Inspiration

There are moments in history where someone stands up, and says things that are truly meaningful. They are the things that we all know but no one wants to hear... or no one wants to say it because we fear that if we say it, we'll say it wrongly, and make ourselves look bad. It takes a certain level of courage to stand up for your beliefs, and a certain eloquence to say it in the right way.

Yesterday, Barack Obama made such a speech about the issue of Race in America. Whatever happens in these elections, we cannot afford to let his words slip into the deep recesses of memory and fade away. It's important that we all hear them... right wing, left wing, black, white, yellow, purple, whatever. This speech is carried on the NYTimes and CNN, but of course agencies like Fox News don't deem it worthy. Thus, there is a section of the population that this speech is NOT going to reach... but it's important that EVERYONE hear it. So I'm trying to do my part to distribute it.

Greece - Sheep Crossing

While driving through the mountains on our way to Samaria Gorge (and on the way back as well), we encountered numerous herds of sheep and goats crossing the road. This is a brief video of an especially large herd that had us stalled on the road for quite a while. I thought it was pretty funny :).

Greece - Eating In Athens/Chania, Crete (Part 2)

The list of (good) restaurants we ate at in Greece:

1. Taverna tou Psara - located in the Plaka district in Athens... very romantic. Great place to dine after spending the day at the Acropolis. I had lamb cooked in a clay pot!
2. Taverna Leventis - located in the town of Stalos about 20 min outside of Hania. A bit hard to find but worth it. Great service and great food. We went there twice. I had rabbit.
3. Peinaleon - Really nice atmosphere, cheap. Seemed to be a pretty popular local place.
   
4. Doloma - Great ready-to-order dishes. Good for a quick lunch.
5. The Central Market - There are 2 restaurants in there, the fish restaurant is the better of the 2. Great seafood. Better than most things you'll find on the port.

Greece - Eating In Athens/Chania, Crete (Part 1)

Lots of lessons learned here. I guess this applies mainly to the town of Hania where we were staying:

1. Do _NOT_ under any circumstances, eat at the port. It is a drab, sub-par, bland and overpriced version of the wonderful food you can experience in the outer regions of the town. Do yourself, your wallet and your stomach a favour and walk the 10 minutes to the main parts of town... or if you have a car better yet, drive yourself up to Tavern Leventis in Stalos and have Andreas take care of you :).
2. Greek portions are HUGE. Unless you're a hearty fellow and can tackle the most oversized of dishes, you can seriously get away with sharing a main course entree and a salad as your entire meal. If doing only appetizers, 3 is enough... unless you are REALLY hungry then maybe 4. It took us a while to learn this lesson. We'd stare at the tempting meals around us and think "Man, we're certainly hungry enough to eat all of this" then at the end stare guiltily at the leftovers.
3. Restaurant touts can be very overbearing and convincing. If one manages to lure you into a restaurant, and you find that you don't like the menu or that it is more expensive than you thought, WALK AWAY!
4. Raki is dangerous stuff. When they first bring it out to you, sip carefully.
5. If you're looking for tea, it's going to be at least E$2 for a plain Lipton... they don't have much else. Teas and coffees are WAY more expensive than the pastries. It boggles the mind...
6. Greek pies are heavenly... I could eat them all day.
7. Pita bread is NOT part of Greek cuisine... anywhere... it's either an American thing or a middle eastern thing that Americans somehow associated with Greek food. Don't come here hoping for good pita bread... you won't find it. And if you DO find it, you're probably in a tourist trap restaurant.
8. Eating sauted goat meat and feta cheese in a town where goats and sheep are running wild, is a VERY good idea (specifically, the town of Omalos... best feta EVER).
9. Find yourself a baklava source quickly. Go there often (May we suggest the one on Skydorf street). It will be your path to happiness.
10. If you ask a market vendor to purchase 10 olives, you will be scorned and ridiculed with a simple incredulous stare. In his disgust, he may just give you the olives for free.
11. The oranges here are fabulous (there... I just wanted to say fabulous).
12. For the other trinis abroad who may happen to find themselves in this part of the world... they eat saltfish here!!!
13. The central market is a source of much MUCH good food, use it often (we had WAY better seafood there than we did at the awful tourist trap harbour-front restaurant... which I now spit upon).
    

Greece - Things To Love About Crete

For anyone thinking of visiting this region.... go to Crete... go directly to Crete... do not pass Go... do not collect $200.

Things to love:

1. Waiters named Andreas who pull up a chair and sit down at your table and go "No No No... that's not what you want to eat... let me tell you what to order".
2. The abundance of Scandanavian related bars and clubs
3. If you happen to get lost in Heraklion, just follow the 5 zillion signs to the CretAquarium (yes that's how they spelled it), and you'll at least have a starting point.
4. Gorging yourselves on fabulous meals for 2 for less than E$25 (we're talking appetizers, wine, main course and dessert... all of which are insanely good).
5. Drinking wine and eating Baklava (with tiny little forks) on the shore at sunset
6. Prancing around 4000 year old ruins (and yes we did prance)...until you get whistled at by the really bored-looking guards (for prancing into the blocked off locations)
7. Finding numerous places to satisfy this rule (FYI... this applies to Katina, not me :P. She's mad with me as I type this :D) : http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/71-being-the-only-white-person-around/