During summertime I don’t see as much of my friends as I’d like to. This is because we are all busy working the season to earn a living for the winter months too. Because we live in a ‘holiday’ environment, everybody’s work relates in some way or another to the tourist season. From the beginning of April until the end of September, life can sometimes be quite hectic. Added to this is the arrival of family and friends who come periodically to spend their holidays with us.
However there are occasions when we do get together and last night we all went out for a meal at Manoli’s restaurant in Vamos, to celebrate Jackie’s birthday. As always, the food there was so tasty and there was plenty of it! We spent over 4 hours at Manoli’s and the bill only came to 15 Euros each. Now where in the UK could you eat and drink for that length of time, for so little? It was good to catch up with everyone’s news and a great time was had by one and all.
Last week I went to a July 4th celebration at my local taverna, Vangeli’s. An American guy called Jeff, who works at the military base over on Akotiri, has also made Vangeli’s his local haunt during this past year or so and he has made quite an impression on everyone. He had already celebrated American Independence Day with all his work colleagues from the NATO base, the night before. However, he offered to cook some real American burgers on the barbeque for all his friends on this side of the bay to enjoy! All the ingredients came from the base and I have to say that it was the tastiest burger I have had in ages! We even had fireworks!
It was another great night, sitting outside, chatting, eating and drinking – even making yet more new friends. Patrick introduced me to another artist who has recently moved to the area from the UK and we discovered we had much in common, although Terry will not be earning her living as an artist, as I do. She and her husband are opening a bed and breakfast in Kokkino Chorio, a village just a few kilometres from Plaka. Incidentally, this village was the setting for part of the filming of “Zorba The Greek”.