In Which I am Filled With Ire While I Recount My Relaxing Weekend

Last weekend I finally made it to a Greek Island. Thasos, the isle in question, is about three hours from Thessaloniki, or maybe four, depending on your mode of transport. Brad and I took the bus to Kavala, a city several hours to the East, and then a high speed ferry to the island, which only took about half an hour.
We arrived at Prinos, a harbor area with some nice beach chairs and the blue, blue sea. We plopped down and relaxed for several hours, just stretched out and lazy. I had not planned sufficiently in advance, and so I was not wearing a bathing suit, but I took a discreet trip behind a closed canteen and changed that right away.
The water was cold. OK, it was not really cold, not nearly as cold as the water in Maine or other parts of New England, which is the usual region of the world where I go swimming. It was warm enough to immerse yourself in for long periods of time. However my first dip proved such a shock that although my body did not feel too cold, my lungs protested. It was very strange. Is there some reason why a person's lungs can't handle immersion in cold water? Is that what happened to Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic?
Anyway, after a few moments of gasping for air, my lungs adapted, and I swam back and forth for a while, splashing about and looking down at the ocean floor, because it just so amazing to see the ocean floor while you are swimming. This is a new experience for me, and I have to say it makes the whole thing less intimidating when you know that Jaws is not out to get you.
After lazing about in Prinos, we made our way to the bus station, where we headed off to the town of Thasos, or Limenas, which is the main town of the island. We found a hotel room, found some food, and found our way to the Acropolis of Thasos, where one can look out upon the blue sea from a higher viewpoint, and also see exciting things like ancient shrines to Pan. We also glimpsed a shrine to Dionysus which fascinated me mostly because it was just sort of sitting in the middle of a city street, as though it were a traffic island or something. As an American, I just think it's pretty amazing to see ancient ruins lying about like that.
We also strolled through the ruins of the ancient agora, which was enjoyable. It was a bit overgrown, so it was difficult to fully appreciate what it would have looked like during Roman Times, but I have seen several agora ruins before, so I was able to use my imagination. It was here that Brad pointed out that the word 'agoraphobia' means 'fear of people' as opposed to 'fear of shopping', which would be my guess. After all, if 'agora' means market, and αγοραζω, or agorazo, is the modern Greek verb 'to buy', it would be natural to assume that 'agoraphobia' referred to a fear of shopping, right? However, I guess that because the agora was the ancient social area, the word refers to fear of social interaction.
It's unfortunate, really, because I am not afraid of social interaction, but I am afraid of shopping. In fact, year by year, I think my hatred for shopping increases. This may be genetic, because my mother also despises shopping. It also may have something to do with the fact that I absolutely detest trying clothes on. I hate waiting in line for changing rooms, and I hate taking everything off and putting more clothes on and taking them off and putting more things on and so on. I also think my hatred for shopping has increased since my arrival in Greece, because I never know what damn size I am, and I don't know where to find anything. Take pants. As a petite (translation: short) person in a nation full of shortish people, I would expect to find pants that do not drag on the ground when I walk. But no, this is not a possibility. Instead, when my ancient petite jeans died, finally, I had to call my mother and have her trek down to South Street Seaport, which is way the hell at the tip of Manhattan, and buy several new pairs of petite jeans at American Eagle Outfitters and ship them to Greece, because I swear that is the only store in the universe that actually sells petite jeans. American Eagle Outfitters is something of a teen chain, but I may be shopping there at age forty five just because there I have not found another store in the known universe that sells pants which fit me. This fills me with such ire and rage. (Are there ay other synonyms for 'hate' that I can use before I end this paragraph?)
One more thing about shopping before I continue, and you can skip this paragraph if you don't care. Much as I hate trying things on, I realize it is a necessity. However, on three separate occasions, salesladies in Greek stores informed me that I was not permitted to try things on. I have actually had these people charge into changing rooms and yell at me for attempting to try on T-shirts. Apparently, one is either not permitted to try on shirts, or else one is not permitted to try on shirts which are on sale. Since things on sale are generally the things I buy, this is a dilemma for me. When I asked one of the Changing Police why I was not allowed to try on T-shirts, she shrugged and said "that only costs five Euros". Well, forgive me if I sound culturally insensitive, but it's my damn five Euros, and it's never going to belong to anyone who enforces such a stupid irritating rule. The upshot of the whole thing is, none of the pants here fit me, and I am morally opposed to buying shirts at a significant portion of the shopping establishments. So I don't buy much in the way of clothing. I only buy pens. I love shopping for pens. I can stand at the little pen displays in stationary stores for a really long time sampling all the different color pens and selecting a variety of styles and hues. I always leave with a very satisfied feeling. There is nothing better than a pile of new pens in different colors.
Well, actually, the Greek islands are pretty good. The Acropolis was a nice hike, and I enjoyed saying hello to a large group of goats on our way down. I also enjoyed seeing a boat and a hotel named Καλυψω, or Kalypso, or Calypso. I wondered if perhaps Thasos is the island of the mythical nymph Calypso, as it is located conveniently on the route back from Troy to Ithaka. However, as Brad pointed out, pretty much every island in Greece is located on that route. Plus, wikipedia tells me that Calypso lived on a mythical island that has not been identified. Too bad, but it was exciting, seeing things named after my cat. (That's right; they were clearly named after my cat, even though she is only about eight months old and Homer is several thousand years).
Brad and I spent the next hour or so in a cafe, watching basketball. Brad has become an avid fan of Aris, which is one of the Thessaloniki teams, and they had a playoff game. I've been to one Aris game, and I have to say I most enjoyed it, although my sport is really baseball, not basketball.
We had dinner at a restaurant named 'Pigi', which was filled with British tourists, but had good food, including stifado and octopus keftedes, which are meatballs made from octopus and I think some herbs or something. They were delicious and I cursed myself for not discovering them several months before, when maybe I could have convinced my boyfriend to try octopus in that form instead of in tentacle form. I doubt it would have worked, however, unless I had lied and declared them chicken, which would have been rather mean. In any case, they were good.
The next morning we awoke, had breakfast at a sweet shop on the waterfront, and headed out to the Golden Beach on the West Side of the Island. The Golden beach, which you can view in my previous post, is not golden, but it is blue. I spent a good long time relaxing, paddling about in the water, reading my Lonely Planet and planning my summer trips, and applying sunscreen, although I apparently was not careful enough about the latter, because I ended up with two oddly shaped bright red triangles on my shoulders. The rest of me is barely tan, but my shoulders hurt for days. Oh well, it was worth it.
At that point it was about 3pm, and we needed to start our trip back. This consisted of a bus to Limenas, another bus back to Prinos Port, and a big giant ferry to the mainland. The ferry took 90 minutes instead of 35, but it was a scenic trip. We did miss our connecting bus out of Kavala, but that turned out to be for the best, because we got the chance to stroll through the city, which is lovely, grab something to eat, which was nice, and see the ancient fortress in the old town, which was really quite worth the bus delay.
Sadly, here's the other reason I am filled with ire; blogger absolutely refuses to post any of my pictures. I have such lovely pictures too, blue sea and white sand, views of ruins, mountaintops, fortresses, boats named Kalypso....but, try as I might, they just won't load. It's enough to make me scream. Ah well. Here's one picture that somehow made it up, a view of Thasos from the Acropolis.