Rethymnon: Day 3

The 8:30 AM wake up call came all too soon. I wasn’t feeling too hot, so breakfast wasn’t all that appealing. I just continued drinking water.

We took a 30 minutes bus ride to see the Arkadi monastery. The drive there was all winding roads on the cliffs, which made me kind of nauseas, so I closed my eyes and slept most of the way. The monastery was very cool. Today, only four monks live there, but it used to be fully functional and we saw the kitchen, living quarters, and church. No one told us we needed to have our knees and shoulders covered, so I had to tie a bright pink wrap on my waist. It was very attractive. All in all, I was just pretty grateful that I didn’t puke at the monastery.

After the tour, we wandered over to the gift shop and found more than souvenirs. There was a cage of ostriches! They are the strangest animals. We finally settled on describing them as mutant bird-dinosaur-giraffes. One of them was right up against the fence by us and kept snapping his jaw, and I was sure he was going to reach his spaghetti neck through the bars and eat someone. There was also a pen of goats, which were pretty cute but smelly. Later, on the bus, it was revealed that one of the girls dropped her sunglasses in the ostrich cage and another girl hopped the fence to get them out. No way, no how would I ever put myself within inches of ostriches! And for sunglasses!

Our next stop for the day was some small village that specializes in ceramics, or “keramics,” as our tour guide Vangelis would say. He led us into a little shop and we watched a guy make pieces on a pottery wheel. It was amazing! This guy would just throw a lump of clay on the wheel, and within a minute, have a completed piece.

We walked around and looked in several pottery shops, then spent our hour of free time at a taverna. I had the best omelet, with green peppers, cheese, and onions. I was rushed because we were supposed to have been on the bus before our food was even delivered to the table, but I still managed to eat the entire omelet – which took up half the plate.

I still wasn’t feeling fabulous and had a headache on the bus back to the hotel, so laid down for a three hour nap once we got there. I woke up rejuvenated and set out to shop with a few of the girls. We walked down the streets of Rethymnon and through the narrow back alleys. I finally did my “souvenir” shopping and only have a few more things to pick up in Athens.

I ran back to the hotel, took a five minute shower, and met the group for dinner with my hair still wet. Sixteen of us went to Seven Brothers taverna, right on the water, for some good seafood. I got shrimp saganaki, which sounds Japanese, but is not. It was shrimp in a creamy tomato sauce with feta cheese and peppers. Really good!

Afterwards, we all returned to the hotel and went to bed, because Wednesday was a big day full of adventure.