Samos

After a whirlwind weekend in Belgium, we landed in Greece to scorching hot temperatures. We had never been to the island of Samos before. We deliberately chose Samos because we had always planned on undertaking family Greek language lessons during our time in Greece. Thanks to a connection through D.’s mom, we found a great teacher based in the town of Karlovasi on the northwest side of the island.

Our Airbnb host arranged for a taxi to meet us at the airport and we arrived at the house in the late afternoon after a journey across the island on twisty and winding Greek roads. The house was billed as a renovated home originally built in the 1870s. We booked because it would have enough for our family, as well as D.’s parents, who joined us on Samos for a week.

In many respects, the house deserves its own blog post, there is so much we could write about our stay there! While it was technically renovated, the owner neglected to mention that the renovations happened in the 1970s.  If you ever want to go back in time to experience Greek domestic life at that time, rent this house. The property manager/housecleaner met us at the house and gave us a basic tour.

She left us to get settled in by telling us that the electrical system was “quirky”. In order to get hot water, you had to manually turn on an electric boiler from the fuse box and wait 30 to 40 minutes. This is still somewhat common in Greece although most people now use solar water heaters which provides hot water on demand. The trick was that we couldn’t operate the electric stove at the same time as the hot water heater, which couldn’t stay on longer than 40 minutes without tripping the fuse for the whole house. When this happened, D. would have to go outside to reset the main fuse from the electric company. We couldn’t use more than one appliance at a time or leave the air conditioner on too long. We learned how to deal with this through trial and error although mostly error at the beginning! Most memorable was the hot, still night we spent without power (no fans or A/C).  It added a layer of planning and timing to meal prep, bathroom time and mornings that we’d never done before. Oh, and the dishwasher was completely broken too.

Then, the bathrooms were another special feature of the home, with avocado tiles and bathroom suite in the upstairs bathroom, and a vivid blue bathroom suite in the downstairs bathroom. Did we mention the tubs in 1970s Greek homes are half sized? You sit on a little ledge in the tub, with your calves and feet dangling down into the lower portion of the tub. There was no shower. Rather, there were hand-held shower heads to add to the adventure. Which made it challenging to avoid getting the garbage cans beside the tubs wet. The garbage cans were filled with the used toilet paper we weren’t allowed to flush. The bathroom cupboards also held a wide range of medical supplies, urine collection bottles, toilet assist seats and covers and rusty tipped thermometers. It became to clear to us that the owner’s father had lived there but no one had taken the time to clear out the house before renting it out on Airbnb.

The same was true of the kitchen where old pots and pans with peeling teflon coatings (or extra layers of grease) awaited us. The chimney above the stove rained down little pieces of detritus as we tried to prepare meals. And the icing on the cake was the infestation of ants that came in through the window which lead outside (they never did leave!).

Despite the disappointing state of the house, we thoroughly enjoyed our time on Samos. The house had a wonderful view which we enjoyed from the living room, looking over the main square and out to the ocean.

We spent our mornings in private Greek lessons – one on one for little A. and D., while T. and A. had their lesson together.  Our Greek teachers were very well prepared with material at an appropriate level for each us. It was a nice way to start the day walking through the early morning sun to our lessons. We walked past the local juice bar (sometimes stopping) and along a wide boulevard with several neoclassical mansions from when Karlovasi was a prosperous tannery town.

We were able to plan the lesson schedule such that while one parent/child combo was having Greek lessons, the other pair were able to work on school underneath the grapevines woven through the trellis in our teacher’s back yard. We also benefited from her generosity as she gave us fresh lemons, basil and “katsinari” (a hybrid of cucumber and melon that only grow on Samos) fresh from her garden.

After Greek lessons, the walk back home was usually much warmer as the sun was almost at its apex for the day. We would deal with the rigamarole of stove/water heater/air conditioner use and prepare lunch. For the first week in Samos, D.’s parents joined us and kindly prepared some meals with us.

We spent a couple of afternoons at the local beaches and at the Anema Hotel pool (which was owned by the same friend of D.’s mom who connected us with our Greek teachers). It was a nice way to cool off from the heat of the day (regularly in the high 30s) and enjoy fresh squeezed orange juice and frappés. When it was too hot to go outside in the afternoon, we worked on puzzles, played cards, did school work, watched YouTube (when the internet was working) or had afternoon naps.

We had originally hoped to see more of Samos but the temperatures climbed to 40C+ near the end of our stay (an island record!) and became too hot for us to venture far from home. We would leave the house in the evenings when the temperatures cooled after the sun set and adopted the Greek schedule of eating our evening meal after 8 pm. There was ample fresh fish and seafood to choose from which also worked for A.’s food sensitivities.

As part of our time on Samos, we had hoped to volunteer at a refugee centre. Being so close to Turkey has meant that Samos (and an even closer island, Lesbos) have had a major influx of refugees. Unfortunately, the refugee centre was closed to people who weren’t working with the UN or an accredited NGO. We also heard that safety was an issue at the camps and it wouldn’t be an appropriate place for the kids.

It was also the first time we’d seen so many Turkish tourists in Greece, with many hotels and restaurants displaying menus and signs in Turkish. Given the proximity of Turkey, it shouldn’t be that surprising. We could see the Turkish coast from the seaside restaurant attached to the Anema Hotel where we ate several times. However, D. grew up hearing about the Turks from his Greek relatives and it was an unexpected economic reality for Greek islanders to be relying on Turkish tourists.

Next stop: Domnista!