We laughed some more

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

Friends, family, people who fall somewhere else in the spectrum of life, we’ve made it to the top.

And damn, the view is nice from up here.

There’s something about a last day that throws you off. It doesn’t feel like it’s over but there is simultaneously a sense of finality, and you realise that you need to make the most of your time only when you have so little left.

Anyway. This blog is featuring my fav little baby teeny weeny sister Allegra.

I woke up today, from a very nice dream that I don’t remember, I only know that the king from Hamilton featured in it. Aka Jonathan Groff.

(On another note I feel like I should mention, in a previous blog I said that I only got three songs into Hamilton before I didn’t know it by heart, and Lily took that to mean, I only know three songs by heart. This is not true, I know many more, I just don’t love the fourth song (The Story Of Tonight) so I often skip it and so I don’t know it by heart. Anyway.)

But it was so light in my room that there was little way that I was going back to sleep, so I decided to get up quietly, even though no one else was awake.

Now, fun fact about me, I love to dance sometimes, it makes me really happy, and I like being happy. However, I don’t dance well, and am frequently told this, so I prefer to dance alone.

Sooo, when I realised that no one was awake, so I thought, cha-ching!

I truly recommend dancing alone to everyone. You will be a happier person if you just dance for two minutes before your day starts.

Sadly, after mayhap 15 minutes, I heard a door handle, and I ran to a seat at the breakfast bar as if I had always been there.

No one has known about my secret dancing until this day.

Lily was indeed awake, and after expressing some disgruntlement at my having awoken her, she decided to make some “Greek coffee” for dad.

I sat at the breakfast bar, giving helpful advice from my seat, which I’m sure Lily just absolutely adored, and I also provided the bopping tunes Calum Hood, of whom I have a s i g n e d CD of at home.

Lily said that she was making coffee for dad, and by doing so she was becoming dad’s new favorite. She then went on to say that she found it hard to read dad’s blogs; I believe her exact words were “grade schooler”

Of course I filed this away so that I could regain my spot (that is actually Allegra’s).

Dad then got up soon after, and was indeed happy to see Lily making him coffee. However when Lily did fish for praise I casually bought up the fact that she compared his writing to that of a child.

I like to think that my (legs$) spot is secured.

Mum also woke up and the plan for today, our last hurrah, wasn’t too full on; indeed we were only going out after twelve, and so mum and dad got some work done while I wrote yesterday’s blog. This was accompanied by Charlie Puth since Calum’s album was finito (as my good friend Taylor Swift once said, “we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist”).

However mum immediately stole my (her) phone. Well, I like to think of it as *our* phone. So I was forced to read for about an hour instead of writing the blog.

How tragique.

No sooner had I regained the phone privileges than had Allegra emerged from her slumberpants fresh faced and beautiful. Full of derision, she glanced around at us all on the sofa, took one look at the fan, and stated generally “I think you’re overreacting with the fan, it’s not that hot”.

This is, in my (stupid) opinion, very easy to say for someone who just emerged from an air conditioned room. In any case, I gave the benefit of the doubt, and said (stupidly) “it’s not overreacting because it’s hot and it’s only one fan”.

To which Allegra gracefully said “shut the f**k up, I’m not talking to you.”

I would like to reiterate that she stated it generally, to the entire room, and that I was the one using the fan (no I wasn’t) so, you know, I was *forced* to concede to her superior understanding *in sarcastic tone*.

Fun times?

We then gallivanted off to get ready. This consisted of waking Tate, getting dressed and doing makeup and the like.

I was torn, since I wanted to wear my fantastic irrevocably swaggy af new skirt (shoutout to the family members who complimented it you guys are real ones), especially since it sort of matches the butterfly vibes (I forgot to mention we are going to butt (erfly) valley today), but Lily and I share a disdain for wearing the same outfit two days in a row.

My love for my skirt was too strong; I decided to change top and accessorize differently to give some novelty.

And I slayed, so, worth it!

(Allegra has now left; we can breathe easy)

Tate played her k pop music the entire time we were getting ready, by the way.

We finally were ready to leave, and we ate outside, to immediately be terrorized by some sort of giant mantis? Stick insect? Grasshopper? That was sitting calmly on the glass partition that is outside. It was really massive, maybe the size of my hands, and hot damn was it strange.

We inched past it, stuck to the wall so that we wouldn’t bother it into jumping on one of us or at least to be far from range if it ever felt inclined to take the leap™️.

Finally in the safety of our car, we drove out of the driveway, furthered our love-hate relationship with remote control gates (why does it only close half the time? Why do we accidentally open another gate?) and drive off.

The music choice today was a family blend, so all of our songs, and sadly we did not hear a Tate song in the drive. Olivia was too annoyed by this, in my humble opinion, may I remind you that we listened to her music the whole time we were getting ready, which would, based on my lack of understanding of time, equate to the duration of the drive.

We made it to the butterfly valley in peace, hopped out the car, walked along, and I was ahead next to Lily. The two of us saw a sign, “entrance for butterflies”. I chuckled and turned to Lily, “Entrance for butterflies? Where do the humans go?”.

For some reason unknown to me, for that was top tier comedy, high brow at its finest, Lily was unimpressed. I then told her that I would be waiting for the family to catch up so I could tell the joke again.

So I nonchalantly sidled (yes, I sidled) up to my parents, and said “haha, entrance for butterflies? Where do the humans go?”

Dad laughed, pointed, and then chuckled. He truly understands high brow humour. I felt self important for sure.

