Hydra

[I-DYL-LIC.]

[Also: overpriced trinkets; donkey shit in the stone streets (but no motorized vehicles); a sweaty climb up from the perfect harbor to our quirky hostelry at the top of the town; the sea a color to make you weep; sunsets on direct order from Hephaestus, the god of the forge; stimulating classes in the morning (like our predecessors have done, no doubt, since his day, we readers of Socrates - well, Plato and Xenophon, since the Big S. never wrote anything down - have solved all the world's problems, with help from Sappho, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kazantzakis, MLK, and our two teachers) and lazy afternoons at the tiny pebble beach over the hill in Vlikos; incredibly ancient women with swollen ankles who have been negotiating the hills for decades looking at the gaudy tourists with resignation; "gay or Eurotrash" taken to a knuckle-biting art form; one Orthodox church for every ten residents (often just private chapels attached to houses, but three "cathedrals," as well); a boat trip on Friday to a private beach on the Peloponnese; that self-same Peloponnese (a peninsula I've been reading about since childhood) viewed from our roof deck; roasted goat, onion, tomato, and yogurt in a pita; heat!!!!]

[The hydrofoil comes Monday morning at 11:35 a.m. Until then, I am here. Pinch me.]

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