Corfu day four

 The plan was to rent a scooter and see more of the island. I’ve been curious to see the world outside of town and today the interurban bus schedule is not so amazing. As it turns out, you cannot rent a scooter in Corfu on the weekend during the off season. No matter, I fired up my Chevrolegs and got on with it.

I still had my ticket from the old fort I bought days ago. The person at the front charged me, then told me the top was closed but I could come back later with my ticket. After some sweet talking at the gate (she was unhappy) I was discharged to begin my ascent. While the view was fantastic the most interesting thing I found there was a pair of tourists. A couple from of all places… Long Beach California. I think we were all surprised to be seeing locals so far around the world.

Top of the tower

I continued my walk of the road around the outside of the old town. There’s a lot to see and the ocean is so clear. From the walls of the city, you can look into the water and see the stones at the bottom. Incredible. I hit the supermarket to pick up some provisions for tomorrow. It’s a travel day and grocery stores are typically closed in Greece on Sundays. From what I gather, Paxos will be even sleepier than that. We’ll see if I can find a beer at the end of Sunday night. As I put my head down for my afternoon nap I heard shouting. I opened my window and looked to the street and a procession of students in black was marching and carrying a sign. I recognized one of the faces from the bar last night and made a mental note to ask him what it was about if I saw him. I hoped it was not connected to the “tourist go home” graffiti that appeared on the neighbor’s wall overnight.

For dinner I went to a small plates restaurant that Spiro recommended. This is another one that hard to do alone. Dinner was great but the joy of tapas is being in a group, ordering a zillion dishes, and trying them all. Not so fun alone. The salad was great, the bread was fresh, the fried halloumi was crispy, and the wine was plentiful. What more can I ask for? You can always ask for more and I’m going to ask for more fried halloumi back home.

I wrapped my night at the Bar Spiro directed me to last night. The promise of more Alfa and some live music was enticing enough. Spiro didn’t show all night but I had an interesting evening nonetheless. The student from the march was at the bar and was more than happy to tell me about last night’s demonstration. Alexandros Grigoropoulos was fifteen years old when he was shot in cold blood by the police in Athens. The people reacted with vitriol, demonstrations that became riots. Last night was the anniversary of the killing which is still fresh in memory here. In the US we don’t need to remember police killings after they happen. Lucky us, we can be sure to have something disgraceful every year to stand up against.

We talked more about his studies. He’s learning jazz trumpet which I sympathize with. I did the same in high school but was never nearly good enough to go to university for it. He tells me that most students on the island are studying music. That dovetails with my observations that live music seems to be pouring out of the walls everywhere in town at night. Fantastic. We talk more about how the Greek language is handled in the US. He was extraordinarily tickled to learn about fraternities. The concept that every university in the US has a Panhellenic society which is concerned only with drinking and keeping a clean image made him chuckle. Additionally, It seems I’ve retained a good bit of my Greek from engineering classes than I first thought. I cannot understand much but I can take a swing at reading a word here and there.

To my other side was, believe it or not, an American. A naturalized citizen no less, an increasingly rare breed. A TV journalist originally from Whales who never felt quite at home there and settled in the US, at least for a while. Currently she’s parked herself in Bulgaria. New York and LA are too expensive now and I gather she’d rather die than go back to the UK. She’s extraordinarily talkative and has a lot of interesting perspectives, most contradictory to people’s general experiences. People are more respectful to the elderly in the US. Los Angeles has more generous people than New York. Very strange. I was trying make sense of it but couldn’t quite wrap my head around it all. Strangest of all, after living in California for years as a TV journalist she’d never heard of Huell Howser. I made sure to correct that problem.

My nightcap was unique and something I may not see again for some time. Pink grapefruit and bergamot soda with ouzo. Just perfect. Yamas.