OCTOBER 18, MONDAY

SNAILS, MATCH MAKING, JEWELRY AND COMFORT FOOD

The sun was out all day yesterday. At about 10 Wolfgang invited me to see the secret surprise that he and Efi had brought back from the mountains the day before. It was a basket full of multicolored snails who were eating cuttings of sweet smelling thyme which Wolfgang said would cleanse them so that in a few days he and Efi could boil them and eat them. I think I will be invited.

He then invited me to drive with him to Parakia where he showed me places that I should visit, the Byzantine church whose walls are made of marble from fallen Greek temples, and the archeological museum. He also helped me to find the bus station with the schedule to come back to Naousa, a bus leaving every 40 minutes.

I thought he was going to leave me there to wander the city, but he said he was going to Lefkes in the mountains, would I like to come along. We drove up the mountain to Lefkes, stopping once to photograph an olive tree which he says is 2000 years old. I don‘t know how he knows but it certainly looks old and still produces olives.

In Lefkes, a beautiful town with streets too narrow to drive in we sat for a while in his favorite cafe on a square. He introduced me to the owner, a woman who lost her husband five years ago and bantered with her, offering me as a new husband, but she joked about my wedding ring. At least this is what I thought they were talking about about since it was all in Greek.

As we walked up the hill to our car he stopped at a jewelry shop, run by an Irishman who spends half of each year on Paros and half of the year near Athens. Everything was half price as he prepared to leave for the winter. Wolfgang bought a ring with stingray skin embedded in it. The owner said that last year Whoopie Goldberg stopped by his shop and later Selma Hayak, who isn‘t as pretty as she is in the movies. Tom Hanks apparently has a house around here somewhere. And here I am living with the rich and famous for $20 a night, except I bet they don‘t get to spend a whole month at a time here.

And then we drove back to Naousa. It was warm enough to swim so Wolfgang went off to a beach shielded from the wind and I ate half of the leftovers that Susie and I had saved from restaurants whose helpings were so big that half of each meal came home in a box. And then I took a nap.

At eight in the evening I went out to eat at the grill restaurant where I had had a delicious gyro the night before, but it was closed for the season. So I decided to eat more leftovers. On the way back I stepped off the road to be sure I wasn‘t hit by a car whistling down the narrow street, and tripped on the sidewalk, teetered in slow motion, unable to right myself and fell to my hands and knees and, very embarrassed, was trying to haul myself up when a beautiful young woman stepped from her stopped car to ask how I was doing. I was perfectly ok, I insisted, although my knee was throbbing She got in her car and vanished. But Wolfgang heard the commotion and came out of Efi‘s ground floor apartment and offered me a beer while I collected myself and Efi made me a big bowl of pasta, ideal comfort food. I sat with them for a while and learned about Wolfgang‘s family while Efi, who couldn‘t follow our conversation in English, watched a soap opera on television through the door to her bedroom

And then I thanked both of them and came upstairs and fell asleep. Another day on Paros.