Last Day in Crete

Our plane didn’t leave until 9PM that night, so we spent the day in Heraklio. The most notable thing about that day was going to the archaeological museum. Actually, it was just a small exhibit of some of the more important artifacts—the entire museum was closed for renovations, and that contains tens of thousands of artifacts from ruins like the ones we visited all over the island. Still, I got to see the Phaistos disc (BIG deal for me) along with some other neat stuff:

The Phaistos Disc is a Minoan artifact found in Phaistos, one of the palaces I visited. It's estimated to be about four thousand years old. It's a disc of fired clay with symbols punched into it in a spiral pattern, and it's special because it's the first known example of an actual typeface--it was made by pressing pre-made stamps into the clay. It's never been translated.

Epic Bike Ride to Argyropoulis

Our last full day in Crete, MJ and I stayed in Rethymno. We wanted to take a day trip to Argyropoulis, a town in the mountains that supposedly had some stunning springs and Roman and Venetian ruins. But the buses weren’t running on the weekend. So we decided to bike.

This was crazy for two reasons. One, while Rethymno is on the coast, Argyropoulis is in the hills—and the hills are enormous. Two, it was also about 23 kilometers away. Still, we were feeling like some exercise—at least I was; I’m not sure how enthused MJ was about this even though he suggested it—so we rented bikes.

On the Importance of Speaking Greek in Greece

Knowing the native language in the country you’re visiting goes a long way.

I usually try to learn the basics: “please,” “thank you,” “hello,” “excuse me,” and “bathroom.” Really, just “Hello” and “thank you” will get you a long way. When I greeted the man selling tickets to Phaistos in Greek, he smiled and gave me an orange. When I talked to the lady minding the door, she let me take my sandwich into the ruins—even though it was officially not allowed. Knowing a tiny amount of Greek words got me free raki shots in restaurants as well as curious questions about where I was from. It made the locals much friendlier—and made me think about how annoying it must be to have people continually walking up to you and nattering on in a language that isn’t yours, blithely assuming that you’ll understand.