Thursday, June 5, 2014
Well…an awful lot has happened since last I wrote…I’m just
actually glad we’re both around to write about!
So, to start. Our very nice hotel
room last night turned out to have its fair complement of mosquitoes along with
it. They absolutely LOVE Robert, and he
was not a very happy camper as we had to close up the room and fend off those
that remained. Then, because we were
both rather excited about our trip to Rhodes today, we were up by 5 a.m. … and
breakfast wasn’t until 8! Tried to log in to the computer, but no internet
service. Oh, first the shower! Don’t know where the hot water went, but it
was less than lukewarm this morning, necessitating uncomfortable showers for
both. (I’m not ordinarily an every-day
shower girl, but with the dust that has been blowing around, it has become a
necessity! Definitely NOT good this morning…) Then, about 7 we
had the two cases packed up, and Robert wanted to take them down to the car and
load them in. Well, he went downstairs
only to find that we were completely locked IN the hotel; no way out! (Very dangerous!!) I’m sure that if an
emergency were to happen, we could open the windows and go out that way, or
throw something through the glass doors, but that is really not a safe
environment at all. Then, about 7:15
a.m. all the lights in the entire neighborhood went out…great! (It must be me; I’ve done this before!)
Finally, a few minutes to 8 a.m. the electricity came back on. So… a so-so breakfast; back to Tang again,
which I really don’t like! But we were
out of the hotel by 8:25 a.m. and to the cruise port by 8:30 a.m.
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| The boat we almost didn't catch! |
Then things really got interesting!
I’m sure some of you may have noticed that we
like being REALLY early for things…well this time, it seemed that we were just
about the LAST people in line!
It turns
out that the 10:15 departure time given on the reservation was wrong; departure
was actually set for 9:15!
In fact, when
we showed our paperwork to the check-in guy, he said they don’t honor the
reservations made by the company we used (it was a Greek firm) – surprise!
So now, we would have to buy completely new
tickets!!
GREAT!
So, we were, quite literally, the last two
people on the boat – and it was absolutely jam packed!
We were able to hand off the suitcases,
leaving us with R’s roll-aboard and my backpack, which at least made it
possible to go upstairs on the boat.
Oh!
And of course, while we were waiting
to get on the boat and have our passports checked for the
THIRD time, it started to RAIN!!
Ah, yes!!
Anyway, we finally got on board. I found a regular seat on the upper deck, and
Robert was able to sit in some “extra” seating they had brought on board. And, the ship that was to leave at 9:15 a.m.
instead left at 9:45 a.m. Late
already! So out we go. I had a very nice conversation with a young
(20-something) Swedish girl [I don’t
get to have ‘…very nice conversations…’ with 20-something Swedish girls! – R] who is working for a tour company and
living here on Rodos (what everybody here calls Rhodes). She said that both boats yesterday were
CANCELLED because of the weather – the rain and wind we had been experiencing –
and to be honest, the sea today was anything BUT calm! White caps were everywhere, and boy, did that
ship bounce. The normal 55 minute trip
took more like an hour and a half, and lots of people, young and old, were
very, very seasick. Robert and I both
managed okay, although I think there were times when we both thought we would
be joining the sick-sack queue. To be
honest, did you ever have one of those “just WHY are we doing this again?” kind
of moments. Well I did, but we were
miles out to sea and there wasn’t anything I could do about it! I just kept looking out the window and
concentrating on the horizon line and deep breathing. FINALLY, the boat arrived in Rhodes; we
thought they would NEVER open the doors!
We were, actually among the first off the ship, so had no wait at all at
the Greek customs area…thankfully…still have to find out what happened with the
tickets we had booked…grrr…The last thing my new Swedish friend did was to pull
out a folding map of Rhodes, and I showed her where our hotel was … and she
pointed out to me where there was a LAUNDRY that could do our things in TWO
HOURS! YEAAAA!!!!
So…found a cab and took it to our Best Western Rodian Gallery Apartment hotel, and it
is FABULOUS! The location is in “new
town” and directly across from the Rhodes Casino (that’ll come in handy, I’m
sure!) by the beach, with a small market directly across the street, and a
restaurant next door! Even though it was
just a bit after 11 a.m., our apartment was ready. Not
fancy by any means, but we have a nice sized kitchen, dining area, living room,
bedroom and bathroom – we’re in room 303, which is on the corner, so we have
two patio doors on to the balcony (one from the bedroom, the second from the
living room) as well as openable windows in the bathroom – talk about a cross
breeze! Wow! It was strong enough to knock our toothpaste
tube on to the floor!
