Grenoble: Munich Spring (post-Crete edition)

When I think of Greece, I think of hot, sunny, summertime weather, with sandy beaches, island hopping, ouzo, souvlaki, Greek letters which in turn make me think of physics and math, the Danforth, Tom's apartment with Charles in good old Greek Town, tzatziki, and maybe a little bit that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But mainly the hot sunny weather. Oh ya, and the Counting Crows and their song Anna Begins because it's about this Australian girl Anna (or at least she lives in Australia) that he met on some Greek island when he was taking a break from landscaping to travel across Europe. But I digress...

It's been a cold and long winter here in Germany. I know, not nearly as cold or as long as in, say, Canada, but nothing like last year, for example. We were more than 100% ready to lie in the sun, lounge on the beach, drink cold – perhaps sparkling of some kind – beverages reclined in the afternoon heat, gaze at the night’s starry dome underneath the Matala moon, and other forms of hot weather enjoyment that are typically partaken in by vitamin-D-deprived humans such as ourselves.

Alas, much of the above was never to be. While days 1 and 7 provided us with ample sun and little wind, days 2 through 6 could be acceptably and accurately described by lacking those two important features. Apparently Greece is not always warm, nor is it always sunny. One evening as we were en route from our cottage to the taverna, it literally snowed on us. In Greece. In April.

Despite these issues, however, we had a wonderful Cretian vacation. I even swam in the sea just outside Joni’s cave in Matala. We also consumed cold sparkling beverages. On some occasions we lounged and ate in the warm Cretian sun. We hiked through the Rouvas Gorge, starting around 300m elevation (where our stone cottage sat), up to 1000m in the old growth forest full of ancient Oak trees. We of course visited Joni’s – and all the other 1960’s hippies’ – caves, and we ate (probably) at the modern version of the Mermaid Café. As planned, we each gained approximately 5kg due to massive food over-consumption, and (importantly) played some intense rounds of ping pong. On the colder evenings, we sat by the fireplace in our stone cottage, and one night watched what is easily the worst Bond film of all time, Moonraker, in French (!). We learned some Greek: καλημέρα! (“good morning”, pronounced “kaliméra”); καλησπέρα! (“good evening!”, pronounced “kalispéra”); καληνυχτα! (“good night”, pronounced “kalinychta”); ευχαριστώ (“thank you”, pronounced “efharisto”); and finally παρακαλώ (“you’re welcome”, pronounced “parakalo”). I especially felt really cool and smart being able to pronounce the Greek words from knowing all the Greek letters from physics. λ, “lambda”, is the wavelength of a wave, of course, and so is kind of like “L”; ρ, “rho”, is of course the density, and so is kind of like the “R”; π, “pi”, as everyone knows, and so is like “P”, etc, etc, etc.

Now we're back in Munich and the spring and the lead-up to summer seem to have begun. We had some days of 24 and 25 degrees sunny weather, we've hiked the mountains of Tegernsee and the Schliersee in the springtime sun, we've exchanged trainer tires for outdoor tires and tested out the road bikes on the open road, and my friend visited for the weekend during which we spent time in the Viktualienmarkt biergarten, watching the Eisbach river surfers, eating hausgemachte ice cream, and drinking ice cold Radlers.

And here are some pictures from Crete...