Get it? All Ham Bra. Like a bra, made out of ham? Ok fine. It sucks.

Our final expedition in Spain before Jennifer and Emily headed back to the Americas was to drive up to Granada. I’ve been dying to get up to this amazing city, but haven’t had an excuse, or anyone to share it with, so I’ve been hesitating. But what better time to do it than now.

We find a cheap hotel on hotels.com. Some off-season gem we get a room for 1/3 it’s listed price. We make the 4 hour drive up to Granada, check into our BEAUTIFUL hotel (another highly recommended, if you can get it for cheap like we did) and get settled. We make the executive decision to forego wandering around another city after dark and sit at the hotel bar for a couple hours eating tapas and talking to the bartender before ordering room service, taking a couple long baths and watching tv in our suite.

First thing the next day, we pack up our stuff, cram it in the back of the station wagon and catch a cab up to the Alhambra.

The Alhambra is a Moorish palace constructed in the 14th century. Basically, as the Muslims were fleeing Spain and being pushed farther and farther South, they built this palace as a last hurrah and a final ruling place. It has a huge network of buildings comprising the actual palace but what really blew me a way were the Generalife gardens and the aquaducts that water them. Being on the top of the mountain behind the city of Granada, they use gravity to water most of the plants here and the landscape architecture is pretty amazing.

After we had our fill, we walked down the main paseo into town, past a ton of shops (with a short detour inside the H&M for some pre-winter purchases) and then to the cathedral. As is the theme for our trip, at this point, we were a bit famished and required some beer and tapas, so we actually followed a flyer someone handed us on the street down some side alley to a restaurant called Pecado.

And boy were we glad we did. I instantly fell in love with the waiter we had here and we spent a good part of the next 2 hours flirting or discussing how we could flirt more. There were also several attempts at stalker photos taken.

Unfortunately, after much baiting, I had to inform my beloved that we were not staying in Granada that night, but rather driving back to Malaga so the girls could get their flight out the next day. With two kisses, I left my soul mate forever and we all drove back to Malaga to the hotel they had booked right next to the train station.

And then the unthinkable happened.

We got more beer and some food. And then I drove back to San Am and they rested before hopping on early trains to the airport to go back to the US.

Sad day.

As a part of my American re-immersion, most English-isms were attempting to be cut out of my vocabulary. It involved the snapping of a hairband on my wrist and the negative reinforcement actually worked quite well to ride me of my “quites", “queues””and “propers” and  reinstated some “awesomes” and a few “seriouslys.” I’d been talking about Emily and Jennifer coming to San Am for a long time now, and most people needed no introduction. I had to give lots of background stories of who people were and why I was friends with them, but fortunately, I could tell these stories in English, right in front of people’s faces and they were none the wiser, so it worked out pretty well, actually.

There’s no need to recount the individual events that transpired, as most of them revolved around just catching up on stuff. We had an amazing dinner at Felipe’s La Breña with cava and lots of wine. We exchanged gifts, made our bridesmaid status for Emily’s wedding formal and spent most of the night just telling stories.

We took walking tours of Barbate, Los Caños and Vejer, had lunch at Las Dunas, Luis and Arriate. We ate Paella at Miguel’s and spent the afternoon watching the Red Bull Kite Surfing Competition. We spent pretty much every single night at Miguel’s, drinking Cruzcampo and playing Uno with Miguelito. I realized that there was no agenda with these guys, no need to do anything other than what I would do on any normal weekend.

They were at home.

Well, as “at home” as you can be in a foreign country with people you don’t know speaking another language. But I felt like we all fit here. Just like we fit back home. And it was so comforting.

I even took them riding. And it was fun, and not a disaster. We went out early afternoon on Sunday, rode out for a couple hours to the Trafalgar lookout point, drank some beers, rode some more, tied up the ponies, had beers and tapas in Miguel’s, lost Caramelo, who decided he’d rather go home than hang out with us. We had an amazing evening and doing something that I’ve never been able to share with them (tear).

