2006-12-08 - 10:03 p.m.
I can't believe this. I just finished my Ithaka post, picking up where I left off yesterday, and I managed to lose it. I can't wait to get back to my nice laptop, who doesn't do silly things like this.
I went out for a walk one day on Ithaka, exploring a road going up a mountain. It ended up leading to a village, but the most interesting thing was a bench I found half way up, that was inhabited by a friendly cat. I think she lived in the near by house, and she was very tame. I spent a pleasant hour or so playing with the cat and reading.
When I got back to the apartment, at about four, Jesse looked at me. "Dinner's in the fridge" he said.
I was a little surprised. We never ate that early, and I knew that when I left two hours earlier he was still in bed. This seemed like a lot of activity in what he would consider the morning. Turns out that he had gone to check his e-mail, and Dionysus had offered him something to eat. Then, Sophia had made a plate up for me, sent along some home made feta cheese, a bunch of cookies, and some Clementine oranges, which are like Mandarin oranges, but with seeds. The meal was goat stew, and was very good.
This happened a few times- Jesse would go to check his e-mail, and Dionysus would feed us. We had goat stew, goat ribs, goat spaghetti and some kind of lasagna, which I would be surprised wasn't goat. They eat a lot of goat, obviously, and raise the animals themselves. The goat ribs, Dionysus happily told us, were from a one year old female goat- apparently the males are quite pungent.
Dionysus and Sophia were both, as I've said several times, very generous. One day, Dionysus offered to show us something of the island in his Land Rover. We were more than happy to take him up on the offer, and we set out. He took us to the top of a mountain, that would have a magnificent view, except for the fact that we were enveloped in fog. Still, what we could see was awesome. After about an hour of driving, Dionysus told us that he had to get to work. He doesn't have a regular job- he's a retired sailor. However, he is building three houses, and that day was harvesting olives at a house his sister owned.
We offered to come along and help, and he said that no, he would drive us back home. We both really wanted to help though, city slickers that we are. He looked at like we a little crazy, but let us come along.
To harvest olives, one guy climbs up in the tree and cut down most of the branches. I don't know why this is- maybe the fruit grows better on new wood? Anyway, we were on the ground. He issued us with a rake each. These were plastic, with wide tines- each one was about a foot and a half long. They looked like something you would bring to the beach. We raked those along the branches on the ground, which knocked the olives off, on to the tarp spread on the ground. It was a lot of fun, and I could have kept going all day, but I think Dionysus felt bad about having us work, so he drove us home after the first tree. Still- I helped with the olive harvest in Greece this year!