The very next thing to happen was organizing the laundry and
turning it in. It was actually only a
couple of blocks from our hotel, and exactly where the young lady had said it
would be! YIPEE!! They asked us to come back after 3 and it
would be done! I love this place!! CLEAN CLOTHES that don’t cost $$$$$ to
wash!! (I’m still reeling from the
laundry bill at the Hich Hotel in Konya, that’s for sure!)
From there, we decided to get some lunch.
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| Robert's pasta salad |
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| My "do it yourself" salad! |
There certainly are enough restaurants to
chose from!
We selected a place called
“I (heart) Salad bar” and it was great!
I wanted them to put my salad together by instruction, rather than order
something already on the menu, and that was fine with them.
I had lettuce, green beans, peas, cheddar
cheese chunks, potato wedges and cherry tomatoes, all with a Cesar salad
dressing.
Robert got their pasta salad,
which contained four different kinds of cheese, along with several different
pastas.
We both were VERY happy with our
choices!
Then, we decided to find “old town” – the old part of the
city is actually surrounded by very thick walls left over from the crusader
days when the castle was built (ca. 1300’s).
In walking to old town, we stopped first at a chemist (pharmacy) to pick
up some motion sickness medicine for our return trip on Sunday…and Robert found
a very nice optician who was able to fix his glasses. (Robert noticed last night that one of the
plastic ear pieces on his glasses was missing, and we weren’t able to find it.)
This nice young man took off the
remaining piece and replaced both ear guards for all of 3 Euros! Very nice!
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| One harbor entrance to Rhodes |
Found the old town walls and entered.
Really, truly, a fascinating place!
We walked a bit and then decided it was time
for a sit down.
Lots of places to choose
from, and we got one who served us wonderful glasses of – wait for it!!
FRESH orange juice over ice!
After that, Robert also had a glass of Greek
beer, but he says it’s not as good as the Efes he gets in Turkey.
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| A beautiful Greek Orthodox church |
 |
| Beautiful castle! |
 |
| Courtyard of archeology museum |
As no day with the Brucato’s would be complete without an
archeology museum, that was our next stop, in the area that had been built as
the hospital for the Knights.
They did
have some interesting things – even prehistoric, from the beginning days of the
island, but neither of us have ever been big fans of the traditional Greek
style red and black pottery.
A nice
collection, certainly.
 |
| Lovely castle and walls! |
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| More of the castle |
Laundry is brilliant, and cost all of 15 Euros (maybe
$20?)
The wonderful lady who does the
work can also understand me when I say that I want my jeans washed, but NOT put
in the dryer!
She laughed and said –
hang up outside!
YES!
So, a bit more laundry and hopefully it will
see us through the rest of the trip!
YIPEE!!
Back in the apartment now, and it’s about 5:15 p.m. We still need to figure out what happened
with the boat this morning, go to the market downstairs and buy some water and
munchies, and figure out where we want to go for dinner! After our wonderful Indian meal last night, I
was thinking Japanese, but R says that’s probably not going to happen…oh well!
More later!
m
xxx
Okay…as far as the reservation goes, they are refunding us everything
– apparently their boat “broke” – whatever that means, and even though they had
our email address, of course they didn’t email…still a bit unhappy as we have
now had to buy four one-way tickets – and there is, of course, a discount for
round trip.
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| VERY happy camper with clean laundry! |
Oh well, at least we’ll have
a seat on Sunday (says she hopefully!)
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| Robert's shrimp starter |
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| My shrimp and avocado |
Dinner downstairs and it was excellent.
I started with avocado and shrimp, and R had
shrimp saganaki – shrimp, garlic, cheese under the broiler; it was good!
Then R had their shrimp plate – which came
with heads, of course; R loved it!
I had
a ham and mushroom pizza, and it was terrific.
But VERY, very tired from a really long day!
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| My ham and mushroom pizza! |
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| Robert's grilled shrimp with veggies |
More tomorrow!
m
xxx
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