Sometimes when you’re away for so long, you feel like you’ve lost a part of yourself you won’t get back. It’s that feeling when you leave high school for college, when you look back at all the amazing friends you used to have and realize that most of them will never be as close to you as they were then. Before Emily and Jennifer came, I was worried I was doing the same thing again. Taking off for new adventures, leaving my former life and friends behind, only to find that when I return, the fragments of our relationships were gone as well.

Then this happens. The complete opposite. I realized that the relationships that are important to me will always be there, even if I leave them to dry out for a while.

And so I brave on with a new fire. Knowing that no matter where life takes me in the next few years, I will always be able to drink cheap watered down beer in a hole in the wall bar with my best friends.

I don’t get a lot of American influences these days. Yes, I still watch a lot of US television, I still talk to my friends via e-mail quite frequently, and talking to my mom once a week on the phone has given me this strange Michigan twang when I talk. But my everyday life, feels less and less American. I call french fries Chips without thinking twice. I ask questions with some strange English inflection pointed out immediately by any American who makes contact with me. I wear a fanny pack every day only call it a bum bag. Ya. I’ve got identity issues. But fortunately, that’s what friends are for.

The morning after my amazing birthday in Tuscany, the four of us leisurely woke up, showered and dressed and gave ourselves plenty of time for the drive back to Rome. I had a flight out back to Spain at 4 and the three girls were going to spend a couple more days in Rome before Emily and Jennifer came out to Spain to meet me for another week there. I dropped them off at their hostel, got them checked in and settled and then drove to the airport, returned our Clio and hopped a quick flight back to Seville.

My next few days of work were infused with facebook stalking as I jealously watched my girls just a few hundred miles away touring the streets of one of my favorite cities in the world. Fortunately, Wednesday came just fast enough and I drove back up to Seville to spend a day there and pick up my girls. Timing wasn’t perfect, and I ended up having to work Wednesday afternoon, so I pulled into town a couple hours after their flight landed and met them at the hotel.

I was so nervous about showing these guys Spain. It’s my life now, and such an important part of me. My obsession with this place, I think, really demonstrates what about travel and life makes me tick. And Seville was a very gentle introduction into my little corner of the campo.

Fortunately, I know how to find a bar, and I know how to order tapas, which was the first call of business and a rather easy one to achieve. We walked around town past the old moorish palace, the gardens attached and to the cathedral. We wound down some tiny streets, through some bustling markets and down to the river where we strolled along casually, took mandatory group shots in front of the Torre de Oro and were lucky enough to catch a church band practicing on the banks.

After this, things got a bit tricky. I’m not a local in Seville. I don’t know the neighborhoods well and outside of the feria, have never spent a significant amount of time there. I had been recommended to an area by our hotel concierge for a dinner spot. Unfortunately, when we got there, we couldn’t find a single restaurant. Not one.

And this is where I fill in my semi-regular plug for social media and tell you a little story about how we found the most amazing place on none other than, Foursquare. This place was such a gem. We never would have seen it if we hadn’t been looking specifically for it, as it was a tiny hole in the wall with about a dozen people standing outside smoking. The restaurant itself, called Taberna Macuro, couldn’t have seated more than 30 people total and we didn’t make the cut and were put at the bar. The menu was written on a giant chalk board behind the bar and included some really strange things, but everything that was passing us from the kitchen to the tables looked fantastic and we ordered way more food than we should have. It was excellent and comes highly recommended.

I had wanted to show the girls some authentic Flamenco, and what better place to do so than in Seville. Or so we thought. We were given directions, showed up at the bar, which was empty at 12:30 on a Wednesday night. I asked the bartender about the lineup and he said Flamenco would start at 1:30, regardless of how many people were at the bar, and usually, on a weeknight, he said, it would be about half full.

1:30 comes and goes, and we’re still the only people in the bar, and no one has started playing.

So we leave. Call us babies. Call us impatient. But it was a slightly disappointing end to a good day.

