Wednesday, 7 August 2013

Corfu Diary Oct 2011 - Feeling the Love, Greek Style!

Days 1+2

Sophie booked us a romantic holiday in Corfu but it's proving to be quite challenging! It's really cold and windy here, we have extra blankets on our beds and have resorted in having the oven on to warm the apartment up - My Eco chick persona would be ashamed! We've debated taking the curtains down for extra warmth! Seeing the vapour from your breath when inside is never a good thing.

Last night we slept for 14 hours but thinking about it we may have just slipped into a hypothermical induced coma as its now mid afternoon and we are tired again!

Wondered into the town today (once we were brave enough to get out of bed)! Befriended a bar man who kept giving us free wine which was pretty awful and I powered through most of it but Sophie gave hers to a plant that physically shuddered as the wine hit its leaves!

Temperature has warmed up loads and I write this while sunbathing... who'd have thought after how cold it was earlier that we'd be in our bikinis now! Food is excellent though, maybe my affinity with cows comes from the fact that I too like to graze? Bring on the meze!


Days 3+4

We've found the owner of the apartment and are very excited about having yet another blanket and getting the AC remote so we can have some heating. There is a layer of frost outside and I'm not at all surprised as when we were walking home last night we could see our breath and I almost lost my toes to frostbite as flip flops in this weather are not ideal!

We had a very funny night, I wanted to go to what is billed as a 'Traditional Greek night' of fire dancing, Greek dancing and of course some plate smashing. We found a groovy looking taverna that advertised all these things and got a table right at the front. The two waiters were doing the dancing.... hysterically badly, and it was a painful display to watch... we did get to throw plates at him though although none hit him and put him out of his misery. I'm renown for chatting to anyone and everyone so when one of the 'dancers' came to take our order I asked if there was going to be any more dancing to which he replied saying they weren't planning too but they would do a special performance for us... epic fail on my part as we had to suffer it again and this time they kept winking at us all the way through. I don't think Sophie will ever forgive me for that.

From there we went to a bar to watch an awful singer but were given enough free shots to get us through... it is freezing at night and walking home was painful, we almost cried in delight when we opened the door to find the AC had warmed the room up! Sophie had rung up about changing flights and coming home early as it is so cold at night (I am way more hard core than her but I wasn't completely against the idea) but now we have heating we will be fine! Temp for the next few days is good so that'll get us throu'gh the cold nights.

They do trips to Albania from here and I'm really up for it but its -1degrees there and we don't really have the clothes for it... although we have a nice collection of blankets that we could take so let's wait and see.

We've not swum in the Canal d'Amour yet as we are weighing up the benefits of it helping us find true love vs how much more complicated that will be having lost body parts to hypothermia... tricky decision!

I'm enjoying a hectic afternoon laying in the sun before going into Corfu town later... its all good.


Days 5+6

We were growing to like the quiet, out of season vibe that is washing over Corfu, people are overly keen to serve us and we are getting discounts everywhere. Spent a couple of days chilling by the pool and eating lots which has been lurvley. Still have the heating up extra high in the evenings tho, no need for us to snuggle up together anymore!

Sophie and I went out for a v.romantic dinner the other night overlooking the Canal d'Amour... how cute are we! The waiter was v.letchy but gave us some free shots which is becoming the norm on both cases. The eve took a bizarre turn when a band turned up, the singer looked like Danny Devito I was convinced that the lead guitarist was wearing one of those sets made up of fake glasses, nose and tash sets that you can get in joke shops.

They played all the classic old rock songs but sung with a Greek accent.... nice.

There were a LOT of mullets in the bar you really should have seen them... Even a good looking guy had one and that was just strange.

We wondered home discussing the fact that we'd been out 3nights and hadn't yet received a marriage proposal from a Greek waiter when as if by magic we are yelled at by a guy and persuaded into a bar by the offer of free drinks. Apparently most people he yells at tell him to f off but as we are in our 30s and single we obviously have lower standards but did feel that we may have hit an all time low at that point but then I get a marriage proposal from one of the guys... not a waiter but a butcher who said he'd pay 180 Euros to keep me out here... that'll mark that low point I mentioned earlier!

On that note, I am quite ashamed of myself for excessively flirting with a guy selling some pictures that Sophie and I wanted in order to get a good price. The pic is of a couple kissing and I did actually say that the people in it looked like him and me... oh the shame! Did get 5 euros off but every time I look at the pic I get that slight feeling of nausea!

The next night we went for dinner at a bar that was having a Mowtown night and being a big fan of Disco Divas I was quite excited by it. Somehow we entered a quiz while having dinner there and the waiter (and Google) helped us. We made an awful joke in answer to one of the questions in the hope of an extra point that everyone thought was hysterical and suddenly we were very popular. The quiz question was 'what is Hallumi?' Our answer was 'what the cheese said when it looked in the mirror.' (FYI actually that has been voted the no.1 cheese joke in the world!). Turns out that between Sophie and I they could have asked about any cheese and we'd have a joke for it! It's a wonder why we are single!

So, we come 2nd in the quiz (even though Sophie spelt her name wrong on the quiz sheet) and won ourselves some more cocktails... just what we needed. We decide the beat the waiters at their own game and ended up taking over the bar and making our own cocktails, good work mefinks. The waiters were loving it and were cracking onto us as is the norm here.. they must really like us yer?! When we said to one of the waiters 'we bet you do this all the time' the reply we got was 'no, only about once a month'... and they say romance is dead!

We are quite shocked that some people actually believe that these guys actually like them! It's such a cliche to be chatted up by a Greek waiter that without it it would be like coming here and not eating feta (oh yes, there is a feta cheese joke in our repertoire.)

I got told by one of the waiters that I was beautiful but he had recently had a cornea transplant so that's another one for my list of tragic compliments!

Good job we are only here a week as we are running out of places to eat where we haven't hustled the waiters!

It's really stormy today, the lightening has come a bit late though as we were expecting it as we entered the monastery earlier... its 7.30pm and I'm hiding under 3 blankets with a bowl at the end of the bed catching the rain leaking through the ceiling!

Day 7

So the holiday comes to an end. Our last day is spent being reflective while we lazily wonder around the town, have lunch on the beach and come home for an afternoon nap before starting to pack up ready to fly home early tomorrow morning.

We headed into town for a last few cocktails while trying to dodge any more advances by Greek waiters.... only to get served by an Albanian one - we did not see that coming! More free shots followed and then we wondered off to have dinner. We aimed to go to another bar to catch an Elvis tribute but ran past it by accident while trying to avoid the Albanian. Defeated we came home which was probably wise as we had an early pick up to catch our flight home. But another stormy night kept us awake with the thunder and the sound of the rain dripping through the roof. When the alarm went off at 6am we weren't feeling very inspired to get up but the joy really hit when we we hit the light switch only to find out that we had no power... packing in the dark is quite tricky, thank God for the torch app on my phone! I was very relieved when I eventually got home and opened my suitcase not to find a Greek/Albanian waiter in there - phew!

We arrived back in the UK broken and exhausted but had an excellent time... although we do think that in conclusion we are safer going away with parental guidance!

Our next trip together is the 80s themed Bognor Weekender... uh oh!

No comments:

Post a Comment