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| A much shorter haired Glenn and his barber |
| Glenn's Crete Journals 5-10-02 Today was our last day in Crete. We enjoyed the time we had spent here, but were definitely looking forward to Santorini, as we had heard and seen great things about the island. The day started the usual way, with a shower and breakfast, and then packing our bags for the trip to our next destination. Today was a good day to accomplish chores, including laundry, internet, and possibly my first haircut since I had left the states (actually since I had left Seattle in February). First task was to head off to the internet cafe that we had seen earlier, download pictures and journals, and work on the website. We share the tasks in which I download the data while Erin checks email, and then I can use the photo editor to reduce the photo sizes while Erin starts to update the website. Today, in between tasks, I had laundry duty. Luckily laundry duty was easier than I had planned. The Self Service laundry, in which I thought I would have to sit around while I watched the laundry in the washing machine and dryer, actually turned out to be a full service laundry, and for only 6 Euro's per load. I left the laundry, which would be ready in 2 hours, and returned to the internet cafe to continue helping Erin. Well, to say the least, the internet connection was so slow that we could absolutely not upload anything to the web-site. A little frustrating, mostly because we had the time to update the website, and we were a few weeks behind in adding our journals. In the end you have to "go with the flow"!!! I returned to the laundry service a few hours later and the laundry was ready and smelled wonderful. You would only understand if you have not had the convenience of clean clothes whenever you want, or at least plenty of clothes that are clean to choose from, that you would understand the importance or joy of having clean clothes is all about. At this point Erin was still at the internet cafe, so I repacked both bags before our departure later that day. While I was away I also tracked down a shop to get my haircut. Yeah!!! Of course it was siesta time and the shop did not re-open until 5:00 pm. I would be back!!! We finally called it quits at the internet cafe after we realized that our attempts to upload data were futile. We had some additional free time on our hands. We finally stopped for lunch around 4:15 pm before heading on to the hairdresser (it was a Unisex shop) to get my haircut. At 5:00 pm we went a few blocks to where I had been earlier to the hairdresser. Well, the lady that was present didn't speak much English but what we did understand was that we should come back around 6:00 pm for another lady. O.K. So we had more time to kill. We walked through the vegetable market and around the block just window shopping. Behold!! What did we come across but a real, down to earth, barber!!! He had a small little shop not much bigger than my old 8x8 cubicle at work but with a higher ceiling (Oh Yeah, cubicles don't have ceilings). The walls were covered in Futbol photos from over the past 20 + years and the ceiling was even covered in futbol pictures, especially where the roof was leaking. The gentleman was extremely friendly and fun. He was glad to have a new customer and proceeded to cut my hair, after we had determined about how much I wanted cut off. He snipped away, reminding me of Edward Scissorhands from the movie, just throwing hair in the air and snipping away at whatever he could cut. He never stopped for a moment, snipping away, and was I getting nervous. On the other hand I had 6 more weeks to grow it back out so who would know, besides Erin. He finally stopped cutting, prepped my hair for show, added some gel and some aftershave to make me smell like a man, and then we checked it out. It was actually pretty good, even though I had him cut a little more off the top, but overall I was pleased. (For my friends that know how I am, I get my haircut regularly at 3 week intervals, so having gone 10 weeks without a haircut was extremely unusual. I just couldn't do anything with my hair I had so much!!!) I felt like a new man!!! After the haircut we promptly returned to the hotel, picked up our backpacks that we had left behind that morning, and headed off to the port to catch our boat. The boat to Santorini was a short trip leaving at 8:00 pm and getting into Santorini around 11:45 pm. We had deck seating again and for the short trip we thought that not a bad idea. We started our journey on the back deck which provided an extremely beautiful sunset over the mountains and water of Crete. Erin took some great pictures which she should place on this page as well as her own. Once we were out of view of the sunset and the deck became a much cooler place as the boat was moving, we moved inside to find seating. The boat was a smaller boat that was packed with many other people traveling with deck seating. We did happen to meet some nice young ladies from Canada, Jen and Maggie (with Phillipino backgrounds explaining their dark complexions) that shared their table with us. We chatted their ears off during the whole trip to Santorini. We appreciated it as the time went by in an instant. The hotel that we were staying at had a van at the port to take us to the hotel. (They even had an office at the port.) We didn't have to wait long before we were heading to Perissa Beach and the Holiday Beach hotel. We were quickly shown our rooms and reminded of breakfast hours in the morning and off to bed we went. The rooms were nice and included bathrooms and a balcony. The hotel included a pool but was situated 5 minutes walk from the beach and the town. Not a big deal as we will get a chance to check out the area tomorrow. |
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| A couple of the glorious sunset shots from the ferry deck as we left Crete |