Until Lily informed dad that I had told this joke before. But still.

Upon arrival at butterfly valley, there was a restaurant. Since we were all hungry, we found this to be the height of convenience!

I had a tasty vegetarian burger; a famous Greek delicacy.

I guess my joke in the first blog about our burger tasting tour is finally making sense?

I was however, sad that they did not have sprite :(

We had many a fun conversation, mainly based on f1 and how it’s an elitist sport. We mentioned Hamilton, who was the best, but didn’t have an easy start into it, not being a nepo baby, unlike Max, although we agreed that Max had talent also. Lily then brought up Esteban Ocon, and how he didn’t have an easy start in f1, and he had to make sacrifices.

Mum then sighed in a melancholy way, and said in a posh British accent, “Oh, Esteban wasn’t allowed to ride his horse for two years!” And we all laughed, it was hilarious.

When Lily started arguing her points a little harder, Allegra took this as an argument, intervened, and loudly told us to stop arguing, we said, “we’re not arguing, you are” and Allegra said, “oh yeah, I’m the one making stupid points.”

No one argued with that. We laughed some more.

Now the thing about the restaurant is that you have to walk through it to get to the butterfly valley. So we saw a lot of people, enjoyed people watching, and then we saw a guy who looks so similar to John B, from outer banks, it was so weird. And then we saw someone who looked like Olivia! She had the messy bun, the red bikini, the purple t shirt, the dark blue shorts! Twas crazy!

But soon lunch was over and we made our way to see some butterflies, stopping of course to take a photo and pretend we were butterflies.

It was a very nice walk, up a river bank with wooden fences in the forest. We took many a nice picture, and of course, we saw some butterflies, which actually freaked me and Allegra out quite a bit when they were all congregated on a rock or some bark.

It was overall a really nice time, and of course we did a fit check because our fits were fire!

On the way down, Lily and I bought a magnet for our new flat, and I think Mum put it right when she said “now you just need a fridge!”

Honestly mum was on a roll today.

We made our way back down to the restaurant to get some ice cream, and sitting at the tables we people watched some more, saw John B, and saw someone who looked like Stan Lee!

What is this, the lookalike convention?

Turns out no, little mix up there on my part , it was the German convention. Indeed, I said, “are you going to get all our ice creams and just whip out your four hands to carry them back?” And dad replied, “four Hans, it’s like a German convention!”

So.

But my brownie ice cream was delectable even though there is something about eating ice cream out of a pot that is just not as tasty as out of a cone or a glass? Are we ice cream snobs or is this relatable?

On the way back to the car, dad stopped and took a picture of the number plate of a car, which was “poo”. What maturity shown from that adult man. However, this lead Lily to believe that this was our car, so she almost got in. It was funny.

In our actual car, we drove home and stopped at a supermarket, and, opposite of yesterday, I got out and my sisters stayed in the car. This would turn out to be a rookie mistake on their part since they boiled alive and didn’t think they should open a door.

We made it home for the last time, and again I elected to chill and do nothing (this includes fixing yesterday’s blog) while my sisters hung out in the pool. But I was not aware that we had to get ready because we would be leaving soon to go out to dinner, so it was a real struggle to find some clothes to wear that were different.

Thank god for Lily, who gave me the shirt off her back- literally. And after some different accessorizing I was a whole new woman.

We all looked way too good for the small town restaurant we were eating at- or so we thought.

Because after avoiding the last place we ate which wasn’t delicious and was qui tee expensive, we sat down at a nice looking place that was a family owned restaurant, and god damn, we are somewhat experienced in Greek food, and we have said that this is the best restaurant we have eaten at.

I would even say that I have become a connaisseur of Greek Salads, and this one had the best dressing I have ever tasted in my entire life. I guess “first in, best dressed” does not apply to salad!

We had some fun taking some photos, and then taking some photos that matched the ones we took on our last night last year. I coached mum in my patented photo pose when you already know it won’t be the best angle; raise the shoulder slightly forward, look over, and soft smile. Mum sort of nailed it, honestly.

We also had some… less savoury conversations, including “I’m ready enjoying Granny’s omelet” “that’s what grandpa said”.

We did laugh a lot though. That seems to be a theme.

We decided that we had to try desert from this place that was so good at making food. They had orange pie or marmalade pie. That seemed like the same thing to me, but I made my peace with it.

It was the most delicious cake I have ever eaten in my life. I do my what they put in their food, but I’m starting to think it might be drugs.

Dad went in to pay, and he struck up a conversation as the five of us watched him from our table and laughed, making up wild stories about what they could possibly be talking about. At one point we thought that dad was gonna run away with them and leave his family behind, just for the food, which, you know, is understandable.

15 minutes later, he came back, and turns out he was just saying that we loved the foods that it was our favourite food, and the guy brought out his sister who made the cake, and they offered to give us cooking lessons and we were so sad that we hadn’t gone here on the first night instead of to the place next door, and we could have had those cooking lessons!

We made our peace with it, and have decided to come back next year just for the lessons.

Back home, we had our final biscuit time, just hanging out, and I started writing this blog. We did our usual: name the three best things about this holiday, but we were all quite tired, so soon enough, it was time for our last night in Greece.

Allegra and I stayed up a little, and she helped me write the beginning of this blog, at times interjecting to add her own thoughts and opinions. But she did leave me, so J stayed up a little longer to write, but my eyes were closing themselves, so I put down the phone for another day.

And so this is where we pause our trek up Mount Olympus, folks.
Bye family!!! ☝️もっと詳しく