NOVEMBER 17, FRIDAY

EFI’S TOUR

This was Susie’s first day here so we celebrated by having a great breakfast at Regoussis Bakery. Our only plan for the day was to walk to the food carry out place and the large grocery store to get some provisions for the next few days. But as happens when traveling, what we planned was not what we did. Instead we had a great day touring with Efi.

When we came back from Regoussis there was a young woman sitting where Efi usually sits. It turned out that she was Maya, an American, who had stayed with Efi for a month a year ago. She said she was dropping by to say hi to Efi who had gone upstairs with banana bread for us.

When Efi came downstairs she announced that we were all going to do something with olives. Maya, speaks just a little Greek, relying mostly on Google translate. which neither Susie or I have had experience with. It turns out that Maya on her last trip through an odd series of events which started with her sore feet had met a Greek guy and was smitten. The Greek guy then visited her in the United States and on this trip she was staying for a month with him in a hotel that he owned in Parokia where the ferries dock. She is going home to the United States in three days and had just dropped by to see Efi. We are discovering that Efi has all kinds of foreigners who are attracted to her including the German, Wolfgang, who both Maya and we know from previous trips. Maya has lived and studied in Paris and counts Paris as also being home. She works remotely doing translations from French to English and tutoring on line in the United States. At the end of the day she had to rush back to Parokia to start her lessons which started at 9 a.m. in the United States. 4 p.m. in Parokia. Working remotely lets her travel.

So we got to know Maya yesterday. Efi drove us to Ampelas, to the home of her brother, where Rassa, the Egyptian woman who cleans our rooms, was harvesting olives on a plot near Efi’s brothers house.

The method of harvesting olives is to spread large mesh cloth on the ground under the olive trees and then with a whirring electric arm with rotating plastic flapping pieces would knock the loose dark olives to the ground, sparing the unripe olives. Rassa’s husband operated the whirring plastic while Rassa and her son used small plastic rakes to rake olives from the trees. We didn’t know if we were going to become olive pickers for the day, but apparently not. After observing the olive orchard for a little while we sat on the porch of Efi’s brother’s huge and beautiful house with a blue and white swimming pool.

He was in Athens. And then we got in Efi’s car to go get beer somewhere. Maya’s Google translation was a little slow so most of the day we had no idea what we were doing. We drove to the seaside restaurant where Efi and I had lunch on Sunday but it was closed except on weekends. So we got in the car again and drove to Prodromos to a restaurant that Efi said was good and cheap. There were two groups of old men sitting around tables talking.

Efi ordered beer and then continued ordering. We had no idea what, but in a little while we had seven plates of food to share including still pink and very rubbery calamari, meat balls, Greek salad, fried zucchini, okra in a sweet sauce and French fries.

Susie and I had just eaten a huge breakfast so we ended up taking much of the meal home in carry out plastic containers. And then Maya remembered that she had to tutor in a little while so Efi drove her back to Parokia and then drove us back to Naousa after which I slept for a couple of hours.

The reason for giving so much detail is so that I will remember it. But what the day illustrates is that the best experiences that happen when you are traveling, even when you are clueless, are not seeing historic buildings but when you luck onto some local experience and just go with the flow. The secret is that when you see an open door you walk through it, when you have a plan for the day and someone suggests looking at olives you drop what you are doing and look at olives. The reason that I was there in the first place is that I had on a whim two years ago clicked on a flight to Athens and on another whim selected and Airbnb with a blue roof and the Aegean beyond it. Those two chance choices led to Efi’s rooms and to being driven around the countryside of the island of Paros and meeting Maya the American falling in love with a Greek hotel owner. It was a marvelous day.