Tuesday, September 15, 2026

A change in the weather

As opposed to yesterday when it was very hot, today was reasonably cool - around 24ÂșC. There was a little rain during the night although I didn't hear it, a little more in the afternoon when we resting and then again in the evening when we set out for a pre-prandial walk and dinner. One side of the main road is where boats are tied up and there were some puddles there; the other side has shops and outside restaurants, but it is possible to walk past the shops and through the restaurants so very little rain actually fell upon us.

I woke up a few times during the night, and on one of my visits to the toilet, I took the picture that appears on the left: this is the sea that separates Paros from the Peloponnese town of Galatas. It looks better at night than it does during the day. Probably one day we'll take the snall ferry over to the other side to see what lies there but I doubt that there's anything particularly interesting.

I awoke fairly earlier, and in lieu of my normal breakfast, I started off with half a bottle of strawberry flavoured kefirKefir is made by fermenting the lactose in goat milk, yielding a sour, carbonated, slightly alcoholic beverage, although the consistency is similar to the drinkable yoghourt.Over the past few weeks I've started buying s similar product from a Israeli dairy that supplies to the kibbutz once every fortnight; the kefir was 'sharper' than the Israeli product. The kefir has 48 calories per 100 ml whereas the Israeli version has something like 100 calories/100 ml, if not more. Maybe I'll try and find kefir in Israel.

I couldn't figure out how to get the electric cooker to work so we had toasted cheese sandwiches for a lighter breakfast that we would have preferred. I discovered later on that the fuse was turned off in the main fusebox so from tomorrow we can have omelettes for breakfast. After leaving our flat, I took my wife slowly up the sea side of the road until we reached the supermarker. Here we bought more supplies, including two bottles of blackcurrant flavoured kefir that I look forward to drinking over the next few days. We walked back on the shop side of the road, checking out the produce so that we could see what would be better to purchase. Unfortunately my wife wasn't too consistent with this attitude and bought something that turned out to be inferior (and also more expensive) than something that we saw in the evening.

By the time we got back to the area near our flat, it was already 13:30, so we treated ourselves to brunch in the cafe directly under our flat, adding the protein that we missed in the morning. My wife had scrambled eggs with salad on french toast whereas I had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. Very nice.

After a rest, we went out again, turning left at the bottom of our steps instead of right, and so we saw a new set of restaurants. I didn't see many shops, but when we turned back, partially because of the rain, we discoved an alley way consisting only of shops. Some of these we better than the shops that we had seen in the morning.

Eventually we arrived back at our steps and sar down in the restaurant on the right of our steps. I had seen previously that they had various fish stored on ice in their window so I knew that we could have grilled sea bass close to our flat instead of having to walk to a recommended fish restaurant that was near the supermarket. We had to wait some time for the fish to be cooked, but probably because of the coldish wind blowing, it wasn't particularly hot. But it was good.

[I notice that there's a bug in the label algorithm of Blogger: I have chosen the label 'Poros' but instead the label 'coupling' appears. Weird.]



This day in blog history:

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40615/09/2011Planning the SQLDelphi, SQL, Firebird
51115/09/2012My father's 90th birthdayPersonal, Father
166315/09/2023Cropping videosHome movies, Musical group
182115/09/2024A gentleman in MoscowPersonal, Literature

Monday, September 14, 2026

13,000 steps

Shortly after my announcement blog, the taxi came to take us to the airport. I had aleady performed a check-in that gave us boarding cards, but I (and many others) also had to use the automatic check-in machine to print luggage tags. What we didn't know was that the machine would only allow one to check in at a maximum of three hours before the flight, and we got there too early. So we had to hang around for 20 minutes before the machine would print the tags. What was the advantage in this? The queue to hand over our suitcase was much smaller and hence much faster. But once we had handed over the suitcase, we were like everyone else.

The flight with El Al was fine - this was probably a jumbo as there were ten seats per row and there were many rows. The flight took just over two hours, and we were served with a hot cheese and omelette sandwich - very tasty. Once we touched down at Athens airport we had to walk a fair amount before we came to passport control. The staff were prepared to recognise our British passports as EU passports, so we didn't have to wait at all in order to have our passports checked. The luggage didn't take long to come out, and very shortly after we had passed through the minimal customs and we were out of the airport.