I was so lucky to have my girls with me for my birthday, as I always am, as they are amazing about coming and seeing me wherever I am for my birthday.

Today was our city day.

What is a trip to Tuscany without a visit to Florence. But, being that I had already been to Florence on several occasions, I wanted to get something in for me as well, so we took a morning trip to San Gimignano.

Which. Is exactly like Vejer, except in a different country. It’s a beautiful walled city with towers, quaint winding streets and excellent views of the surrounding countryside. I loved the charm of the little city and felt instantly at home on the cobblestone streets. We stopped to have breakfast in a (non-medically-related) café with amazing toasties and pastries. And not to mention some very good and strong coffee.

From here we spent some strolling time, meandering around the little streets. We stopped in some amazing Tuscan pottery shops with gorgeous bowls, serving dishes and wall hangings. Everything was done in the traditional blue and yellow and looked just amazing. We walked all around the town, through the old cathedral and up to a lookout point where we found this priest guy reciting something in Italian we didn’t understand. He could have, for all we know, been screaming that the devil rules and that we should all eat shark brains or something, but he had a copy of the Divine Comedy sitting on the floor next to his tip jar, so we assume that is what he was doing.

Regardless, the guy was infectious. He was shouting and smiling and singing and we stood there and watched him for 15 minutes. He was hilarious.

While we were sat outside the cathedral, the bells started to go nuts and we noticed that out of a side entrance, a bride and groom were emerging in their tiny little car. We followed them down as they drove into the main square and were instantly assaulted by random strangers who were congratulating them, jumping on the car and shouting. There was a bottle of champagne shoved in the window of the car by someone at a nearby wine bar. There were American frat boys singing “for he’s a jolly good fellow” it was quite an amazing sight, really.

At this point, we knew we needed to get to Florence if we were going to be able to see it at all. I walked the girls all around the city to see the Duomo, the fake David, the Pontivecchio and the Uffizi gallery. We got matching name necklaces made from a vendor on the river and ate gelato on the steps of the Academia.

After making reservations at my favorite restaurant in Florence (and all of Italy for that matter) 13 Gobbi, we jutted around the corner to a cocktail bar serving some of the best prosecco cocktails I’ve ever had.

Next was an amazing birthday dinner. We sat and ate and drank and chatted all night and were the first to arrive and the last to leave our little secluded room. It was such a great night and I was so happy to share it with my girls.

And like the other nights, this night ended with a long miserably windy drive back to Poggibonsi playing Indy with Lamborghinis, a bottle of wine in the b&b and a girl’s night. Loves!

Today is wine tasting day.

We are bound and determined. We’ve got out little rental Clio and we are heading out into the Chianti region of Tuscany and we are going to find wines and drink them.

And then we are going to drive to the next place that makes wines and drink them.

We start our day with a lazy morning, a long shower and an early lunch. We drove around Poggibonsi for a while before finding what appeared to be a small café open for lunch. We sat down, ordered some wine and some appetizers and settled into our nice little café. It seemed a bit strange, but we couldn’t exactly pin what was weird about it. When we arrived, there was no one else there except a group of paramedics sitting outside at a table. We saw no ambulance nearby, but didn’t think anything of it. We ate some amazing pasta and pizza and felt sufficiently stuffed.

As we glanced over, a group of doctors sat down at the table two over from us. While we were closing out, I walked outside to use my phone and noticed that there was a table of nurses sitting outside where the paramedics had been before.

And then, all at once, I figured out where we were. I looked across a little courtyard to see a giant green blinking cross, a pharmacy. Next to it and on top of it, a big 6 or so story building with a man being wheeled in by a nurse. And I turn back to our lunch spot café to see another 4 or so story building on top of it with several handicap accessible ramps.

We were eating a glamorous Tuscan lunch at…. a hospital cafeteria.

Whatever, it was still delicious.

So we drove out of Poggibonsi and onto the highway we needed which only appeared to be going in one direction. We drove for about an hour without seeing a single winery sign and were feeling quite defeated. Our b&b owner had given us a map with directions and lots of pin points of wineries we should try, but we had seen none of them.

