Sick on Santorini (cont'd)

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By 6 p.m., I knew I wasn't feeling well enough to make the hike to Ia. Darn. I was looking forward to the exercise and the panoramas. Ah, well. At least I've still got two days left to fit in those two great ruined sites, and stop by a famous winery nearish to Akrotiri (Santorini's volcanic soil is renowned to make some of the finest wines in Greece — though when the competition includes retsina, this might not be saying much!), where I hear the admission and tour gets you a tasting of six wines plus snacks (great: free lunch!).

So I set to work on answering a slew of editorial queries for the Tuscany book, called Frances after sunset (skipped the yogurt and apples this time and just popped out once or twice to make sure it was, indeed, setting), and later climbed the stairs to town again, feeling considerably more tired and dizzy than earlier, to find some dinner.

I wandered the streets for about an hour, trying to find something light but filling that wasn't arni (lamb; which is good but I'm getting tired of). It was also midnight by now (I always get caught up when answering queries as when writing, and tend to loose track of time), and few enough restaurants were still serving food, only booze. I ended up at a tiny pizza parlor (because pizza sounded just perfect and I was feeling stomach-picky tonight) in the part of town where cars are allowed, after which I stumbled back to my hotel again, took my medicines in a haze, and fell into bed, certain I'd feel better tomorrow.

DAY 3 - MISERY

I learned a new Greek word today: apergia. It seems I'm getting to know the word for "strike" in every language: greve (French), en huelga (Spanish), sciopero (Italian).... Since Olympic Airways delivers the daily newspapers to the island on their first flight in, and since Olympic Airways decided to go on apergia today, no Herald Tribune.

But at the newsstand/book shop I did see something amusing. There was a book with a photo of Ethan Hawke and whassername on the cover, and underneath it said "Great Expectations — Now a Major Motion Picture!" — which, of course, is a far more important aspect of this story than the "by Charles Dickens" that appears in tiny type at the very bottom of the cover (far less promoinent than the movie stars' names at the top).

I intended to go all the way to Thera today, the ruins of Santorini's Mycenean capital, thence on to Kamari beach below the ruins for lunch at a noted restaurant. I made it as far as the bus stop to scribble down times and rates for various island destinations. On my way back to the hotel, I stopped back at the pharmakeio to try out some new vocabulary words corresponding to my new set of symptoms. They said my Greek was getting better, this after I managed to mumble out "Santorini is very beautiful, but I am too sick to enjoy it." I am only just starting to get the hang of things like verbs and case endings on nouns so that now I can mangle whole sentences — and the few conjunctions I've managed to remember allow me to multiply my errors by attempting compound sentences as well.

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