Nobody Knows Anything

Spoiler Alert: This post contains no films. I went on holiday to Rhodes, Greece, and didn’t do that much really. Here is a post all about the not much that I did. By the way, if I remember correctly, The Aphrodite Inheritance (1979) was a slightly spooky 70s non-sequel to Who Pays the Ferryman? (1977) in which a lucky BBC production team got to spend some months filming an arty drama series with a bit of nudity on location in Greece instead of what they do nowadays, which is redo Robin Hood or Merlin on location in Deptford and do the rest with CGI. Boring.

Saturday 20th September 2008

With Sox [my sister’s cat] fed, we proceed to [Birmingham International] airport. Dad had already been on a practice run for this yesterday when he took Lou [my sister] and Roz [her friend] to Brum for Lou’s birthday weekend in Barcelona. Check in very quick. Bloke in front had doubts about leopard-skin camouflage stetson; I urged him to go for it. Hilariously, evil bastards at Monarch wanted £25 for legroom seats. So that didn’t happen. Can’t discriminate against disabled anymore, so tall people now legitimate target. Quickly through security after removing all shoes and metal items including belt. Spent most of time browsing shops in departure lounge. WHSmiths had lots of books that looked promising, but hit paydirt with Impulse record shop which had four interesting CDs in a 4 for £20 deal plus a cheapie for £1. Ker-ching! Barely time to urinate before we walk to plane through boarding gate and then building site and then on the taxiway to the plane. I turn out to be in seat 23C next to a couple of couples who spend the whole flight drinking hideously overpriced miniature bottles and cans of spirits and lager whilst I, Mr Boring Seasoned Traveller, paid £1.50 in Boots for a couple of Coke Zeros before boarding. Finally resolved Sennheiser earphone issue: you do need the medium sized attachments for effective noise cut-outage. Time passes in bouts of Stephen King’s Duma Key and Dead Can Dance. Removed shoes for duration of flight. That really works. Usual trolley fest in aisles and piss poor recycled BBC comedy on small fold-down tellies from VHS of all things, the DVD revolution not having reached Monarch Airlines yet. Dinner was cottage pie and a toffee sticky pudding, plus water, plus 2 coffees. Very decent. I start to wane c.1pm and need sleep. It doesn’t come. Good landing smack on time.

Sunday 21st September 2008

With me fed, arrival in Rhodes was curious. Lightning flashes are observed from the aircraft, and there has clearly been an enormous Michael Mann in the city style wetting down of the streets, but no rain is falling now. Hilarious queue for Greek security where first they stamp some passports, then none and the queue speeds up a lot. Case arrives safely. Tigger [stickers] rule! Find ancient Olympic Airways employee who directs me to coach 171. After stopping at every hotel between the airport and Afandou, I arrive and am pleasantly surprised. Edelweiss 1A actually has airconditioning, but no remote to control it. Did find manual and managed to turn it on a bit. Hurrah! 1A is clean and neat and more than adequate. I’m right behind the bar and pool and even though it’s on the main road, you can’t hardly hear anything inside. Provided utensils very basic, will need to supplement (but didn’t). Unpacked very quickly. Had breakfast of Fruit & Fibre and milk. Hilariously discovered I’d picked up the wrong cheese and box from our fridge at home [I chose the ongoing cheese rather than the new one bought Saturday morning]. Still, should be enough to last me the week. Found that the fabled cash and carry supermarket as mentioned by woman online is right next door to Edelweiss. Turned around and walked back up main road find junction I espied on the bus earlier. First located bus stop, and bus times. Then turned left along road and walked towards Afandou village. Cash and carry closed Sunday so I needed another source of food. Road led me to a road that loops through village centre [maybe], and at first convenience shop I found everything I needed: butter, ham, a roll for today and lots of drink. Lots and lots of drink. Said Kalimera to old guy washing pavement. Shop guy spoke pretty good English but I baffled him with apples, bananas request. We agreed on fruit. He had no fruit. Broke 1st €20 note. Walked back hot and sweaty. Had texted Dad earlier; now texted Louise in Barcelona and wrote this. Next: welcome meeting at 12.30pm in the bar.

