Return to Crete

Poinsetta (julestjerne) tree!

I'm back in Crete to buy a house!

Back in October, when we had our vacation here, we looked at some houses that were for sale in eastern Crete, and found one that we definitly liked in the village of Kritsá. So here I am again to get the buying process started.  What during the tourist season (April through October) is a 3-4 hour flight from Oslo, becomes a major expedition during the off-season. I left home at 4 am in the dark of night, for the hour and a quarter drive to the airport.

 After a getting a cup of coffee from Norway's only Starbucks, I got out my boarding pass and discovered that my passport was missing. Panikk!! I called husband, rousing him from his slumber, thinking that I must have forgotten to pack it, and left it lying on my desk. It was just past 5:30, enough time for him to bring it to me. However though he ransacked the house, the passport was not to be found. I took the shuttle back to the car park in case it had slid out of my bag and was lying on the floor of the passenger seat of the car. It was dark after all, and the passport is dark blue, but no such luck. I got back to the airport at 6:30 am, an hour and 10 minutes to departure, and went straight to the police to ask whether anything could be done. Had I had a Norwegian passport, I could have got a temporary one, but nothing could be done about travelling documents with just a permanent visa. However just as I was leaving, the guy said: "Where did you lose it?" I said I had no idea, that I'd had it when I was packing, and that my husband had looked everywhere for it at home. "Could this be it?" he asked, holding up an american passport, which I immediatly recognised as mine. An airport employee had handed it in not 5 minutes before!

 It was still mostly dark when we took off at 7:40am, and I watched the sun rise when we got above the clouds. I was a little worried about the short layover in Munich, only 50 minutes, but between disembarking the plane and arriving at the gate for my flight to Athens only 5 minutes went by. You gotta love German efficiency!  The airport in Athens is very clean and elegant, with fashion shops, fancy cafés and free internet. By contrast, the airport in Heraklion, where we arrived as dusk was falling, was run down and practically deserted. I easily found the bus stop - it's right across the road from the arrivals hall. I sat on my suitcase, smelling the sea, as dusk deepened, watching the numerous dogs of questionable heritage that were hanging about. They all looked friendly, well fed and healthy, and yet there was no indication that anyone owned them. The bus arrived 45 minutes later, and once on it I called Yiannis from the hotel to say that I was on the bus. I had planned to say it in Greek, but chickened out in the end. He told me to look for a yellow Fiat, but there were no yellow cars in sight when I arrived. In the dark, with no map, I didn't feel confident of finding my way, so I sat on a bench and waited. After about 15 minutes I called again, and 5 minutes after that a bright yellow car came barrelling around the corner, stopping in front of me. And thus I arrived at the Pergola Hotel in Agios Nicolaos, Crete.