A Few Days on Chios

Farewells in Thessaloniki

...And after Monday’s table dancing, we’re on lovely Chios island. We've had a hectic few days filled with picking up our residence permits (yay!), saying goodbye to Thessaloniki friends, donating kitchenware and clothing that we can't fit in our bags, and plotting how to deal with our difficult landlady for our departure. Luckily all things went smoothly, although we're sad to (physically) leave nice people. I'm also sad I had to donate my purple suede shoes, but someone in Greece will get to add some needed color to their black wardrobe.

We smoothly evaded any further hellfire from our landlady by having our friend Haris with us when we handed over the keys. Having a witness kept the landlady from behaving badly again. In short, a few days before we moved out, she morphed into a rabid dog when we asked her to pay us 72 euros that she owes us (because we were without internet for 3 months and she said she'd reimburse us). This led to her seemingly accusing us of stealing sheets and carpets and other things... and somehow getting all this stuff in our two suitcases?! Instead of her paying us what she owed, we ended up paying her 26 euros to minimize her toxicity. To make the whole rabid dog thing even weirder, after she had gotten so mad at us, mere seconds later, she demanded that we have lunch with her before we leave. We politely declined and are now happily done with that relationship. Luckily we also had more entertaining lunch plans ahead.

Table Dancing Saves a Mediocre Meal

Greeks had yet another holiday weekend at the start of May; amusingly, media warned people to buy enough bread for three days because of bakery closures. Our friends, Haris and Gianni, invited us to join them and several other friends for a holiday lunch in a mountain village whose name means "Pigeon" outside of Thessaloniki. We rode in their car to meet the other pals so we could caravan out there since the restaurant isn't easy to find. At the meet-up stop Sam and I got bedecked with flowers. At beginning of May, Greeks pick flowers and make them into wreaths or crowns. We got crowned with flowers and then 4 cars headed to the restaurant.

Little did we know we were in for a pre-pandemic-esque festive Greek experience—tons of food and drink, live bouzouki music, and spontaneous dancing by many Greeks when a favorite song filled the air. One woman even did an extended dance or two atop her family’s food-filled table. They really do that! At times there were so many people dancing that the wait staff had to join the dance just to get through with dishes for a table on the other side of the restaurant. We were the only foreigners in the place and the bouzouki guys cheekily dedicated the Zorba song to us.

Eating with Greeks is a fun experience at every stage of the meal. Ordering often feels like an interrogation of the wait staff and/or maybe like negotiating to buy a new car. Greeks kick the tires on every aspect of the menu. During the meal, there's a constant flow of liquids. After we finished our whole meal, another table bought our table a carafe of wine; after that, the restauranteur gave our table a bottle of limoncello. Eating is robust and energetic, and then the serious restaurant critiquing commences on the journey home if it hasn't started at the table already. And sadly, this place turned out to be expensive and mediocre. On the drive home, our friends dialed each other on their phones to grouse about the prices and quality. "The salad had no oil on it! Some things were too salty and other things weren't salty enough! How can they charge so much for their meat? They are not even using quality vegetables!" Their assessments were on target but overall it felt almost like living in 2019 before things went haywire. It was maybe the best lousy meal experience we've had in ages.

Chios Arrival

And then Tuesday, after handing over our apartment keys and a few more goodbyes, we headed off to Chios island. We are staying in one of the mastic villages here. Mastic is getting trendy the way argan oil did a few years ago. Mastic (it's a tree resin that tastes a bit piney, a bit menthol-like, and can be chewed like gum) is being added to all sorts of foodstuffs and beauty products. But the entire world supply comes from a small portion of this island and has for eons. Several lovely medieval "mastic villages" are here and feel sort of like being in Fes or another old Moroccan town (i.e., walled and guarded by towers, built like a rabbit warren to protect the locals from invading pirates...but those features now lure tourists). Chios is much greener than we anticipated--it is filled with olive, mastic, pine, eucalyptus, and fruit trees. The intoxicating scent of orange blossoms is everywhere because Chios is known for citrus, too. It's us and the Turkish tourists here. We met a Turkish couple today who have been on the island numerous times but haven't been able to come for the past 2 plus years. They're making up for lost time and so will everyone else this summer, it seems. But will it ever be summer? We're still wearing wool sweaters and needing blankets at night in May but we know that'll change soon enough.