Greece Report

We are not in the Greece that everyone envisions; with the white washed buildings, the cliffs, and the dark beaches. In fact, we could really be anywhere from the looks of it. The hotel is nice, but not as crazy nice as I was worried it might be. The service here is excellent, I have honestly never seen nicer, more professional staff, all across the board. Even the cleaning ladies are like ninjas, I have never seen them in or out of my room, but they come every time I leave for breakfast to make the bed & open the curtains, sometime in the middle of the day to restock my fresh fruit supply & at night to turn down, close the curtains, supply me with more bottled water, etc. etc. Not to mention the servers, they remember our previous orders, and the food they serve is amazing. Good thing I am busy chasing around a 6 year old, and that they give me gym breaks, or it could be bad news for me!

I have enjoyed learning about the ocean from a 6 year old, snorkeling (there isn't much to see, but it's nice still), kayaking with Cal sitting on the back & hopping off every so often to check out if there's any good snorkeling around (this was a good, good afternoon), and attempting to teach him some swim strokes, how to float & dive.

I made Callum a friend in a gorgeous, strong little German boy. Once the two of them started to play together, it was like all the other little kids were magnetized to them & 2 nights ago, they all drifted away from their parents after dinner & down to the beach where Callum, John & I were playing. I ended up supervizing about 6 children while their parents sat up at the bar (it looks straight out over the ocean & the beach where they were all playing as well). The girls sat off to the side & talked about the crazy things the boys were doing, which included wedgies, wrestling, flopping on the sand, you get the gist. Then they all started comparing how many and which languages they speak. Oh, if only they knew the height of their privelege. I said "I speak some German" during this conversation. However, I've had to use it more here with John than I ever do in Switzerland! This prompted one of the lovely British children to say to me "You speak loads of German" (I wish you could hear the way in which this wee one said this to me, about broke my heart & made me consider, for a brief instant, if we raised our to-be children in Britain, would they say things like that, in that way?)

Last night we played on the beach again post-dinner. The children played red-light green light, and the little Jack Russell (only heard him bark once mom) that lives here got in on the action. The kids would begin to run & he would tear alongside them. But, if they got going a bit too fast, he would come up on top of them & try to really get them to play. This would send them into absolute screams & make them run at a full dash for me. At one point I had Callum in my arms and Natalia (lives in Berlin with her mom, here on holiday with her British dad, who incidentially, is the only parent who has introduced himself to me, despite the fact that I have been supervising about 4 families children) hugging my back while the dog looked mournful at the giggling children like, why aren't you playing with me right now? Why are you just sitting there giggling & carrying on? And it was pretty much at that moment that I realized why people have children in the first place, it was fabulous. At one point during all this mayhem, Natalia gave me a hug and said "Your not my mom, but I still like you alot," and then she gave me another hug. I said I was glad she was my friend, and I honestly am, she is a charming 8-year old lady. I cannot imagine I was so well behaved or carried myself so well even at 15-years old. I am sure I will have a lot of agreements out there on that as well! Sorry to carry on about a bunch of children, but clearly that's what I'm here for & really, I'm quite good at it. Not too toot my own horn, but I really didn't think I would be so relaxed about some of the crazy behaviors, or be able to entertain them so well, or enjoy them so much. It's been pretty much smooth sailing, so I knock on wood as I write that, because I'm quite hopefully that the tides will stay calm and the waves merely gentle lappings.

Hope you are all sailing on smooth seas as well!