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Greetings from Paros,
My, my! Two months have
rolled by and I am seriously behind in sending out a
newsletter from Paros....my excuses are valid: I am getting
too old to hurry, too laid back to hurry, and/or too lazy,
or busy?.... Lousy excuses, but as good as any real ones
that I might come up with!
August business was way
down but with just the right amount of tourists in the hotel
to enable us to enjoy each and every one. Barbecues in the
garden, sunset watching with cocktails at the windmill/art
gallery on the hill above us, going to restaurants or
beaches with guests. Or just chilling out, doing nothing in
particular.
One highlight of the
season was watching the olive trees start (in March) with
teensy tiny little blossoms gradually to become huge green
olives. At the moment they are still on the tree but come
November will be ready to harvest. Too bad we will not be
here this year to help with that event. We will miss having
a few litres of our own olive oil on the kitchen shelf!
(More
on harvesting your on olive oil.)
Another notable
happening was keeping a close eye on a couple of almond
trees. Being a city girl most of my life, I was under the
assumption that almonds only came in packages or roasted in
pretty gift cans! This year, I actually got to eat green
ones right off a REAL tree in my own garden (as shown me by
a Greek friend). The soft, small and unshelled bud tasted
"green" and was not, in my opinion, very tasty. I secretly
worried they were having a joke with me, but found out that
Greek woman actually make a marmalade at that stage. YUK.
By mid August the tree
was ready for picking. The husk opens in the sun while
still on the tree, exposing the almond shell inside. We
picked them off, took the almond out and let it dry for a
day or two in the sun. They were ready then to be cracked.
I did not think to put my handy-dandy nutcracker into my
suitcase last spring, but we found that a pair of pliers
from the tool box worked just as well! So many guests have
sat around the patio table cracking nuts and sipping the
drink of their choice while holding a huge pair of bright
red pliers in one hand! Yassis!
 
(Modeled by Yolanda, Rik
& Tim from Amsterdam)
Since we are on the
topic of almonds, I also learned that the Greeks pick them
directly off the tree, and serve them over ice with a little
bit of salt. I just could never seem to coordinate that, so
we served them our way: dried. I have heard we might not
get them into the United States due to environmental laws so
now we are pushing them onto friends here. I had hoped to
put a few small bags into Christmas stockings!
An event that sometimes
takes place around midnight is the blooming of our Queen of
the Night cactus. I believe I wrote a couple years ago
about this. It is always a thrill to see. This year's
cactus had many more blooms, and the Queen's night time
secret was very popular...as several guests, around the
midnight hour, could be seen to be quietly sneaking around
her with flash cameras in hand!
Weatherwise this year
can be summed up in probably one word: WINDY! (Wind
storms are actually a very common summer occurrence here in
the Cycladic Islands and are called Meltemi's). I think of
it as nature's air-conditioning...we do have
air-conditioning in the rooms, but a natural breeze is the
nicest, I think. However this summer, those breezes were
slightly out of hand, and caused the power lines to sing,
and some nights the wind whistled like an Irish banshee (do
the Greeks have such creatures?) . On those days, swimming
is a challenge (not for kids, though, they love the waves)
and most adults head for tavernas with a book in hand. Or
find a sheltered patio on which one can just sit and
vegetate (or contemplate?). For some people this is a skill
they have to learn....and just about the time they truly
have this "relaxing" down to an art, it is time to go
back.....
All in all, this summer
was full of good swimming, and all those activities one
enjoys in the summer at the beach.
I did, however,
experience a very unusual morning in August. Normally
EVERY morning is clear and bright with sunshine. But this
morning I got up, opened the door and the air was so full of
mist that I could barely see two houses away! The air was
still, damp, and eerily quiet. I immediately went for a
walk to experience this phenomena.
The weather had changed
from the north to the south, bringing moist, hot, damp
air. It felt a bit like a sauna. As I walked along, things
suddenly loomed out at me: a man on a wall waiting for his
lift to work, a dog walking along the road, a cat lurking at
the garbage bin, a shop owner opening his door. Nothing
could be seen until right on it....
I found the sea and it
was spectacular....as the sun was JUST starting to come
through...it was glassy still, turning pink and blue. Not a
ripple, not a sound. I wish I had my suit on, as a dip then
would have been priceless. My guess is the water would be
very warm. As it turned out, I ended up at my friends house
where we sat in her garden and talked in whispered tones
while drinking coffee. Speaking louder would be an
intrusion, somehow. In an hour the fog had lifted and
everything became normal...except that day our weather was
hot and humid, continuing to come from the south. Thank
goodness those days are rare. It really is not comfortable.
We are at the end of the
season, which as you may know or have heard was definitely
NOT Greece's best. We are not sure if it was due to people
staying away from Greece because of the Olympics and the
fear of terrorism, or the Euro or what. We did watch the
Olympics, and felt elated it went without a hitch (terror
wise), and hopefully the TV networks of the world did a
super job of exposing the world to Greece's beauty. Every
hotel owner and restaurant owner is banking on that
hope....that the Olympic TV watchers will see Greece as a
place they want to visit next summer. We are hopeful, and
waiting......being every optimistic!
Yassis,
Karin
Hello
from Michael,
Our plans for the winter
and next season are shaping up nicely. We will write more
in the next newsletter.
If
you are at all interested in coming to Paros in November for
the olive harvest, please let me know soon. We have to
coordinate with the farmer and a year-around hotel.
For
those of you interested in both music and computers (and
living in the US, UK, Germany or France) Apple
iTunes
has great programs--just buy the music you want rather than
whole CDs. They have a great selection of World music.
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Karin and I enjoy reading about a destination before our journey. We find that we get more from the experience by knowing something about the area and it's history. Know Before You Go! For North American residents we highly recommend our favorite big book store, Powell's. For Europe and the rest of the world you can't go wrong with Amazon.
Last modified: 05/25/08 |
