Friday AM

I suppose 1.5 days of cloud/rain isn’t so bad. Could have been worse, couldn’t it?
The lady in the little shop said yesterday that they do really badly need rain.
Odd then, that hardly anyone seems to act to preserve water.
Every tap I’ve encountered so far just chucks water everywhere when you turn it on. Sprays straight, but also out the sides. Every tap in our apartment has the same problem.
I haven’t yet encountered a sink anywhere, with a plug for the plug hole. You just pour it straight down the drain.
I used a public toilet in Corfu Town this week two days running. Both times it had a tap running that I couldn’t get to switch off. Just constantly pouring water down the drain.
The grounds of our apartment has sprinklers dotted all around. There is no evidence of a hosepipe ban in force here. I haven’t seen a water butt anywhere.
Maybe because everyone drinks bottled water (or beer/fizzy drinks), water isn’t valued very highly?

It has now been raining for ages. The pathway outside has turned into a mini stream. Sadly, we’re out of milk. I had a great idea to run to the shop in sandals (broken), shorts, no socks, holding an umbrella.
My word that water was cold. Despite the umbrella.
The winds meant I got absolutely soaked, and some of those puddles were quite deep. Still, now We can have cereal and another cup of tea each. Totally worth it. Continue reading Corfu – Part 8 →

Thursday

Well our new neighbours are well and truly in. Annoyingly, they’re prolific smokers. When one isn’t smoking, the other is, like some sort of very unhealthy Olympic relay.
The shared balcony means when they spark up, the resulting smoke then blows back into our apartment.
So every time it’s a bit hot, it’s a case of “I think I’ll open the balcony door..oh..or I’ll close it again”.
Smokers: you’re smelly bastards, the lot of you.
If I went on the balcony and farted every 30 seconds, this wouldn’t be acceptable, would it?
The only saving grace is that they smoke roll-ups, so you get a few minutes of warning between pouch being opened (it’s never actually put away), and lighter being flicked.

I’m hoping today is better than yesterday. Continue reading Corfu – Part 7 →

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). Continue reading Corfu – Part 6 →

Monday

Feeling a bit bad that we don’t even know how to say “hello”, “good morning”, or “thank you”, so tried to learn some Greek this morning. It’s hard. I’d assumed there would be a bit of “oh that’s like the German word” or “thats almost the same as English”, but there really isn’t many occasions that seems to be the case.
I’ve forgotten what I learnt already.

It’s harder than Spanish, French or German (of which I know a tiny amount of each), as it doesn’t seem to have the patterns of words all the time.
E.g. Montag, Dienstag (German). Lundi, Mardi (French). Monday, Tuesday (English, obv). Words that are grouped/related that are kinda mostly similarly patterned/have same starts or ends (yes I know there are exceptions like Dimanche).
In Greek though, 4am and 5am are very different. Same with 7pm and 8pm. Maybe they differentiate between “very-early” morning and “early” morning, and they’ve finally decided at what point “afternoon” definitely becomes “evening”. Continue reading Corfu – Part 5 →

Sunday

Slightly worried today that all the shops would be closed. Thankfully, it’s not the case. Plenty of small shops open. I didn’t try the big supermarkets.

Went for a long walk to see what a white building was, across the water, that we could see from our side of Gouvia harbourside.
Pavements are intermittent here to say the least. We didn’t see another person walking, in miles. Everyone drives a car or rides a moped/motorbike.

We found the building and it’s a church. The “Church of Ipapanti”, to be precise. I’m an atheist, so there’s three random points to note about this particular walk/visit. Continue reading Corfu – Part 4 →

Still Saturday

I wouldn’t fancy driving around here much. ALL the cars have dents in. Some have lights or bumpers missing too, but a big dent is the absolute minimum.
Technically I think they’re meant to drive on the right, but it doesn’t seem like a rule they stick to very strictly. Lane management on corners is especially poor.

There are lots of mopeds and motorbikes too. Today I saw a total of 5 people wearing helmets. Maybe it isn’t a legal requirement.
The maximum people I’ve seen on one scooter so far is 3 (two of them children, none wearing helmets), but I’ll keep an eye out for more. Continue reading Corfu – Part 3 →

Saturday
This morning, we got up, showered (including intermittent water), brushed teeth again with tap water. Note: Must get some bottled water.

We then went to small shop round the corner, where a Dutch man was talking to a Greek woman. Both speaking perfect English, but with their respective accents.
Water, milk, croissants, and that’s breakfast owned (we bought our own teabags from the UK. They don’t weigh anything, so why not). Continue reading Corfu – Part 2 →