And here begins the story of how we got lost for the second time in two days while driving around Italy. We got on the highway in the wrong direction and had been meandering our way towards the wrong coast.

Once our mistake had been realized (and we stopped at some random vineyard to literally pick the grapes off their vines and eat them) we turned around and headed in the right direction. As soon as we passed Poggibonsi, going in the right direction this time, we started noticing dozens of little wineries off the main road. Most of them were closed, as it was just after the big harvest and we were at the beginning of the quiet season. However, Jacopo had given us a list of open wineries. We trudged down the path of one such winery, a VERY steep one way gravel road winding through olive trees. As we’re going down one of the hills, I realize, we are going to have some serious trouble getting back up the hill. But as we were already half way down it, I figured, we might as well get some wine before we have to try.

Nope.

Closed.

After all that. We reach a closed gate with all kinds of signs pointing us to turn around. Which would be awesome, if we happened to be driving a Jeep, or hadn’t just driven 3 hours to our first vineyard. Now I’m starting to think, that with our luck, there is no way in hell we are ever going to make it back up the hill.

In a moment of desperation, I literally just floor it. I come around a corner going about 40 mph and just hope that momentum will carry us up. The traction lights are going NUTS in the car, we can hear the tires spinning like mad and we can see the top, but I really think we’re not going to make it. But. We do, somehow and as I try to remain calm and pretend like what I had just done WASN’T some feat fitted for a stunt driver, we round the corner to find our first open vineyard.

What we stumbled upon wasn’t what I was expecting. It was a small room on the side of the industrial looking building with the huge vats of wine in different states of production. We had two olive oils to taste and about 4 different wines. We were just so happy to be somewhere not in the car, we bought about 6 bottles between us and ate about 3 loaves of bread. I maybe almost offered to take home the gorgeous man in an apron chatting outside also.

From here, our luck got better. We drove around stopping at little places, tasting and snapping lots of photos. We ended our wine tasting extravaganza at Il Borgo di Vignale outside of Castellina en Chianti which was a gorgeous complex with a large wine cellar and bar. We sat there and tasted for about 2 hours. Maybe more. And bought about 3 cases of wine to be shipped back to the states. We got cheeses, snacks and had a great Italian host as he walked us through all the wines, gave us lots of free glasses and introduced us to everyone else that worked at the place. Jennifer even got a ride down on a wine crate dolly with some old guy. Really. Our new best friend (and facebook friend, as we all iphoned each other at the bar) sent us down the road to Radda for dinner to a cute little in-the-middle-of-nowhere restaurant. Here we really capped off our evening with some amazing food and, you guessed it, more wine.

Now, as you can imagine, we’ve probably drunk two bottles of wine each by this point, granted over the course of about 12 hours.  What this meant was that Jennifer, Erin and Emily were essentially passed out as I attempted to drive us back to Poggibonsi in the dark on the windy Chianti roads. Many of which are one lane or around sharp bends with no shoulders and big drop offs. In addition, I don’t know why, but Italians drive like they are all constantly on a racetrack. Including but not limited to, pulling up next to you and revving their engine, passing you at astronomical speeds then letting you pass them, tailing you for way too long, and just general craziness. Now, I’m not a timid driver, but I was semi-drunk and in a place I was unfamiliar with. I was not about to pick a drag race with Mario Andretti.

We did arrive home in 4 separate but whole pieces, and then did what any 4 single girls in Italy should, we popped open a couple of the 30 bottles of wine we bought that day, and sat in our hotel getting drunk(er) and talking about boys.

So predictable.  As is this picture with Jennifer and an old man who worked at the winery and didn’t speak English.

I sort of have great friends. And this year, three such friends are coming to Europe for my birthday. I really don’t deserve them.

Instead of coming all the way over here just for a couple weeks in the campo, we’ve decided we’re going to also do a bit of Italy.  Basically how this is going to work, is I’ve taken a weekend off work, the girls fly in on Thursday to Rome, we’ll spend the weekend in Tuscany, they’ll go back to Rome for the beginning of the following week while I go back to work, and then they will fly to Spain to spend a week with me.

