Finishing the Rhodes trip

We are still wandering around Rhodes in our catch-up today. On Saturday, under a clear sky, we sat outside in the sun for an orange juice after buying our boat tickets back. Sadly, Plaza Travel has closed, but there are several other travel agencies nearby where you can buy boat tickets. There’s a Blue Star office around the corner from the hotel and another agency at the end of the pedestrian street not far away, as well as all the others you see around Mandraki. That done, and some more light shopping taken care of, we had a wander and chilled out.

In the evening, we went to the newly opened My Thai restaurant. This was in the old town but is now next to the Casino, and the location is much better. Eunice, the waitress we know there, was telling us that they have been especially at the weekends. I guess that being so close to the casino it offers the chance for a special night out. Something different from the usual fare and only a stone’s throw from whether goes on at the casino – I’ve never been in one, so I have no idea, but I am sure it’s fun. The food was lovely, as were the staff, and the setting is rather posh, but the price not so. We had a bottle of wine rather than our usual jug, a curry each and a large special rice, and the bill was just over €40.00, half of which was the bottle of wine. We were also treated to a free sweet of fried bananas and ice cream.

To finish the trip, on Sunday after breakfast, we took the Spanos catamaran homewards, a few bags heavier than when we left Symi. The crossing was smooth and quick, but we lucked out on taxis and so walked home up the Kali Start bags and rucksacks and all. That’s often quicker than waiting for a taxi and with the bus currently off the road, was our only option. We returned to find the next-door ruin more cleared out than before and work is still ongoing there, and the house exactly as we had left it. We aired it and set about unpacking and doing some washing before the next storm (due today) washes in.

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Greek driving license and a curry

UPDATE: Due to bad weather, the open meeting with the Consulate on Rhodes Wednesday, has been changed to Friday. 09.30 to 11.00, at the Chamber of Commerce, Rhodes. Everyone welcome.

Having arrived in Rhodes, we walked from Akandia harbour around the seafront to the Plaza where we took advantage of their €40.00 per night for a double room offer. It was a good job we had booked as, come Saturday night, the hotel was full. They were catering for a tourism convention, the breakfast room was full in the later morning, and it was more like summer than winter regarding numbers of guests.

I had to sort some paperwork for my Greek driving licence, and my solicitor came to visit us at the hotel, signed a couple of documents and brought the translation she had done for me, total cost €50.00 and it took about ten minutes, most of the time spent in a general catch up chat. After that, it was a day for shopping and looking in the various clothes shops where, unless you are slim-fit or skinny-fit, you don’t stand much of a chance finding suitable trousers, at least, not if you’re a man. Our son calls this design ‘leg condoms’ and I, for one, am looking forward to the day regular fit trousers come back into style. I think the polite term, used at Zara’s among other places, is ‘relaxed fit.’ Why not just call them jeans for normal people and have done with it? You see some horrific style errors as even a normal, non-skinny youth can look like a potato on sticks wearing this allegedly stylish fashion. Mind you, these days, the young men of Rhodes, and elsewhere no doubt, all look the same with skinny jeans, hipster hair and beards.

So, fashioned bemoaned and a couple of shirts later (also hard to find ones that are not slim fit), a quick lunch and a walk, and it was back to the hotel for a siesta. That didn’t work out as planned and ended up being an afternoon chat in the bar with various Symi folk over for the day or weekend. We went to the Basmati curry house in the evening. This one has been open a few months now, and I’d never noticed it before. It’s Pakistani rather than Indian, but more or less the same thing except what we had was hot with a capital H and several exclamation marks. I enjoyed it, but Neil found it too spicy, and he’s usually the one who likes his curry hot. I took a couple of photos but hey make the place look empty; it wasn’t.

Tomorrow I’ll continue with the weekend catch-up, but I’ll warn you now, it’s more of the same.

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Symi to Rhodes

Back from Rhodes. Lots done, lots to do and not much time to do them this morning, so not much text here but a few photos. Let’s start with the journey there. On a Friday, the boat comes in at 7.30 and leaves at 7.45, so not too much of an early start. The weekend was probably the first good weather for weeks, no rain, not windy and so the boat was busy with foot passengers and cars. We walked down from the village and along the side of the harbour to the new jetty, queued to pick up our tickets, by which time the boat was in, so walked straight on and went to sit outside on the top deck for the views. The Blue Star Patmos has six cafes that I can think of, plus a restaurant and a self-service which are open at various times. A coffee and a bottle of water saw us across a calm sea, and before you know it, you’re there. More on this trip tomorrow, but for now, I need to catch up on admin and emails and other bits and pieces I didn’t get around to yesterday while I get back into the usual routine following the short holiday.

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Here’s the poster advertising a meeting by British Consulate staff to be held in Rhodes on Wednesday. The team are also planning a visit to Symi in either March or May; what month would be best?

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Happy Month, Kalo Mina!

Kalo mina being the traditional Greek greeting on the first day of a month. I am, hopefully, greeting you from a boat in the Aegean right now, as we’re off to Rhodes on Friday to do some bits and pieces. We’ll have a couple of days holiday and do very little apart from hang out at the Plaza hotel, wander around Rhodes, maybe walk out to Jumbo if the weather’s good and have a mooch, try the new Thai restaurant near the Casino if it’s open, or the Indian restaurant, Saffron, read, see people and so on. The forecast is currently for good weather which makes a change after the past few weeks. The photos today are of the hail that landed on Wednesday. As you can guess, we didn’t leave the house all day.

The other photo is a plot chart for the story I am working on. I wouldn’t look too closely, even I can’t read half of it. The boxed text parts are the main progressions per ‘act’, there are three main lines, two more connected than the first, the main action plot, and the red is another subplot dealing with the main character’s through line and reason for his change in character etc. Thanks to my new work station, I can have this on the wall opposite me as I write, hopefully keeping me in line when the characters take over and wander off into their own stories. You see, writing Mills & Boon for boys is not as straightforward as it appears.

So, as we are away in Rhodes, there will be no Saturday Symi Photos post tomorrow, but all should be back to normal on Monday as long as we’re able to get the boat back on Sunday morning. Hopefully, I will have some outdoor photos for you, probably of Rhodes and our trip, but it will make a change from rain and wind, hail and grey skies. Maybe.

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