Europe Day 16: Corfu Day One

Gravol puts you out!
While last night’s Gravol helped me get a pretty good sleep, it was still a little unnerving to be woken up by the announcements for the ferry’s first port of call. Definitely way too early for our own stop, and ended up being another stop at a port on the mainland of Greece. We still had to head to the islands.

Sunrise missed
Regardless of what I thought was an early call, it still wasn’t early enough to catch the sunrise, which was too bad – it would have been really awesome to watch it rise in a seaside setting on the boat. From that first port it was only another 30-60 minutes to our actual port in Corfu, so we spent our time packing quickly and lining up to disembark. I got “annoyed” by another attack of Little Miss Self-entitled – but I’ve promised myself not to let her ruin anymore of my trip. I really don’t understand how people can actually grow up being that way, but whatever. (For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, you’ll just have to ask me because she’s not even worth me spending time to explain it here.)

Corfu and Anna!
When we got off of the boat, we met our site rep Anna who was all smiles and cheer. She led us to another coach and driver (not permanent), who wasn’t too pleased with the weight of my bag. I just kind of looked at him with a sorry expression – but seriously man – if little ‘ole me was able to lug that up and down the three flights of stairs on the ferry, I don’t think he should have been complaining about one little throw into the luggage compartment.

Corfu-town
Our port was in the town of Kerkyra (Corfu) but our hotel was just outside in the town of Keloni (which is really more like a suburb of Corfu than a separate town). This area is on a huge hill, and while the coach could make it up to the hotel, the driver couldn’t make it up the additional hill-of-a-driveway that the hotel had, and we had to lug our luggage up there ourselves – definitely not a happy task.

Awesome hotel
Despite the huge hill, the hotel was awesome – like a little resort. We were given breakfast first right away – awesome buffet of food. We then checked in, and had some time to get ready, before we had to go into town. We also were going to have a meeting with Anna.

The opinions of others
So at this point – I should fill in some back information. Basically, Leona had told us throughout the whole trip, that we should not take the option to rent our own car and drive around the island. She told us about how the roads were a bit dangerous and the drivers were severely crazy. With this continued reminding throughout the trip – pretty much everyone on the bus was ready to NOT rent a car.

However – what should happen at the meeting with Anna? Renting a car and driving around Corfu was exactly what she suggested was the BEST idea out of the bunch before us (rent a car for the day, go into town by coach, visit the city beach by walking).

Not such a hard choice
It at first seemed like a hard choice before us – but in the end we decided that a trip into town wasn’t so exciting as seeing the island for ourselves, and the only chance for us to see the better beaches on the west side of the island would be to take off on our own. In the end, there were actually a lot of us that decided on the car – but because we were long in making our decision – the only people in our car was H-Rabbit, Caitlyn and myself. Chris and Liz decided to opt out, as they weren’t comfortable with the car issue. In the end – for me – it really wasn’t a big deal. I think maybe for Leona it was a bigger deal since they drive on the other side of the road (in Australia) – however, we drive on the same side as Corfu in Toronto, and the roads weren’t any worse that what I’ve driven on in other island locals, so c’est ca.

Ish-time not always a good thing
ISH time definitely affected our leaving time – there was a long period of waiting around for our car to be delivered by the rental company. In the meantime, Anna showed us where to go, and how to get there, on an island map. Eventually, the car people finally arrived – but with a manual car! So we had to wait some more for an automatic, since I was the only one who was going to drive and I can only drive automatic.

Empty means EMPTY
Finally, we got our car. In handing it over, the rental lady told us the tank was on empty, but it would get us to the closest gas station to fill up. Ha! Yeah, right! After we got in and cruised down to the main road down by the breakwater – the car didn’t even make it past the waterfront! It gave out in the middle of an intersection, and with a little maneuvering and quick gearing into neutral, I managed to coast the car into a parking spot right beside a store beside the intersection.

Yay for helpful locals!
Thankfully, the storeowner helped us call the car people and get them to come help us out. He didn’t speak much English, but with random sign language and sad faces, I think he realized what was wrong with us.

Hilarious live comedy
Thankfully - not too much ISH time in came into play this time around. The car rental people came fairly quickly and said over and over again that they were sorry and embarrassed. It was a hilarious comedy of errors watching them trying to get us on our way, by trying to get gas into tank to take us to the gas station. Basically, they had brought the gas in a plastic vegetable or corn oil jug, and they proceeded to make a funnel out of the map they were going to give us of the area to get the gas in, and then tried to funnel the gas into the tank. There was a mother, daughter and it seems maybe grandfather all in the mix chattering away to each other in Greece cause they just couldn’t get it to work. Finally – with the grandfather holding a pen into the gas tank opening to keep it open, the daughter holding the funnel-made-out-of-map, and the mother slowly pouring the gas in – they managed to get about 1/16 of a tank of gas in. As apologies – they said we could have the car for an hour longer than everyone else that had got a car – which was nice considering we had now spent half a day just trying to get out of the city, let alone To anywhere.

Laughing Gas
As we had a good laugh at the real-life comedy we witnessed – we had another good laugh when we finally got to the closest gas station. It was more than a kilometer away, meaning even if we hadn’t stalled right at the bottom of the hill, we would have stalled sometime after, cause we definitely would never have made it all the way to that first station. Greek people are definitely a gas. Get it? Hahaha.

Most amazing ride
On our way to the western isles, we definitely had one of the most amazing rides ever through countryside. Unlike all the dire warnings, driving was a total breeze. With all the same rules as Canada, the roads proved easy, and once you’re out of the city it’s just plain ‘ole small island driving: no one on the roads and awesome twisting turning pathways that make the ride feel more like an off-road rollercoaster.