Jamie, 24, from Kent, cracked bad jokes in the style of someone who’s convinced he’s a standup comedian with potential who gets disabused of this notion every time he does it. He’s nice enough, though. As ever, the welcome meeting, spiced with a small glass of what may have been J2O, was really about selling you trips. Some of the trips are the same as were on offer in the 90s. Couple with kid next to me plumped for island tour by coach, and it is a good trip, but I’ve been there and bought the t-shirt. I drifted away, sun creamed up and headed out in search of the mysterious cut-through, which I didn’t find. I did find the village centre though, and bars and restaurants as recommended online and shall work my way through them, or not, as whim decides. Still seeking short cut I ended up instead on the other leg of the Spanish style road junction and decided to head down and check out the beach. Very sparse. Lots of space. Very few people around as the season draws to a close. Came back, showered, slept and read. Dinner adventure #1 beckons.

Wrote down bus timetable times and actually found the cut through to Afandou Centre, which is deviously unsignposted. May have found a sort of bakery near square, but that’s a long way to go for bread. Wandered back streets a little, eventually ended up at Four Seasons Restaurant with fabulously friendly owners/waiters, a big Greek bloke and a small Greek woman, 7 months pregnant. I had Grilled Chicken Breast Fillet in a pepper sauce with garlic bread and cheese. Delicious. Came with rice, chips, veg and mushrooms in the sauce. Very nice. Had weird-looking cappuccino for dessert. It came in a tall glass with a pile of squirty cream on top and a straw. And it was hot. €14 excluding tip. Wandered back over the cut through hill in darkness, tried to find nearer road [to Edelweiss] without success. By amazing chance, the TV in the pool bar was tuned to the Ryder Cup, but I was so tired I was completely unable to take advantage. Nine hours of sleep ensued.

Monday 22nd September 2008

Up at 7, had breakfast, ablutions, then to supermarket for bread, the fresh stuff not yet stocked on shelves. Great. Found brown-looking stuff with “unique taste” that smelled awful but at noon turned out to be adequate, if a little cakey. It’s true that the Greeks don’t really do bread. Made up brown stuff as rolls, proceeded to bus stop. Met Northern couple who were opposite me, they’ve since moved rooms for one with a safe. We proceeded to Lindos, with diversions. Common sense has raised its head since I last visited in 1995, and now the buses terminate at a car park outside Lindos up the hill from the square. A smaller, free shuttle bus now moves people from the terminus to the beach to the square. Much more sensible. I marched down to the square and wandered the streets of Lindos, looking for views and perspectives I hadn’t shot on my previous visits. Ended up down on the beach for lunch sat in a chair with a table that both looked unused. Thankfully the rapacious sun lounger guys ignored me and I could eat in peace. Wandered up to the tomb of Kleoboulos (the new monument I visited may not have been this tomb) whoever he is and then back to Lindos square. Took the free bus up to the terminus and waited for the not free bus. On the way down to the beach earlier I was toyed with by a very cute kitten with a collar. Cats run wild here and they’re all hardy, slim types, not bulky mature cats like our Thomas [our cat]. Lent my bottle opener keys to some Dutch or German blokes who’d bought bottles and carried no openers with them. They were Dutch or German, so that was their excuse. Bus back took us on a guided tour of Kolimbia, which would appear to have been claimed by Deutschland. Eventually got back via supermarket, which now has fresh bread so great; I had to pick up a stick thing in a liitle market in Lindos. Pause.

Nothing much to report of a quiet night in. Until the Billy Joel kicked in around 10pm. Nice. And then we had another storm with rain, thunder and lightning, but I was mostly out of it.

