apartment that had its own kitchen, or treated ourselves to a dinner made by Isabella, either pizza or a sandwich. Every evening was spent down at her little bar having drinks with a group of retired couples that had moved to the island from england. We all had a great time sitting around talking about traveling stories, music, and at some point in the night soccer, or football as they call it. One of the couples even had us stay with them for two nights so we wouldn't have to go back to athens as soon as we were. It was super sweet of them. The one and only downside to our trip to the island is that Graeme's wedding ring got eaten by the waves of the beach. All we can think of is that since the waves were really strong that day, and maybe the super salty water had a part in it, the pull just sucked the ring off. So Graeme is ringless, we're hoping to find him another ring maybe in portugal or Spain? They seem like countries that have lots of jewelry.
We've now arrived back in Athens, which isn't so bad now. There's like a mass rally going on for communism at the moment, it's pretty crazy. Thousands of people marching through the streets chanting something in Greek, with commy flags, and police and military soldiers keeping everything in check. Grae feels Ike we're witnessing history, but all i can think of is the seinfeld episode of where Elaine's communist boyfriend tries to convert Kramer.
Next time you hear from us we'll be in Portugal! Finally get to see this part of my heritage, i am so excited! Hope everyone is doing well back at home, love and miss you all!

g&k