So my little Italian weekend getaway started with me driving to Seville to catch my flight to Rome. I had to leave at the butt crack of dawn. No. Way earlier, actually. My flight left Seville at 8 AM and it takes 2 hours for me to get to Seville, so I was looking at a 4 AM start to be safe. Which it was a good thing I did considering I got on some rural backcountry highway on accident and ended up driving the scenic route for at least an hour.

I arrived in Rome at the tiny Ciampino airport and rented a car to drive to the bigger Fiumicino to pick up the ladies flying in from the states. I got there early (a rarity, if you know me at all) and grabbed a sandwich and bought some souvenirs for the family before Emily, Jennifer and Erin arrived. After lots of screaming and hugging and all that other mushy girly haven’t-seen-you-in-like-forever crap, we piled our gear into my tiny Clio (hee) and began the 3 hour trek up to our bed and breakfast in the Chianti region of Tuscany.

And now began our hate-hate relationship with the Italian highway system.

We had maps. And directions from google. AND directions directly from our hotel. We also had my secret weapon, which is my brain, a highly trained navigation anomaly accustomed to foreign lands and unmarked side streets.  But we were no match. And for the first time of many on this trip, we got severely lost.

I knew we were heading in the right-ish direction. We landed in Rome. I knew that. We wanted to go North. Easy. Italy is not that wide of a country and I also knew that our hotel was only about a half hour off the western coast. I also knew there was a major highway running from Rome to Florence, of which, our exit was located off of. However, no one ever told me that there are not just one, but two major highways running from Rome to Florence. And we, got on the wrong one. So when we passed by our tiny town called Poggibonsi, just about 20 miles to the East, we had no idea, as there were no marked exits for Poggibonsi or any of the other marked towns both sets of directions had given us.

Next thing we know, we’re in Florence.

Too far North.

In addition, I find out we’re in Florence because we come to a toll booth but have lost our ticket and when we are issued a citation that we have to pay for a lost ticket, the citation says it’s been given at the main Florence booth. So we u-turn as gracefully as we can, come around a bend and see our mistake.

Two lanes. Two choices.

Lane 1 – E78 Rome (via Sienna)

Lane 2 – E35 Rome (via Arezzo)

We had come up the E35, and we needed to be on the E78. Awesome.

Once we’re on the right road, the directions are easy. We follow them to this tiny town to a beautiful old restored convent. Antigo Borgo San Lorenzo. At this point, even I’m exhausted, and I can’t imagine what my Atlantic crossing counterparts are feeling like, so we grab a quick-ish bite to eat at the b&b restaurant (which, btw, had the most amazing Caprese salad I’ve ever seen with the mozzarella and basil stuffed INSIDE the tomato) and then we head to bed in our gorgeous little retreat.

I love Greece.

I know I’ve had this sort of up and down and all around kind of relationships with my little Ελλάδα. But now. I just love it. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I actually slept 10 hours last night, on a real bed, in real air conditioning. It might also have something to do with the fact that I woke up and took both a shower and a bath this morning and I didn’t have to drain my own shower or shave my legs on a toilet.

But whatever.

I love Greece.

I woke up this morning feeling amazing and after spending a solid 2 hours on my own primping, I set out to find Alissa. Our husbands had left us already and had headed to the Athens (Αθήνα) airport to catch their early morning flights. We had agreed the previous night that we would meet in the lobby just after our noon check-out and we would walk to the airport together to try and get her on an earlier flight. I strolled down at 12:15 and Alissa was nowhere to be found. I sat around for about 20 minutes, then walked to every common area of the hotel looking for her with no success. She must have gone to the airport alone. So I stroll across the street and begin at one end of the terminal and walk all the way to the other. Still no Alissa.