Tuesday 23rd September 2008

If Kolimbia has been claimed by the Germans it would appear Afandou has been ceded to Italy. There was a crowd of Italians waiting for the bus to Rhodes Town this morning, and me. It was standing room only all the way in. I was standing in the trough by the rear door and was first off the bus when we arrived half an hour later. First I found the information place looking for info about the medieval festival. Bugger all there. Then I went hunting for record shops and found Manuel Music Center first. It turned out to be the best of the three. I earmarked some stuff for credit card action on Friday and then spent the rest of the morning leafing through the vinyl in the basement. It had been picked pretty clean and there wasn’t anything essential. Found a never released in the UK Michael Nyman CD soundtrack in the bargain CDs and then augmented it with a Cibo Matto CD (yay!), a mid-price Vangelis CD and my out on a limb choice of a Guesch Patti CD from 2000, with what looked like a bonus CD glued to the front (this turned out to be the case). Shamefacedly, I then repaired to McDonalds for lunch. Strikingly, the woman serving the counter in Manuel Music had a fag on the go, and McDonalds patrons could smoke! Then tracked down X Musicland, which wasn’t what it was 14 years ago; the vinyl had gone and the choice was smaller, and also Top Ten, which was very weird, a small sidestreet shop run by an older woman.

I then proceeded to the Palace of the Grand Masters in time for the tour of the walls at 2.45pm, except a) the Palace was being repaired and the whole frontage was clad in scaffolding, and b) the tours appear to have been replaced by morning access to the walls from 8am to 11am Tuesdays to Saturdays. All very odd. Back to do that on Friday. I then occupied myself with taking pictures of German tourists; Germans abroad love to have tours organised for them. There was a mime dressed as a pirate and the first of two urchins armed with squeezeboxes. The whole Old Town looked awfully familiar. I then wandered the tourist traps of the most ridiculous [Socratous] street in Old Town, with shops that go on forever and ever. Amazingly, tucked under a stairwell, I found a bottle of Emery [wine] that I have fond memories of from years ago. I then left Old Town and wandered up outside the walls with the two harbours on my right. Appallingly, one of the deer that guards the entrance to Mandraki Harbour has been removed for refurbishment, and the remaining stag statue looks more than a little forlorn.

I relocated Lawrence Durrell’s home in the Turkish cemetery, and far from the neglect apparent last time, now it was all done up and home to a literary association, so hurrah for that. I then repaired to the Yacht Club and spent an hour lounging on a deck chair till it was time to walk back, buy a ticket and squeeze on the Lindos bus. It was No 19, the same bus I was on yesterday when I returned from Lindos, with the same driver. And he was decent enough to drop me off alone (just about) at Afandou Oasis again. Once more, it was standing room only on the bus and I had a heckuva job squeezing to the exit, but I made it. Time for another quiet night in.

Wednesday 24th September 2008

My poor feet are suffering a bit so I’ve decided to have a quiet day in. Very lazy morning with reading and sleeping, then a jaunt down to the Afandou beach in the afternoon. Very little going on. The sunbed didn’t do my back any good either. The Italians, who all seem to be staying at the Hotel Blu, have their own separate beach facilities, to which strangers are not welcome. They also have on beach boule tournaments. Have finally sussed out fruit situation in supermarket. You have to get it weighed separately and sticky labelled before taking it to the tills. Finished off 2nd half of dry Emery wine I bought yesterday. Must have been good as it sent me to sleep early. Now that I can’t get to the Tsambika monastery, I’m spending the next two days in Rhodes Town instead.

