(Lilly walking, outside of our apartment, at Flora's, in Apollonas, July 30)
By now, we’ve gotten really nicely settled into Flora’s apartment in Apollonas and the slow village living here in general. “Flora’s apartments” is actually a complex of seven apartments, managed by Flora’s son, Steljos, who’s from here, and his wife, Christina, who’s from the mainland. Flora and her husband live here throughout the year, taking care of the garden in the winter, and then Steljos and Christina, with their dog, Dick (who’s become good friends with Lilly; she’ll crawl after him and pet him), come out in the summer to run the business. They are so friendly and good to us. Christina brings us tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers from her garden, local wine and grapes from their friends, tells us to help ourselves to the lemons from the lemon trees, and I’m sure we’ll get to taste the pears and figs soon too, when they’re ripe. In addition to their lush vegetable garden, they keep a beautiful flower garden with roses and more, emitting the sweetest scents.
(Flora's apartments, our apartment is the one on the corner, the first one in the picture, with the blue awning)
In order to get to Apollonas, we had to take a bus from Naxos town (Chora). It takes two hours when it goes through the mountain villages, one when it goes along the coast. We’re surrounded by magnificent tall mountains and have a beautiful view to the ocean. Whereas in Drios we had vine groves between us and the beach, we now have a field with some goats in front of us. In the morning, we can see the farmer milk them by hand. We’ve been able to buy some of the locally made soft goat cheese (mizithra) from Sofia, who also runs a little tourist shop in the summer, and the hard goat cheese (kefaloytiri) from Giorgio, the local butcher. We’ve also bought some pork from Giorgio (he only sells the meat and cheese from his own animals) and some fish caught by Adonis, the local fisher man who goes out to fish whenever it’s calm enough (we’re having strong seasonal winds now, feels really good and cool, but the waves farther out are too big for his boat). In the winter, only about 80 people live here in Apollonas. In the summer, it grows to about 2000, mainly with Greeks who're from here but who live on the mainland now and only come out here in the summer to do business on the tourists, and then the tourists (most come just for the day). There’s Katarina and her husband who run a mini-market (closed in the winter), a couple of restaurants on the beach, and a couple slightly off, a couple of cafes, a couple of snack bars, a couple of tourist shops, and a couple of hotels (there really are two of each! And they really are all only open in the summer). The beach here has really fine sand, a little sticky, but very soft.
(Apollonas)
Lilly loves playing on the beach and in the water, in particular when she gets to play with other children. She prefers boys, slightly older than her. She’s started walking down here, took her first steps on Sifnos, in Kamares, June 26, then didn’t walk again until we got settled in Drios, on Paros, July 4, and then gradually more and more. Yesterday in the afternoon she started to do all walking and today she seems she’s done with crawling, it’s all about the walking now. I’ll upload a little video I took of her walking on our deck this morning next time I’m online (time’s running out; we only get very limited Internet access in this village, at one of the local village hotels). For now, I’ve uploaded some more photos to our “Greece album.” She’s also become a big eater (tomatoes, bread, spaghetti, pork, and ham in particular, also some cheese, some yoghurt, squid, and fish when we have that).
Leighton and I have started taking turns having an hour in the morning to work. Leighton’s busy reading articles and taking notes for his Master thesis. I’ve been reading through what I’ve written on my book, taking mental notes on how to edit and expand. This morning, Leighton worked while Lilly and I had a nice stroll around the village, up to the Kouros (a statue of Dionysos) and an ancient marble quarry, with a spectacular view.
(Kouros)
Last Wednesday (July 29) was Leighton’s birthday. We rented a car and drove around the island, saw the beautiful white beaches south of Chora (including Ag. Prokopis, Ag. Anna, Plaka, Mikri Vigla, Kastraki, Aliko), then drove inland, saw the ruins of Dimitra’s temple, and then some of the villages inland (Chalki, Filoti), and on the east coast, south of where we live, Moutsouna, with its spectacular drive up and down. We had dinner in the village of Aperanthos where, unfortunately, somebody stole all our cash (145 Euro). Luckily, we have travelers insurance, which covers up to 1,000 NOK of stolen cash, which reduces our loss to about 35 Euro.
(Leighton and Lilly at Kastraki, July 29)
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