χαιρετισμός αργκό !

Lovelies! The subject of this post is "hello most loyal friends!" in Greek! I'm still in utter disbelief that I'm here, but anyway... I missed my day, and I am so sorry! We actually got to Greece at the beginning of the week but internet has been hard to come by and also, I have been a very busy bee and I've barely left the boat.

The trip to Greece from Italy was blissfully relaxing. We meandered our way down the Italian coast for a few days, passing by the island volcano of Stromboli, swimming off the coast of Capri, and sailing through the straight of Messina at dusk. There are 3 of us on-board, my dad and I, and a French crew my dad's age named Jean-Philippe. During the trip, we each had two shifts a day of 4 hours (mine was 8-12 am and pm) where we were on watch - basically, we have to make sure the boat doesn't run into a tanker and sink. Pretty straightforward. When I wasn't on watch, I was doing a variety of things, none too exciting: sleeping, reading (Omnivore's Dilemma, Of Love and Shadows, a book about the Camino, Nat'l Geographic magazines), writing, dreaming up Watson ideas, listening to my dad's crazy adventures of his youth, sitting at the bow watching for dolphins (none came! very sad) . . . that's about it really.

By the weekend, we had reached Greek waters and Monday afternoon, we squeezed our way through the Corinthian canal and headed for our final destination - Athens (or rather, Pireaus, which is the port city just outside of Athens). As idyllic as life at sea may sound, life on land sucks for a sailor. Getting to shore means you have to do all the things you couldn't do at sea, like CLEAN EVERYTHING and fix all the things that have broken en route, etc. My life here at the marina has not been very inspiring. Mostly a LOT of manual labor, all day, in the hot son - scrub, rinse, polish, wax, repeat. In a few days, we'll get to do some sightseeing (although I've been doing a little bit already here in the marina, and let me tell you, Greek men are quite the lookers, especially the one working on the boat next to ours. Dark features, olive skin- I'm a big fan.).

I'm still feeling like a huge dunce who can't speak the language, or read the alphabet for that matter, but that's okay. All is well in the land of Zeus and friends. It was most lovely to catch up on all of your lives - I miss my babyloves! Next Tuesday, I'm going to France to spend a whirlwind 24 hours with my friend Laura, then I'll be London-bound, and then America! Expect a phone call (or for me to show up at your door - Cait, Rachel, Julian, Dan, Megan, others?!).

αγαπάω (love),
Carmella