280 km, off the top of my head

Welcome one, welcome all, back to Mount Olympus, may you catch the goats that roam freely through life’s path!

Today began way too goddamn early. Lily woke me before the crack of dawn. Because she wanted to watch the crack of dawn from the beach.

When I helpfully pointed out to her that the sun would be on the other side of the hill that surrounded the bay we were in, she was undeterred.

So the four of us stumbled to the beach, sat on the beanbag type stuff that were laid out, and waited.

For about an hour.

The sky was light blue already, we could see where the sun was coming up, but Lily would not let us leave until we saw the sun itself.

We amused ourselves by plane spotting. In that we saw one plane, Lily said it was a UFO because it was a “flying object that we couldn’t quite identify”. We placed bets as to how high up a plane was. In that Allegra bet it was 280 km high, “off the top of her head”. When I informed her that space began at the Karman line, aka 100km, she simply said, “it’s a UFO isn’t it?”.

We walked a little way up the hill as the sun began to light up the top of the opposite hill. We sat on the floor and waited, watched a pack of five dogs running around. Tate tried to go back to bed many a time, as Lily ordered Allegra to pull her back.

Finally, f i n a l l y , we saw the damn sun. And went back.

Lily and I had breakfast, the twins went back to bed, and as we did nothing, we heard our parents alarm go off. We thought of them as weaklings for being tired when we had been up for three hours.

We got ready in an hour before we strolled out the door to our car, ready for a thirty minute drive. It was a fun drive, even if the music was a tad questionable (and I do love to question Lily’s music taste).

But thirty minutes later we made it to the town, parked, and strolled once more to the kayak place.

That’s right, we’re sea kayaking! Or, well, fjord kayaking. I didn’t know fjords existed outside of Norway.

Tate was giving Allegra a very cold shoulder since Allegra wanted to go with Lily and not her. So as I listened to my sisters argue loudly in my presence about who didn’t have to go with me, well, let’s say I felt *so* valued. I resolved to prove them all wrong by being the fastest and funnest kayak partner.

Boy oh boy, did I live up to that. Or at least you’ll have to ask Tate since she was with me.

We paddled along at a high speed, Tate vlogging with the go pro, and I managed to expertly stop the kayak right below the swing so Tate could climb on with ease.

I am so the best.

But we parked our kayaks, messed around, I was the first to stand on the swing and jump (well, sort of flop since I had no water shoes and hence no grip on the wet seat) into the water.

Mum jumped from high up, I would put the height at a respectable 280 km, off the top of my head. I elected to do the same.

I climbed up, still shoeless (everyone in my family has water shoes but me, since I am unloved), and then almost fell off due to slippy feet and no grippy shoes, so I sat down for a moment to calm my heart. After that, I realised I was quite content where I was, because the view was nice and there was no chance of falling, so I sat there despite the increasingly rude and mean comments of my family who wanted me to jump.

Tate came up and she is nice, we chatted for a bit and then she jumped. After a while, I decided to jump too, and so I did.

But we had to head off, more to the open ocean area, and Lily noticed that our kayaks were red, orange and yellow. So, for her F1 mind, Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull. This made us happy as Tate was Leclerc, I was Hamilton, Allegra was Tsunoda, and Lily was Verstappen. We raced, and of course Tate and I won, we were ahead the whole way. But since we were ahead, we took a wrong turn, and had to turn back, placing us behind for maybe half a minute. We then overtook them and passed ahead, but as we celebrated our victory, they informed us that the race apparently ended in the thirty seconds they were ahead.

It’s 2021 Verstappen v Hamilton where the former was rigged to win all over again.

But we made it quite far, and it was very deep water, it was just darkness. Our boat had quite a bit of water splashed into it, so I tried to empty it with my hat. Tate then said, “what if we just open this plug and let it drain out,” and then opened it. I made her close it pretty quick, because as mentioned in Brioche Bread, I am fairly terrified of deep water, and if the boat ever did sink, I would just die. In fact, the image of it drifting down into the darkness as I floated above it filled me with such terror that I had to impart it with Tate. We were then both terrified, and then we looked up, and what looked like a pirate ship was heading straight towards us.

A lot of screeching ensued, as we fumbled for our paddles, tried to turn the boat and just generally get away, which thankfully we managed. We did not escape the brunt of the waves, and so we were rather tossed around, the boat tipping and splashing quite scarily, especially for the two of us who had freaked ourselves out over the thought of being in that deep deep water. How deep, you ask? Maybe 280 km. Off the top of my head.

It is worth noting that, unbeknownst to us, our family was not going to come to where we were, they simply turned around without telling us. And they did not warn us of the boat.

We paddled back to a boat, singing bopping tunes since the go pro lost battery (we can do a mean Mamma Mia 2 “Knowing me knowing you” duet) and finally caught up to our family as we pulled into a beach.

At this beach, I snorkeled a little, didn’t ultimately like it, and went to hang with my tanning sisters.

We were all half in half out the water, and it was very funny because I was leaning on my life jacket, and when the water would come in, it would make me float entirely, and when it would go out, it would just pull me away from the shore, before bringing me back with the next wave. It was entirely fun, and Lily said I looked hilarious and adorable, so. Life goals.

Since it had been quite some time, we elected to head back. In the fjord, Tate and I decided to paddle into a small cave. It was… a cave. Yep. Still singing all the way, we fully paddled back, parked like pros, and hopped out.

It took us twenty minutes to be all done, hand back lifejackets etc, but we were soon on our happy way.

We stopped for lunch at a cute restaurant with an Australian owner who mum and dad were happy to chat with. He said they had many vegetarian stuff, including the moussaka. Dubious, I checked with the waitress, who assured me that it was vegetarian. Happy with this knowledge, I ordered it.

Their fake meat must have been very realistic in taste and texture, because damn I could have sworn that was lamb!

Does anyone know what vegetarian means these days?

The food was rather tasty though, and afterwards they gave us a massive plate of watermelon. At one point, Dad was very disturbed by something that Tate said.

But the time came for us to drive home, and similarly to before, the music was at times questionable. But when we got home, it was time to chill, mixed between reading, watching Percy Jackson for some (aka Lily), or working. I showered, and again got locked in the bathroom.

I decided afterwards to hang out with dad outside and do a sudoku. I have grown quite bored of them, so many have I done, that I instead did some subpar yet still recognizable drawings on dad’s sudoku book of Le Poisson Steve which was a hilarious (in my opinion at least) French Instagram trend a few months back.

The time came for dinner, and it was goddamn delicious. The twins made a salad and mmm it was so good that I asked for seconds, but there were none. I want to eat that salad for the rest of my life.

During dinner some questionable conversations were had, and then fireworks went off! It was really pretty, and I decided that fireworks are one of mankind’s better inventions.

But as the night grew later, I couldn’t find it in me to start the blog. I was feeling weirdly meh, I describe it as “restless leg syndrome of the soul”. It was weird.

I can’t imagine what could have caused it, perhaps the barely five hours of sleep that I got last night?

Anyway, so it was off to bed for me, and immediately lights out.

And so this is where we pause our trek up Mount Olympus, folks.
Bye family!!!Lue lisää