I’m hoping, at this point, that she got news of an earlier flight and booked and was already past security. But I was a bit worried that if I left and went back to the hotel without finding her that she might need help. So I walked the length of the terminal again, absolutely exhausted and no one. So I turn around and head back to the hotel. As I’m walking out the sliding door, there she is, standing in line at a ticket booth. I run up, she embraces me almost in tears, she can’t figure out how to get back and is terrified she’s going to be stuck until the following day. And she was right, no amount of persuading could get her home any earlier. She was stuck with me.

I had purposely booked my flight for the following day, knowing that was the easier day for Andrew to pick me up from the airport. My flight left at 4 AM, so I knew I would only have to loiter for a bit before going through security and sleeping my way back to Spain. Alissa was bound to be stuck until about noon though, and unwillingly.

Fortunately, I had a plan. I had asked the hotel concierge if it would be possible to still use the hotels public amenities during the day explaining that my flight didn’t leave until very late and I had no intention of sitting in the airport lounger all day.

“Oh, of COURSE Mrs. Farr, you absolutely can still use everything.”

So use everything we did.

First up was the wi-fi and some lunch. I used aforementioned wi-fi to reinstate my credit card which was turned off after I charged it in 4 different countries in 4 days. I used aforementioned credit card to buy us lunch and then massages. We enjoyed our massages and then promptly ordered large to-go Mojito’s from the hotel bar and took poolside naps in the hotel pool on these gorgeous cushy lounge chairs.  We then went back to the same lunchtime restaurant, ordered MORE mojitos and stole about 100 breadsticks before finally heading to the airport at about 11 PM. We found our little nap-spot near a railing, made our beds and napped.

At 2:45 AM, my alarm went off to wake me for my flight. I said bye to my new best friend and promised a reunion soon.

I boarded my flight to Madrid and passed out before we took off.

Blah.

Blah blah.

There’s not a single one of us that’s not feeling completely wrecked. Our bodies have essentially rejected us. They are looking at the crackers and water we put in front of them and they’re screaming rejections. We’re taking turns being sick off the back of the boat. Partner puking on either side of the steering column. We lazily pass large bottles of water around hoping and praying that this sip will be the one that stays down.

After 7 straight nights of partying until the wee hours of the morning and waking up only a couple hours later I am having dreams about comfy beds, sleeping until noon and drinking water and only water for a month. 

On top of our hangovers, we were in sour moods knowing this was our last day on the boat. To top it off, the sea sucks. Like really sucks today. It’s windy and the waves are big for the first time since we’ve started this mess. The Freja is feeling the weight of the week as well and is broked. We can’t go faster than 4 knots and even that is putting a strain on our engine since the wind is blowing us all over the place. As such, we can’t participate in the regatta between the YW boats and have to sail straight back from Hydra (Ύδρα) to Lavrios (Λαύριο). We finally get to a sheltered area where we can put up the sail and attempt to use this wind to our advantage.

For the next 10 hours we chop our way through the Med. We’re having to tack, basically weaving back and forth because the wind was not at our back and for the first time since we started, we’re actually having to work really hard, gybing every 100 or so yards. The boat is nearly on it’s side because the winds are so strong and we’re all holding on tight as Louise said that picking anyone out of this rough sea would be nearly impossible.  At one point, the boat tips over almost on it’s side. We’re literally hanging onto railings, soaking wet and shit is flailing all over the place below deck. Louise is screaming at Matt and Mitch who have taken over most of the tough work. Once we finally stabilized, we had to pull our sails in half way so we’re not catching so much wind which finally worked and we leisurely strolled into port.

Problems arose when we began our check-in process. Our dinghy engine that was stolen earlier in the week was going to be charged to us, even though we knew it was somewhere on someone else’s boat. Justin headed off to battle with the Yacht Week people while the rest of us began to arrange transportation for the following day up to Athens (Αθήνα).  Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication, the twins had cancelled all of our busses into Athens and by the time we figured it out, there were no more spots left. Being that Justin and John were on early flights the following day and we had no guaranteed spots on any busses, Justin, John, Alyssa and I headed to Athens via public transportation to stay at the amazingly amazing and glorious Athens airport hotel. John, my sugar daddy for the night (the hotel staff referred to me as Mrs. Farr) and I dumped our stuff in our glorious room and then the four of us wandered down to the hotel restaurant for some dinner.

