Home Again

Tuesday, 05 October

Even a town the size of Igoumenitsa (and that is still very small, but bigger than Gaios on Paxoi) has no place that serves breakfast, except hotels, but we had foolishly declined to pay the small extra price for breakfast to be included. We must have crossed the whole town, up and down, three times before we finally gave up. Even the Greek doughnut holes shop was closed.

Somebody suggested we go to a bakery. So we did and there found milk and juice and bougatsa, which is cream-filled pastry. The bougatsa looked small, so we ordered three of them and went to a park bench beside the water to eat.

The bougatsa, when held in the hand, suddenly looked large, and were quite heavy besides. Demetrios, whose appetite shrank the moment we got to England and has remained small ever since, could only eat half of his. (It’s stress reduction, now that he isn’t working.) I ate all of mine, and drank some of the milk, too.

Then, on to a kafeneion for kafe. I had tea instead.

We could and should have bought tickets for the 9:30 am bus, but yesterday Demetrios thought perhaps there would be time to locate another of those English camps, so we bought tickets for the 1:30 instead. Today Demetrios concluded, however, that there wasn’t enough time, so we hung around town.

About a mile short of the camp, he walked back to the campsite to revel in more memories, while I waited for him in the park by the sea.

Then we hiked the two more miles back to the bus terminal. I went to the ladies’ room and when I came back, Demetrios was sitting at a small table conversing in English with a Greek man. “Sit down,” Demetrios invited, pointing to his seat as he stood up. So I did and he disappeared into the men’s room, leaving me with the chatty, unshaven stranger, who immediately began describing his very unhappy life.

By the time Demetrios returned, it was time to board the bus, a relief to me. Demetrios later said the man probably had a mental illness. I left on the table the paper bag containing the third bougatsa and about a cup of milk.

The time for departure came and went. The bus driver seemed more interested in shouting at his friends and co-workers than in driving. “The woman who went to get water, is she back yet?” one of them shouted to the driver.

“Yes, she’s here.”

“I’m here!” said a heavy-set woman, waving.

“And the young lady who went to the bathroom?” the other shouted.

“Not yet,” the driver shouted back. A minute or two later she did come, everyone by now having become aware of her business.

This trip, there was only one brief stop, and only at a gas station, no food in sight. Not counting the two other stops the driver made by the side of the road for his own personal convenience.

The driver played terrible Greek music the whole way on his own radio, a man wailing in minor chords to the accompaniment of guitar and mandolin. Demetrios said it was a dissolute genre called rebetika and “It’s the music of losers. But in these songs, they make that into a virtue.” A little of it isn’t bad to listen to, but after the first hour it definitely grates on the nerves. We moved toward the back of the near-empty bus in order not to hear any more of it.

A man still young enough to have bubblegum in his mouth, three seats ahead of us, was busy seducing the young woman next to him – when she wasn’t seducing him.

In short, the only pleasant thing about the trip, besides being together, and of course the scenery, was that it was over a few minutes before we had expected it to be.

We changed to a regular city bus, which let us off right at the Seraikon, our favorite neighborhood eatery. We had supper there.

We had left our refrigerator empty and defrosting during our absence, so on our way home we stopped and bought some fruit and veggies to put in it, and some bread and butter for breakfast.

We unpacked and watched a little television and I knitted a while, and then, to sleep.

It was an unforgettable holiday, not only fulfilling dreams for each of us, but so much more. We feel relaxed and refreshed and extremely grateful.