You'd think after climbing so many mountains, the views would all start looking the same, right? Wrong. Absolutely, positively wrong. It's like this place is a really good TV show, each episode gets better and better. Every site we've been to is gorgeous and wonderful in it's own way.
So far, Paladimi castle is probably one of my favorite sites. It was just so peaceful, nothing beats standing on top of the world with the expanse of the Argolic Gulf at your fingertips without a care in the world. Our visit to the castle was only perfected by chicken pitas and gelato down in the city. Pitas are kind of like the Greek cheeseburger...they're our go-to food when we need a big boost of energy in a little time. To be perfectly honest, though, I was ready for a little excitement in the food department. Switching it up to pork pitas every now and then is always so rebellious.
Venturing into town was an experience, though, that's for sure. I swear, the amount of bizarre situations we find ourselves in is getting ridiculous. We were innocently walking out of the pita restaurant when this strange looking character emerged from a little side store. He was about eighteen, and introduced himself as Christos. Now, Christos spoke very broken English, so introducing ourselves was a little difficult. Apparently, my name is now Maria and Brianna has been dubbed Marianna. For some reason, Corey's name seemed to escape him, and he couldn't even say Hannah (the Greek's don't have an equivalent for the "H" sound...when they laugh, it sounds like "pa pa pa"...lol). He didn't seem to have a problem pronouncing Jimmy, Rebecca, or Allison, so they were fast friends.
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| Romeo, Romeo, where fore art thou, Romeo... |
Even with his spotty English, Christos was just a Chatty Cathy. He asked us all about where we were from and what we were studying. Not gonna lie, it was a little awkward because of the intense language barrier, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. We only saw him and his father in the shop he was managing, so he must've been lonely. I think he just spotted people around his age and jumped at the chance for company. It just differed so much from the behavior we're used to that we were caught off guard. From what I've experienced, Greek shop owners are the only locals that attempt any conversation, and it's typically an advertising pitch. For the most part, we've been either pierced with cold hostility, people watched with curious fascination, or simply just ignored. These occasions in which locals appear genuinely interested are far and few between, and we were kind of taken by surprise.
It was all in good fun, though, and after a very unorthodox conversation, we headed down the streets of "whatever floats your boat" for some good ol' shopping. Unfortunately, we ended up going down the touristy street, with the snow globes and the parthenon magnets and the eight euro sunglasses. All was well, though, as we passed about four gelato places on the way. Yes, people, there is such thing as a Gelateria, and it's a very happy place.
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| I'll have one of everything, please. |
Sometimes, I look back on days like Saturday and wonder how we managed to fit everything in. When you think about it, we hit two famous archaeological sites and had a snack break all before one o'clock in the afternoon. Back home, that's about when I'm getting ready to start the day. Still, though all this adventuring makes me crave a coffee maker like nobody's business, I wouldn't change it for the world. This is Maddie, signing off!
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