Thursday 25th September 2008

Nasty shock awaits when I get to the bus stop at 9am, there is me and about 40 Italians. Would it be the case that such a giant crowd means no bus is going to stop at Afandou Oasis until such time as the crowd has completely dispersed? Yes, it would. A whole bunch of the Italians disappear in taxis, which, being wealthy but somewhat mean Italians, is what they should have done in the first place. In the meantime, a coach driver at 10.30am takes pity on me {I’m now the only one left standing there) and I arrive in Rhodes too late to walk the walls of the Old Town. But not too late to proceed to Manuel Music Center and work my way through the A-Z rock CDs. Unfortunately, circa 12pm, my diabetic carbo need started to kick in and I had to take a break for sustenance. Had to walk an awful long way to score some Coke Zero 1.5 litre style. After break, trotted back into Manuel Music Center, completed the A-Z search and piled €100 worth of CDs on my credit card. I then took a long detour out to the west of Rhodes Town to the beach, and made a circular tour of the northernmost point of Rhodes, then back down the other side to the Yacht Club where I found myself on Tuesday. I arrived super early for the bus, scored myself a seat, and then got up to leave the bus well before we arrived at Afandou Oasis since I’ve now got the times down. My dinner plans for the evening are currently under reconsideration since a giant thunderstorm including lightning, torrential downpours and hail (great chunks of ice) has rather suddenly appeared, not quite from nowhere since the weather and visibility and sunlight have all been dispersing since mid-afternoon. It’s a storm with a vengeance; the only thing I know about such things is that this level of rainfall will not hold and this storm will pass. The tricky bit is whether there are any more of them. The rain it did not stop, so out I did not go.

Friday 26th September 2008

After yesterday’s embarrassing incident with the Italians, I was determined not to go through all that again. My alternate strategy was to leave my studio at 7am, march over the cut through hill to Afandou, passing a dead cat on the way, and catch the 7.30am bus from there to Rhodes. It arrived at 7.45, fashionably late, and I set down in Rhodes c.8.30, so it sort of worked. Once again, the bus took a different route in than any I had previously been on. I opportunistically got off the bus early and quickly found myself lost in the Old Town for the first time this morning. I eventually made my way to the Palace of the Grand Masters to pick up my €2 for the town wall walk. This certainly lived up to billing as it delivered great vistas across the Old Town as well as a sense of how much work it would all need to bring it up to date. I had the walls practically to myself; there was one other bloke and a couple of Japanese tourists. After descending absurdly dangerous steps at the other end of the walk, I got lost in the Old Town again. I eventually found my way out though and headed over to the commercial port to take some pictures of the enormous cruise liner, the Costa Fortuna [I’m not making this name up!], that was moored there. I bought a sponge loofer thing off a boat that kept moving as I was trying to find the best one. Then the rain came down again in a torrential downpour for an hour, during which I finished gift shopping and got a bit damp. The downpour fortuitously allowed me to find places off the beaten track. It was amusing to note how the hour long downpour turned all of the traders in Socratous Street into umbrella salesmen. I found the Romeo Taverna & Grill as recommended by the AA and inadvertently stumbled into a willkommen meeting for a group of Germans who’d clearly arrived the previous night. The rep’s presentation went on a bit, but was clearly more prepared and organised than our more humble English efforts in this area. Once again, there’s nothing the Germans like more than an authority figure telling them what to do. In the meantime, I was the half eleven rush at the Romeo, basically ordered off the menu and the burger and garlic bread were cheap and good. Result. I redid the circuit of the west, north and east beaches, but there had been some storm damage at the Yacht Club and as my perch was no longer really available, I gave it up as a bad job and returned to Afandou. In the evening, I ventured out again alongside the road in the dark with motorists speeding past me, passed the dead cat, climbed the cut through hill and ended up at the Four Seasons again. This time I had a Mythos beer [my beer of choice this week], more garlic bread this time without cheese, and a fantastic pork fillet in a creamy, mushroomy, garlicky sauce with a baked potato. It was all good; the big debate is what to have tomorrow and whether or not I have enough money to pay for it, though as they take MasterCard this may be a moot point. This late night meal made me very sleepy though, so it was off to dreamland for me. Final day tomorrow.