After a couple bottles of wine and some amazing food, we went back up to our honeymoon suite for long baths and a solid 12 hours of sleep. In a bed. With a real mattress and comforters. Oh, and air conditioning.

We sort of cheated the Yacht Week by getting out early and staying at a real hotel, but god, it felt good.

And not just from me. No, Louise wasn’t finished either. As we pulled into our sweet spot, just one boat off of land (and therefore an easy hop and skip onto land – or so we thought), we sandwiched ourselves in between two Spanish boats. As we were sorting out lines and tying ourselves up, we noticed a smaller yacht, not affiliated with Yacht Week, pulling up behind us attempting to board our ship. Realizing quickly that they were attempting to cut the line and tie up next to us perked up the ears of our tiny little Swedish bitch. “We will not take your line, go away!” she is screaming over and over again as the boat appears to ignore her and throw it’s ropes up onto our boat nearly knocking her in the face.

But Louise was not alone in her rage today, and our Spanish neighbors were not about to allow this random dude to take advantage of her seemingly petite stature. Suddenly, a big fat Spaniard from the boat next to us grabs a giant megaphone and start stomping his way to the front of the boat screaming as many profanities I have ever heard strewn together in Spanish. As those of us who could understand nearly fell over at the site of Dumbo charging at this stray boat with his megaphone, the whole group of Yacht Weekers erupted in a din of vulgar phrases and racial slurs in every language imagineable just screaming at this boat to go away. And in a single moment of Yacht Week unity, we all managed to push the foreigner away and cheer loudly long-distance toasting shot glasses of tequila.

After we finally tied on, we tackled the task of getting on shore, which proved to be more difficult as the larger yacht we had tied up to, was too large for our plank to reach from our deck to theirs without promising serious drunken injury later. So instead, we began our climb across 4 or 5 boats to get up to shore. Not such a good parking spot after all.

Once on shore, we walked as a group to get lunch, finding a cute spot on the other side of the port with a table large enough for all 16 of us and with a menu to satisfy everyone. I, naturally, being completely sick of greek salad, opted for the most non-greek thing I could find on the menu: a nutella and banana crepe with chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup on top. Utterly excellente.

After lunch, a group of us decided we would be adventurous and actually do something besides drink on the boat, so we decided we would go  walk around town. Naturally needing some sort of catlyst to permit daytime drinking, we filled our 2 liter Coke bottle filled with bootleg gypsy juice and started trying to think of a good mobile drinking game to play. What we found, were Cats.

There are cats EVERYWHERE in Greece, but moreso on Hydra than anywhere else I went. So being that we wanted to get drunk pretty quickly, Alissa and I came up with the game. Everytime you saw a cat, you had to yell “Cat! MEOW” and then the other person had to drink. It sounded simple and harmless enough, but after we finished the first bottle in about 30 minutes, we knew we were screwed.

We spent a bit of time buying white statues of weird Greek god’s with giant penises souvenir shopping and then decided it was time for a bit of a sobering break before dinner and we headed to a great cove known for it’s swimming, cliff diving and clear water. We met up with most of the other Yacht Weekers there and spent a couple hours lazing about and jumping off of rocks. The only real strange part of it all, was that when you wanted to get out of the water, after you dived in, you had to wait for a wave to slam you up against a rock face and reach up and grab for the ladders hanging down sporadically so you could hoist yourself up and climb back up on the cliff. Fair enough. Except when you missed and the same wave that slammed you up against the wall, scraped you down it’s side and across the rock reef lying underneath it. Way fun.