Breathing in the beauty
Whether the driving was inland or along the coasts, there were a ton of amazing sights and views to behold. I can’t remember the name of the main western beach we made it to (will have to look that up), but we got there safely and spent a couple hours both sun bathing and have an awesome time in the ocean. While there, we met up with the Texans and Jolene as they had hit the same beach. When we were good and burnt, and after buying some beach gear, Jolene decided to join us in our car and we drove to a few other beaches and areas up the west coast of the island. There were some amazing photo ops and vistas. As our time for car return was nearing, we then headed back to the hotel along another route so we could see some other areas of the island.

Glupas!
Spelling of the above may be wrong – but it should be the name of the restaurant we went to tonight after we returned back from the beach. After such a great day, it was awesome to be treated to such a great night too. We started dinner with all of us having a shot of Ouzo at the entrance, and were then led into a large taverna with dancing all and everything. Dinner was absolutely amazing with tons and tons of courses. After we finished eating, we were then treated to an array of traditional Greek dancing and singing, which of course included many a broken plate as well as lighting the entire dance floor on fire! Everyone knows Greeks know how to party! After that – it was thankfully straight to bed as the day had been hugely filled and tomorrow we’re on the water all day long. It’s going to be one of the best days ever – I can feel it – and I don’t want to miss it.

Pre-Europe #3: The buying ends?

Well - this Saturday basically saw me break my bank account. For a person who detests shopping, worries about money, and hates buying clothes above all other things - I not only did all three pretty much ALL day - but I believe I spent the most money I've ever spent all at once.

Ok - so some of it was pre-paying future bills, setting aside taxes and making sure that our rent is paid for the month we're away - but damn if I wasn't hyperventilating at all the money I saw disappear right in front of my eyes.

Today was basically a shop till you drop kind of day - and required a LOT of trying things on - cursing the lack of good-looking, comfortable walking shoes - and watching my credit card swipe over and over and over again. I believe VISA should be calling me first thing tomorrow morning to make sure that I didn't lose the card to a thief.

Anywho - what did we end up with? Let's see - first stop was dropping Bobo-Fett at at the groomers so that she didn't shed all over the carpet of her doggie-sitters for the three weeks we're gone - aka H-Rabbit's parents'. We then went and got H-Rabbit's new glasses and sun glasses so she could actually SEE Europe when we get there rather than just the end of her nose.

From there - we then made our way to Markville - where I picked up the very necessary socks and undies from Sears. We also met H-Rabbit's mom who works there - I was told to shop at Markville without visiting when we KNEW she was there was basically being asked to be murdered - so, c'est ca. H-Rabbit also picked up a pair of skorts that were on sale.

We then ventured elsewhere in the mall which led to tons of aggravating shoe shopping until we finally settled at Coast Mountain Sports. I think the sales rep was flabbergasted as what to do with us as we took forever, changed our minds ten times, and got him to bring out a ton of shoes.

At one point I'd even settled on a pair of walking-runners from The North Face for quite awhile as H-Rabbit was thinking about walking sandals and agonizing between a pair from The North Face and the super comfortable off-white flip-flops from Columbia - when I realized I didn't really like the shoes so much as the price - and that I really didn't want to buy something I hated just because it was cheap.

So instead - I went for a fairly expensive but good quality Keen walking sandal (since I needed sandals too for the super hot Italy and Greece) and H-Rabbit finally settled on a North Face gel-bottomed pair and we were at least set with one pair each (even though I still didn't have the walking-runners that I really needed...).

See - my problem with runners lie in that I absolutely adore Skater shoes - and hate running shoes - but Skater shoes are simply way too heavy and way to non-foot conforming for walking miles and miles and miles across Europe. The thing is - they are soooo awesome looking. You would think - that in this day and age - runners would also be awesome looking - but no. They're not - and for some reason - 99.99999% of them are white or at least white-based - and I detest that in a shoe. Especially if it's a shoe you reasonably expect to wear, oh, I don't know, outside!! In the dirt!! Where white shoes become brown!!

Anywho - back to the shopping. From there we then went to the Shoe Company to see if they had any runners I'd like - no luck. So we simply picked up our now half-the-size puppy (realizing that she is actually NOT fat - just fur-fat - and we actually have a damn skinny dog) and went home for a quick bite to eat before heading off to Vaughn Mills.

Oh - I forgot to mention - that amongst all that other shopping - we had also been stopping into clothes stores - however this had been mostly for H-Rabbit since I can't fit into anything on offer at most malls. So during our break - I also quickly looked up the stores that carry MXM so I could at least look young-ish in the chubby clothes that I needed to buy.

Before heading to our final destination of Vaughan Mills, we stopped at the Colossus Centre for me - and popped into the Addition-Elle they have there. After trying on a ton of clothes - I ended up walking away with: 2 bras (which cost a million dollars... ouch), 2 tank tops, some shorts, a bathing suit tank and a pair of skorts. That little trip alone cut into my credit card at a quarter grand - ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.

Let's just say from that point on I stopped counting - and still have yet to look at the damage. That's the task for AFTER writing this.

At Vaughan Mills - we did a lot more stops for H-Rabbit - but I DID find my running shoes!! Athlete's World finally had a pair of New Balance black running shoes that a) didn't look like a dog's breakfast, and b) I could actually see my self-proclaimed-designer-self wearing everyday without cringing at every step.

After that - I was feeling pretty good that my list was finally complete (sans some itty bitty things) that I actually walked myself into an H&M (which I hate doing) and managed to find not one, but two hats for under $20 total, so that I don't burn my head in the hot European suns.

Thankfully after that, we ended with dinner and came home. I am soooooooo dreading looking at my account. Especially since there are a few more things that we need to get - but hopefully now I can scrounge around the house and make a few "substitutions" to alleviate the wallet pressure.

Hopefully.