Saturday

DAY 50

Tuesday 30 August 2011

Isabel needed to make three more Magic Hares and mail them, and they were waiting on important papers to be delivered to Thessaloniki, Greece, so we opted for a chill day and found free parking spitting distance from the water. Unfortunately for Isabel, the post office was closed on Tuesdays (?!). We rested and wrote. Dian awoke with a very sore back from climbing the steep hills of Lin (twice), and got some much needed rest.

Charles spoke at some length with the seaside vendor a few feet away. "Alexander... the Great?" Charles asked of the Macedonian, but no, he demurred. However he gave insight as to why Macedonians don't like Greeks- they don't recognize Macedonia's nationhood, which returned in 1989 when Yugoslavia broke back into the six nations it had swallowed. George Bush did recognize them, and signed a formal recognition, and gave them economic aid, and even visited, so Al the Almost Great loved him. When asked his opinion of President Obama, he gave the universal European response: face screwed up, shoulders hunched, hands spread out- don't know.

It was after Nicole had exhausted all the restaurants for their bathroom facilities in the immediate area, that Dian declared she had a craving for a strawberry gelato. Nicole was on a mission. Charles joined her, and they brought back their bounty to the recovering Dian. With gelato at only 50 cents a scoop- the messengers had to indulge, too.

That evening, the weather turned blustery. The Dutch family pulled out their kite, Charles played another game of chess with eight-year-old Goya on the promenade, and Mories cooked a goodbye dinner of couscous and fava beans. Both families' riddles were answered, and an appreciation for the five days we shared was expressed in words and also without.

Charles and Mories went out to find Internet and share a beer, and plan their separate routes to Greece.

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