We had fancy dinner reservations set up at a great restaurant called Sunset, right on the cliffs. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, we never got to try the food because the place was obviously not used to big parties and had no idea how to handle us and after waiting for LITERALLY an hour and a half for our first order of drinks (other than the water on the table) and appetizers, and having stuffed our faces with enough bread to sink a ship, we threw in the towel, and left, not even getting a chance to scream at our waiter about how awful the service was because… well… he never came back. Turns out, his shift was up and he just left, and no one got reassigned to us. Awesome.

The nightclub scene on Hydra is fantastic. And after finding a nice gyro spot back near the boat and sitting on the seawall eating $5 gyros, 40s of Mythos and some iced coffee, we headed to a great bar called the Pirate Bar which I highly recommend if anyone goes to Hydra. It had an excellent non-yacht-week crowd, fantastic music and glow in the dark vodka. Not to mention hot bartenders and plenty of barstools, a big plus in my book.

We left the Pirate Bar at about 2 to head to the Yacht Week organized event which was a rented out all white party room on the cliffs with a huge balcony overlooking a giant illuminated volcanic rock reef. It was intimate, private, had excellent tunes spinning and we had a bit of a rager. Most of the boys had dressed up in togas (being that we were the only crew that didn’t come with matching outfits, we had to do something) and we danced and danced and danced and drank and talked. We had a great drunken session outside about the “old Jenks Southeast days” which was the elementary school that some of us went to. Yup. Miss Hafner would be proud.

We finished the night with another couple hours at Pirate Bar where we closed it down just in time to run back to the Gyro place and have another round of late night on the sea wall overlooking the illuminated black rock and the gorgeous rising Greek sun.

Yacht Week.

Unfortunately, for the first time on this trip, we had a hungover skipper. Louise finally gave into Yacht week and spent her wee morning hours drinking bourbon from the bottle with a couple of friends on our deck. Our 9 AM start time was just a little late, and although we were the first to awaken of our line of boats, we knew we were still probably a bit late. In addition, we had acquired a stowaway.

One of Mitch’s conquests, the nicest and seemingly most normal of the hot naked San Diego crew, crawled above deck as Louise and I began cleaning. She tossed her dress from the night before, and dived into the water to swim back to her own boat, attached to the second row of boats about 50 yards away. About 15 minutes later, she came swimming back. Her boat, had left her. And she was stranded with no way to get to Hydra except with us.

So off we went. With only a 30 minute sail to Hydra, she seemed less stressed and knew she’d be reunited with her friends soon. Unfortunately, the line to get into port was about 2 hours long. And in addition to our 40 or so yachts lining up to get in, there were large… no gigantic… ferries pulling in and out about every 20 minutes. We were kindly reminded by the coast guard to get the hell out of the way if any of these giant 300 passenger ships came pulling in, but we needed no convincing. They would come careening from across the Med at a speed that would put a cigarette boat to shame and would sliding stop into their 20 ft long parking spot along a sheer cliff inside the tiny football sized port.

Now, as we sit, float, and wait in the choppy waters, which wasn’t as easy as just parking and putting on your flashers but required a constant watchful eye from Louise as we maintained our position in line and avoided crashing into one of the other million dollar yachts floating in the swell. At one point, one of the Yacht week boats, having waited long enough about 4 spots behind us, decided he would ignore the boats all lining up and check out what was going on in front. In typical rush hour traffic ass hole style, he creeps past 4 or 5 boats who look appallingly at him but do nothing to stop him. But Louise was not to be played for a fool, and being slightly hungover had brought out the Swedish bitch in our pint sized skipper.

And the tiny blonde yells the words that will live in skipper history in a voice that could have easily come out of some burly alchoholic/smoker 50 year old fisherman’s mouth.

“We’re all queuing mother fucker! Go back where you came from!”

Instantly, our boat erupts in laughter and we all reach for any recording devices to attempt to catch any other screaming hilarities that have yet to leave her sweet little mouth.

As the scared macho skipper from the other boat retreats, Louise received a booming applause from any boat in a 100 ft. radius and we grab the little girl a beer for her efforts.

There ain’t no skipper like our skipper.

We love you Louise.