In a similar manner to Malpensa airport (Milan), we had to walk a certain amount in order to get to the metro station. There was a train waiting for us to take us to Piraeus port, and like the train from Malpensa, it was at first packed. But many people got out at Syntagma Square and Monastiraki (about 100 metres from where we stayed in Athens1 last time) so then we could get seats. The train delivered us to Piraeus port.

I looked at our tickets (also printed after a web check-in the previous day) and saw that our ferry would leave from wharf E9. This turned out to be quite a long way from where the train station was, probably the furthest wharf of all. We wanted to leave time to be sure that we would arrive at the fery stop on time, so I booked seats on the 13:00 ferry; we were there at about 11:30 and had to wait for an hour. Eventually our ferry came, we embarked, found our seats and had a comfortable ride for an hour and 10 minutes.So far so good.

We had booked our stay in a large flat (more of that later) that apparently was near if not on the seaside promenade, but it wasn't clear how exactly we would get to the flat. We knew that it was very close to where the ferry drops its passengers. While we were on the train to Piraeus I saw that we had a message from our landlady saying that she couldn't meet us but would leave the key in the ferry office. Where was the ferry office? I walked a certain distance one way on the promenade and a certain distance the other way and couldn't find the office (shades of when we arrived in Andros). Then I noticed that behind where my wife was waiting in the shade was the office I was looking for! At first they didn't know what I was talking about but then they saw the key and gave it to me. How do we get to the flat? Go pass the cafe on the left then take the steps. ... these steps are very steep and very hard to walk up with the suitcases.

Eventually I got everything to the top ... but where is the flat? I could hear voices coming from the first door by the steps so obviously it wasn't there. I idly tried to put the key in the lock of the second door - and it fit! So I knew that this was the correct place.

After recovering from all the walking and lifting, I went out in search of a supermarket. I had an idea of where it was, but it turned to be wrong. Someone gave me instructions: go down to the promenade and walk 500 metres to the right. So I did this and found the supermarket - except that it seemed to sell only toiletries and cleaning materials.With a heavy heart, I started walking back to our flat, but decided to stop at an ice cream parlour where they sold (amongst other flavours) a gorgeous after eight mint  chocolate ice cream! So of course I stopped and had a portion; whilst I was eating it, I asked the server about the supermarket. He said that the supermarket was split into two: I had gone into one half, but a bit further on was the other half that sold only food. So I bought milk, eggs, bread and a few other items - enough for tonight and tomorrow. I don't want to visit there every day (it is about 1,000 steps from the flat) but obviously another visit is called for.

It is now 18:30 and I am worn out; my feet hurt and my face is hot from all the sun. Tomorrow is another day.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
28114/09/2010A twilight health stageHealth
40514/09/2011Firebird DB managementProgramming, Delphi, Firebird
51014/09/2012Happy New Year!Jewish holidays
97414/09/2016Intermediate submission accepted!DBA
166214/09/2023A long, long dayJewish holidays, Health, Guitars, Musical group
182014/09/2024Remixing 'Tribe'Home recording
200014/09/20252,000 blogsMeta-blogging

Holiday!

I'm writing this at 2 am, not because I can't sleep but because I am up early in order to travel to the airport, in order to fly to Greece. We're going on a short holiday to the Greek island of Poros that I imagine that few non-Greeks have heard of.  This was all booked at short notice due to various reasons that I won't go into.

More later.




This day in blog history:

Blog #Date TitleTags
28114/09/2010A twilight health stageHealth
40514/09/2011Firebird DB managementProgramming, Delphi, Firebird
51014/09/2012Happy New Year!Jewish holidays
97414/09/2016Intermediate submission accepted!DBA
166214/09/2023A long, long dayJewish holidays, Health, Guitars, Musical group
182014/09/2024Remixing 'Tribe'Home recording
200014/09/20252,000 blogsMeta-blogging