Greece: Day Twelve - Chios

After 10 days of crazy travel today was a much needed day of relaxation. I had a lot of trouble sleeping due to the loud music coming from a bar nearby. It seemed like the second the music stopped, the birds came out. Plus we couldn't get the air to work so the room was an oven even with the balcony door open. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep, but the second it first started to get light out - around 5:15am I headed to the pool area where I was able to get a Wifi signal to check emails and such. I was also able to download some TV shows to my iPad which I can watch either this week or during the insanely long plane rides back. By 8am I was dressed and ready to hit the supermarket with Pam, Jenn, Leah and Sydney. 

Grocery shopping in Greece was an interesting experience. There isn't any huge difference between the store here and at home, they both consist of aisles of food, drink and other products. You can buy alcohol - both wine/beer and hard liquor at the store. Actually you can even buy that at the local market, seemingly regardless of age. I had a little trouble understanding what products I was buying, and I didn't want to keep asking Jenn to read the packages so I just gussed. If it looked like crackers, I assumed it was and so on. I got mostly drinks - coke light and beer for Brian, water and wine for myself. I also got some lunch meat and bread for him, and fruit for myself. The checkout process was interesting, I just smiled and handed the girl my credit card not having a clue what she was saying. I did manage the Greek word for thank you, which sounds like f-Gary-stow. I'm probably butchering it, but I'm trying! 

When we got back to the resort, Brian and the boys were finishing up breakfast so they were able to help us carry and unload everything. Once that was done everyone opted to head to the beach, except Brian and myself. Brian wanted to just relax and read on the balcony (again, him and sun aren't good friends), and I wanted to hang out at the pool which was empty. I figured a sunny Saturday would mean a crazy busy beach, whereas the pool was pretty much private. I was able to listen to my music, read some of my book, and swim lengths for almost an hour. Brian came down and had lunch with me - despite being in Greece I have had some pretty awesome pizza, one of which the resort makes. The menu here for the pool bar and the one of the restaurants is very much American and includes pasta, sandwiches, pizza and even burritos. Everything we have had has been pretty good.  

The pool bar is only supposed to be open for a few hours but Kostos - the server - has been keeping it open later and later for us. I think they like having our group here. 

Eventually everyone trickled back from the beach where they joined me at the pool. Some went inside to cool off, shower or nap but by the end of the day almost everyone was at the pool eating and drinking. 

There was some usual family silliness - laughing and joking. Todd decided to don a butterfly net and start catching family members with it. He and Charlie also had a hilarious experience with water balloons. There is some awesome video and photos of this all of course on Brians camera which I can't get to transfer to my iPad. So these will come later! Just before dark Robert - Laura's husband - arrived. Laura (Brian's sister) was unable to come, but Robert was and since they live in Italy it wasn't hard for him to get here.  

I think I was at the pool from 10am - 10pm which was probably too much sun and water but it was a great, relaxing day.