HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTONIS!

Hi!

First of all we have to start by wishing Antonis a very happy birthday today!!! He's 36 today, which I'm having a very difficult time processing. 36!!?? 

4 years ago yesterday we met for the very first time. After watching him dance in fire, which was way to amazing for me to even handle (most likely because I'd already consumed about a bottle of wine by this point) and after sitting and talking and drinking more wine together (which he brought to me "on the house" probably because he noticed I was way to amazed by the fire dancing) I asked him how old he was. I had to! My professor had warned us before we even left Vancouver that Greek boys tend to look older than they are and they will tell you they're older when actually they're only about 16....so of course I asked "how old are you?"  He said, "I'm 32." I said, "Yeah right." He said, "No really! Actually I'm 31 but my birthday is tomorrow and I'll be 32". That probably should have been my cue to drop it but of course I didn't....I insisted on seeing some ID. Which for some strange reason, he showed me. He looked at me like I was absolutely crazy for even asking but he pulled some papers out of his back pocket and gave them to me without saying anything. 

Sure enough, June 5th 1976. 

Actually I shouldn't say 'sure enough'. I still wasn't sure at all at that point because honestly I was having a hard time doing the math. By now I was probably at about a bottle and a half of wine, and this is probably exactly what was going through my head:

....2008 minus 1976 is ummmm.....hmmmm.... ohh wine! Ugh it's so hot!  What was I doing? oh yeah, make sure this guy isn't a teenager.. minus 76 is....ummmmm...I need a calculater...Hahaha, look at what Nicole's doing! She's hilarious! Crap this is taking too long and he's staring at me. He's going to think your stupid, or even worse he's going to think your drunk! 32 sounds about right so just act like you figured it out and move on to something else!

So looking back now we can say, sure enough he was turning 32 the next day, but all I could be sure about in that moment was that he probably wasn't a teenager because 1976 seemed like a pretty long time ago. He was a little annoyed that I refused to go to his birthday party the next night, but it started at 3:00 in the morning and I was NOT getting on the back of a motorcycle with some guy I didn't know in some country I'd never been too at 3:00am in the morning! That just had bad idea written all over it. Ok I'll admit it, it seemed like a FANTASTIC idea....but I'm not an idiot. So I said no. 

But he couldn't have been that annoyed because everywhere I went he would miraculously appear.

And now, 4 years later, I'm sitting at my computer telling you all THE STORY while little Eleni kicks me in the ribs....a lot has changed in 4 years!

So,  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTONIS!

Here's some pictures of my beach day yesterday...

I went to Psiriara, or Delfinia beach as we usually call it. This is the famous nude beach I've told you about before but don't worry....I waited until everyone left to take pictures so my camera wouldn't be tainted by naked old people butts! By the way, I can definitely tell my hormones are heightened right now because I was getting SO pissed off about this old guy next to me who would NOT stop wandering around. I actually wanted to yell at him to go sit down on his towel, no one needs to see you showing it all off! UGH! I didn't say anything though. It took some time talking myself through it but finally I decided that I had chosen to go to the nude beach and the chances of seeing naked people were pretty high, so I just need to calm down, drink my lemonade Slurpee-thing and mind my own business.....

So that's what I did.
Here's a view of the village from the beach. I'm not sure why it looks cloudy though because it was a perfectly clear day. And HOT! My god it was hot! It was probably around 30 degrees which normally I can deal with...clearly pregnancy and hot weather will not be that easy...

 As I was leaving I walked through cloud of butterflies!! There was probably about 30 of them floating around and landing on me, it was so cool!! I tried to take some video of it but then I decided I just wanted to watch them. This one seemed to want to come home with me....

Antonis is definitely not a fan of pets though so I had to tell her she would be better off to stay with her friends...and she floated away.

It was a lovely relaxing day, and the water was the absolute perfect temperature. BUT...unfortunately this little paradise is just a little bit too far for me to walk to and from now. Getting there is alright, it's downhill and takes about 25-30 minutes from my house (25-30 minutes if you're 7 months pregnant. Much less if you're not). But coming back is really hard. Uphill, HOT, and it took me about 45 minutes. I'm still feeling some of the back pain that I was dealing with yesterday and I'm pretty sure that walk had something to do with it. I got home, took a cold shower to cool off and wash away the salt and sand and sweat, I ate some dinner and laid on the couch watching movies all night. I was not feeling great. But I'm really thankful that I don't have anything I have to worry about right now other than myself so I can lay down on the couch all night if my back is killing me. Those days are soon to be over SO I'll take all the advantage of them I can.

As for today, I'm not really sure what to do or what to expect. Tonight I'll go down to the restaurant and hang out there. I'm sure Antonis' mom has baked him a cake so we'll do that. I'd bake him a cake but he actually really hates cake and always refuses to eat it anyway so I don't see the point of giving someone something they hate on their birthday. Once Eleni's here though something tells me he'll change his mind about birthday cake. Little kids get crazy when they see birthday cakes covered in candles. 

Little kids make everything more fun.