Saturday 27th September 2008

Long enough sleep but today begins the long unwind. Various bits of food are finally used up and seen off. The packing is rigorously organised as each bit of the room is scrutinised and rescrutinised for leave behinds until there is nothing left to pack. Although it’s more than a bit anal, my checklist makes it very easy. For the first time this week, I cracked open the patio door and gave the studio a pile of fresh air. The inevitable consequence of this was that a giant insect buzzed in. I may have swooshed it out again with a towel, I may not. Cats are very miaowy this morning. Since I packed up ahead of schedule, I decided fuck it, I’m gonna book out of here early, so I delivered my questionnaire to the rep who provided leaving details in return. Our hilarious pickup time is 2am. Left my case in the bar; Anna [owner] seemed terribly keen to unlock the safe I’d locked earlier in the week [and been unable to reopen]. Got to bus stop perfectly timed to catch bus to Lindos, standing all the way. I’d switched my rucksack to my travel bag, not too heavy. On arrival in Lindos, I walked down to the square and headed for my favourite spot halfway down the path [to the beach] for lunch. A boat was in, and there was lots of donkey traffic. Post-lunch, I found a spot by a boat on Lindos beach and lolled away the afternoon reading and also overhearing the travails of three young female Londoners who seemed to have been flooded in their apartment during the great downpour, or one of them, the poor bastards. You don’t expect to escape floodland Britain and end up flooded on one of the driest islands in the Med during one of the driest summers they’ve had. Around five, I left the beach and walked up the hill to the terminus, bought my ticket and was directed to the one leaving in five minutes. Result. Back at the pool bar, I swapped clothes in the pool loo and transferred some items to my case, read a bit, chatted a bit, and then over the cut through, past the dead cat, to the Four Seasons Restaurant. Had giant Coke Light rather than a Mythos, soup of the day which was tomato, onion rings and garlic bread (which was probably a tactical mistake), and then grilled chicken breast fillet with pepper sauce again, another Coke Light and that was it. Am officially low on euros so paid with MasterCard. Wandered up to the town square to see if anything was happening. It wasn’t. Did pass the Afandou equivalent of Rosie’s in Solihull where all the young people appeared to be gathering, being thrown out, riding around on mopeds without helmets, etc. Cats were a bit scampery this evening. Returned over the hill, said last rites over the dead cat, returned to the pool bar. Drifted in and out a bit, ordered my first and last drink from Don, yet another diet Coke, pint-sized. Decided to reignite brain by writing this.

PS. The Flight

Dan very generously provided us with free mineral water as the wait for the coach ticked on inexorably. Eventually, about ten minutes late at 2.15am, the coach arrived with a way too cheery rep and we were transported to the airport where a very curious thing happened. We Brummie travellers were placed in a long slow line behind one check-in desk while an earlier Manchester flight [marked delayed on the departure board] occupied three check-in desks. Only when the Mancunians had all been checked in were we switched to three desks and our Brummie queue began to move. This was all taking a lot longer than it should do, and we hadn’t even passed through security yet. Take off time was approaching. Anyway we checked in our bags and got our tickets, mine was 35A, a window seat at the back which turned out to be okay. As we were queuing (again) to go through security, the exact nature of the Manchester flight delay was revealed. They were meant to be due off at 4.45am, but due to a technical fault on their aircraft, they were instead due off at 3.15pm, 10 and a half hours later. So all the Mancunians had to troop back through passport control, including the young couple who were next door to me at Edelweiss in 1B, trek back down to the departure area, be rejoined with their luggage and shipped off to a hotel for the day (only to come back to the airport and do it all over again). Oh to be able to watch the Olympic Holidays reps who had to face a planeload of sleep-deprived, belligerent Mancunians. The issue here is why the Mancunians were checked in with baggage and passed through security when it must have been clear much earlier that they weren’t going to be leaving on time. By the time we got to the departure lounge, there was only about half an hour to go before we took off, and barely enough time to be gouged for €3.50 for a single Coke Light. Thank you, liquid ban bastards. I spent the flight back in a sleep-deprived daze, drifting in and out. Some excitement was supplied by a passenger who may have swallowed some tea the wrong way and found himself in need of oxygen. Swiftly and quietly through Brum Airport, the Tigger stickers rule.