As I wrote last time, I headed off to the islands without any particular expectations. To my pleasant surprise it was there, for me, that the real enjoyment of this trip was found.
We visited 3 islands: Amorgos (which shows up on the map but doesn’t get any coverage in the Fodor’s guide) where the wedding was, Santorini, and a very brief pitstop on Mykonos. I sat down this morning ready to write a page about all 3, but now as I’m in the process of winding down about just one, I see that this entry will need to talk about one island only, and this is but a small fraction of what was great about being there.
Amorgos was simply charming. It’s not a major tourist destination, so although there are hotels and places for getting postcards and stuff, it was at bottom very friendly and quiet. It was there that I began to be struck by the natural light and the colors of the environment. The buildings were all bright white with, usually, brilliantly blue trim. The landscape was generally rocky and the indigenous (?) plant life scrubby, in a way that looked more minimalistically beautiful than desolate. And there were these rocky terraces all over the island that at first we thought protected what little of a place to farm out a person could get. But there were so many terraces, and so little plant life, I began to wonder if they were more for just to dampen the effects of erosion generally. On the banana-van ride to the opposite side of the island to catch our ferry to Santorini, I remember amidst all the goats seeing a small family working on one, and felt in the moment that those terraces represented the work of countless generations of families sorting out rocks and putting in their contribution to the terraces that lace the hillsides.
Also worth noting is the smell of the air. It might have taken Joanna’s pointing it out to me to expedite my own observation, but in the fair bit of walking I did, I did notice that the air was positively suffused with a savory scent of herbs growing all around. It was absolutely delicious. Also, and it’s kind of hard to describe, there was this interesting sort of sweet smell. I don’t know what it was – maybe from the grapes growing on the island? It smelled a little like honey? It was hard to pin down. The closest thing I have to compare it to, when encountering that sweetness, was how it feels if you’re swimming in Hawaii in the warm water, and you run across a tendril of a cold current that just touches you and then moves on. The sweet smell was like that – I’d catch it in the air, like walking through it, and go “oh, yum!” But if I’d back up and try to find it again, it was gone. It was something one had to catch in the moment and enjoy it while it lasted and hope for it to come across again; it wasn’t something to be pinned down and immobilized.
The closest to capturing it I found is in a local beverage called, I think in English, raki (how the eta gets transliterated does not seem to be strictly rule-governed, so far as I can tell). The folks running our hotel, bless them, were still awake when we arrived after midnight, and greeted us with little shotglasses of the drink and explained its tie to the herbs and honey and grapes of the island. And afterward, when I realized that raki tastes like how Amorgos smells, I had to buy a couple of bottles to bring home. In fact, that’s all (besides memories and photos) that I brought back from the islands.
Another special thing about being on Amorgos – besides Anders and Michelle’s wedding of course, which was beautiful and tear-inducing (but deserves a voicing more poetic than what I can conjure up), and wound up with a fantastic party dancing to Indian music and a 5 a.m. jump in the pool (that I regretfully missed) – was after the relaxing atmosphere enabled me to shed off the frenetic buzz that can accumulate from everyday urban life. And that was getting to sit around with new people, or people met before but not really known, without anything in particular to do or anywhere in particular to go, and get to know them better. That was pure and simply awesome, and is what rendered the mass exodus the day after the wedding bittersweet, for I would have sure been happy to have it continue with the folks who left for a few days more. Another time!
But anyway, here are some examples of how the hotel staff helped make the experience all the more achievable and enjoyable. One afternoon, some of Michelle’s family had brought food over with them from India – rice, spices, chutneys, pickles. And the hotel was quite okay with them moving into the kitchen there to prepare lunch; in fact, I think they even offered up to cook the meal themselves after a little instruction, and then served it up for everyone. I came in on the late side to that event, so I might not be right in all the details. But the food sure was delish! Pickled lemons: very interesting! And I was flattered to hear, when I asked for seconds, Michelle’s uncle say that I was definitely ready for a visit to India. To be sure, I’ve been more than ready for a while. Knuckling down and making it happen is another story, of course, but I hope to see that day come soon.
Another example comes from the day there was a thunderstorm on Amorgos. First, it was awesome that there >was< a thunderstorm. I LOVE thunderstorms, and it was a glorious indulgence to laze in bed with the patio doors open and listen to the thunder rolling outside. (Lazing in bed was also good because the night before was the rehearsal dinner, with, as one might expect, a fair amount of drinkage.)
There had been planned for that day a ferry ride to Santorini and a picnic there. But with the weather, and then stories of a test-ferry-run by some of the party guests to Santorini and back leading to stomach upset in persons usually quite seaworthy, the trip was cancelled. But it was all good – the picnic was moved indoors to the hotel where there were plenty of chairs and couches, a pool table and a wide-screen TV. By the time I finally made my way over, it was so nice to see folks sitting around, playing card games, lounging together chatting, sharing pictures, playing pool. And consuming the food and wine and beer that had been bought for taking out to the picnic. No one on the staff blinked about providing plates and glasses, and cleaning up after us, or balked when a crew went out to buy more supplies and brought it in. It was one of those moments where I thought, “nope, definitely not in the U.S. anymore.” Because I couldn’t imagine a U.S. hotel with a full bar and restaurant not getting snippety about that. But on Amorgos, the attitude was like, “if this is what makes you happy, then we’ll support you in making it happen – no worries.”
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