Tuesday evening

Well that was an odd evening meal out. Nice food, but odd experience.
My girlfriend was stood reading the menu outside, and happened to rest her hands around her general stomach area.
The restaurant owner took this to mean that she was pregnant. She isn’t, so she laughed at this, then started privately telling me about how I mustn’t let her have any chocolate or biscuits when we get back to England.
Then it came to ordering drinks. 2 lemonades. “OK – I’ll get you a beer”
I don’t drink beer (or alcohol at all, really), so from when the drinks arrived, and for the rest of the meal, my “pregnant” girlfriend was drinking “my” beer, while I snuck sips of “her” lemonade, to hide her apparently-unwavering alcohol addiction, and make it appear both drinks were going down at the same rate.
Either way the food was nice, staff friendly.
One odd thing to note. People smoked. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a restaurant where people were allowed to smoke. It wasn’t too bad though as it was semi-outdoors (like most restaurants/bars in Corfu).

Earlier today:
We went back to Corfu Town. We had meant to catch a second bus from there to somewhere else, but unfortunately hadn’t been able to find the bus station for quite some time (long distance buses go via bus station, shorter trips go from elsewhere). So we had a wander around, saw a nice windmill (no sails/wasn’t spinning, but still nice). We didn’t do much else as it seemed very very hot. Hard to get anything done in this heat, really, without just feeling knackered.
Weird thing: there were loads of (mostly quite old) people swimming in Corfu Town’s harbour. Like all of them 65+. Nice to see, I guess.

According to something I read online, it is a legal requirement for motorbike/moped riders to wear helmets, and for car drivers to wear seatbelts.
Loads of people don’t do either. They’re not even subtle about it. This morning I saw a woman riding pillion, holding on with just one hand, as she was busy drinking a Frappucino with the other. Neither her nor the driver wearing helmets.
Minutes later, I saw a seatbelt-less car driver steering and doing the gears – with the same hand – because she was holding an ice cream with the other. Not something simple like a Calippo either – it was a big cone-type the size of a UK 3-scoop.

I am still amazed at how long the siesta-sort-of time goes on for. Some shops are shut from around noon, for 3-4 hours. Some then reopen again in the afternoon/evening, some don’t. It surprises me especially, as its a touristy area. By the time the lazy tourists (i.e. me) have got up, had breakfast and got to the town, half of it is shut.

The prepaid credit card thing was a bit annoying today. Due to the fact that buses, small shops, and even some large supermarkets don’t take credit cards (it’s mostly small transactions I’m making too, for ice creams, drinks, etc.), I went to a cashpoint to withdraw some cash off it. I’ll lose 3% (I think) doing this, but can’t be helped really. It’s probably still better than carrying all your money in cash?
Problem is, an ATM won’t give you a balance for a prepaid credit card. How much do I have left on it? Can I go overdrawn with this? I’ve randomly guessed an amount to take out, and hope that’s ok. It lets me. Seems to be ok?
Next problem – the fucking machine gave me €50 notes. What sort of wanker of an ATM gives 50s by default. 10s and 20s surely?
Thankfully I could use a 50 to pay for our dinner tonight, because I don’t want to be the dick who tries to break a €50 note buying a €1.50 bus ticket.

I’m slightly worried about the weather forecast for the rest of the week. I shouldn’t have looked really (as there’s nothing I can do about it, whatever it is), but the iPhone’s weather app seems to be forecasting thunder/lightning the entire rest of week. I hope that isn’t the case, as we were hoping to go in search of some golden sandy beaches tomorrow. Or maybe a house with some nice gardens, but both outside activities, either way. Fingers crossed, the report is wrong.

Final thing – I’ve eaten a few of these now. Might be available in the UK. I’ve seen this brand in some supermarkets in Bristol. They’re absolutely delicious.