Today's destination? Old Town Rhodes.
Deiann suggested a "buddy system" so we broke up into groups with similar interests and goals for the day, with an agreement to meet up mid day for lunch.
My group consisted of Carrie, Danielle and I. Our desire was to explore the backstreets and generally overlooked sections of town. Moments off the beaten path we began to discover the real Old Rhodes. At every intersection we would ask each other " which way"? and someone would speak up and choose for the three of us. We crawled through caves to the old castle moat, we peeked through keyholes and broken window slats. We explored the tunnels under the castle and stopped to chat with two locals at work on the Spanish Inn from the old times.
Panos and Nikos were doing some rock work when I stopped to put my head in the open doorway. Panos started chatting me up when Carrie and Danielle walked up. He seemed happy to put aside his work and have a conversation with us. I discovered that Nikos had worked in Germany for many years so another chance to speak German presented itself when I asked him a question in English and he told me he only spoke Greek and German. He explained what he was working on and we chatted for awhile in my basic German.
After a few hours of exploration we met the rest of our larger group at the appointed destination to find a lunch spot. Danielle led us back to an area somewhat on the outskirts of town and we had a beautiful outdoor table. Greek salad and tzatziki for the vegetarians and various seafood specialties for the rest of the group along with copious amounts of bottled water and Greek beer made for a happy group.
We broke up into our small groups following lunch with a designated time to meet back at the waterfront windmills at the end of the day. Our little group did some more exploring and then made our way to the beach for a little cooling off. We put our feet in the sea and searched for beach glass which happened to be a plentiful commodity in a rainbow of shades.
When departure time arrived we made our way to the windmills and stood waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. Suddenly Danielle asked "aren't we supposed to meet them at the windmills?" "Yes, here they are". Hmn... Wouldn't you know there were two sets of waterfront windmills. By the time we all showed up in the correct location, half the group needed gelato and the other half needed a Starbucks stop.
Back at home we all got prettied up because Elias, the owner of our home, had gotten us a table at a Greek meze (appetizer) place in Rhodes Town. You have to know someone to get a good table for the Mezedes and Greek music, so Elias took care of it for us. We enjoyed the food and the music but aa a group we were too exhausted from our long day to stay until the party really got started.
Soon after we arrived back at Grandma's House (our Rhodes home) Lauri received a call from home. She was told her father is critically ill and in the hospital back at home. Thank goodness for my tmobile service which offers 20 cents a minute phone calls internationally because Lauri was on the phone for hours trying to get information about the situation. At the end of the calls we were all so sad for her being so far away from the situation.
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