The 'No Post' Post

So there's no blog post today.

Except that there is a post to tell you there won't be a post.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to doing this regularily but hopefully it's soon.

Just so you know what's going on over here, I'll give you a brief run-down of the craziness:

1. We're moving!
2. I have a cold
3. Eleni has a cold
4. I'm getting really REALLY big and it's super uncomfortable at the moment

So that's why I don't have time, or energy to write a real post today.

I'll take a couple of minutes to tell you about the new house though. 

• it's cute
• it's in the Molyvos "country"....we have like, 2 neigbours I think? And about 250 sheep nearby, along with about 100 chickens, about 10 donkeys, 2 horses and I think 4 goats but they were far away so I couldn't really tell for sure if they were goats. Small chance they were just 4 more sheep. Just to reiterate, we're NOT moving onato a farm but there are farms around us. No I did not completely lose my marbles and decide to take on the life of Mom-to-3 AND run a farm....but we have the most beautiful walking trails around us so if we want to go look at the farm animals, we can so Eleni and I are pretty excited about that
• it's bigger than our house now which was the whole point of finding a new house. Eleni will have her own bedroom instead of bunking with Mommy and Baba, and once the babies are older and sleeping through the night the girls can have a huuuuuuuge bedroom for the 3 of them with lots of space for toys and playing
• we have a HUGE outdoor space!!! I'm really excited about this one because living inside the village you're lucky if you have a small area of garden for a couple of plants, a chair and 2 snails. We have a LAWN which is unheard of here, I have space to plant some vegetables if I want to, we're surrounded by tangerine trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees, olive trees, plum trees, fig trees....there's probably more but that's just what I can tell for now. Oh yeah, and tons of grapes.
• I'm also very excited that all the windows and doors have screens on them so during the long hot summers we won't be suffering with mosquitos buzzing around us or any disgusting and/or weird critters getting in the house

Looks like this is turning into a blog post after all......

Anyway, a couple of things I'm a bit worried about with this place are that there aren't any telephone or internet lines going out to this area of the village. So we can't just call up the local company and have them move our telephone number etc over to the new house. We'll have to switch to satellite internet, satellite tv and cell phones. At first this seemed devastating because satellite internet is crap and expensive and the tv and phone will probably get pretty expensive too. But I've been putting a lot of research into this the last 10 days or so and it turns out satellite internet has HUGELY improved over the last few years, at least it has out here. So Skype will run properly and I'll still be able to watch my crap reality tv shows when I have the chance. And write this thing when I have the chance. Still looking into the phone thing but we're going tomorrow to set all this up. The tv is Antonis' department so I have no idea about that yet, we'll see. But anyway, from what I can tell this may end up being cheaper then what we've got going on right now so it may not be too bad after all............I'm knocking on wood right now.........

We'll be all moved in by the 1st of November.

I'll take photos soon but I don't know when I'll be able to share them with you because I don't know if the internet will be set up right away or not, and I'm anticipating some hiccups of whatever kind because lets face it, there are ALWAYS hiccups when you move.

So that's what's going on at the moment. And that's why there isn't a blog post today? I should have known I wouldn't be able to stop myself from rambling.....

Eleni's next to me right now on the couch. We're cuddled up under a blanket with a massive box of tissues....I'm pretty sure there's a thick fog of germs surrounding us right now. Yes, lovely, I know. I'm thinking about how I'm going to make us some chicken soup today. And I'm also thinking about how I can suggest that we need chicken soup in the restaurant tonight so someone else can make it and bring it too us and we can just stay cuddled up under the blanket all day, sneezing our brains out. Eleni's insisting we watch nothing but Peppa Pig though so maybe taking a break to make some soup isn't such a bad idea after all......

And since this turned into a blog post after all I might as well tell you more about #4 on the list: yes I'm getting really REALLY big. And no I don't have a picture right now but I'll take one soon. When I have energy. And no germs. And a beautiful back drop of pomegranate trees....Anyway, somehow I seem to have 'popped' again (as 'they' say...whoever 'they' are, it's just a nice way of saying 'holy crap, your belly got so much bigger in a really short period of time'). It's all ok, at first I thought something was wrong because I was really in a lot of pain but it turns out everything is fine, the twins and I are just growing again. It's pretty uncomfortable but I'm sure I'll adjust to this new size soon. I hope. 

Ok, I think that's enough for a blog post that wasn't supposed to be a blog post at all. I need to go figure out the soup situation for the day. 

I'll re-post here the video from last week of Eleni singing Monkey's Jumping on the Bed, because I ended up deleting that whole post from last week after someone with no sense of humour expressed their concern over what I wrote....long story that I'm not going to get into but it turns out someone wasn't a big fan of the 'You Suck' blog posts. I get it, you can't communicate tone in writing but I thought it was pretty clear that even though these were actual conversations that myself and other pregnant women have had with people during pregnancy, no one was actually upset or harbouring any bad feelings toward the people that were written about. It was supposed to be funny. But anyway I deleted it because if you have to tell someone it's supposed to be funny, then it's not really funny anymore. Anyhoooooooo, (once again, so much for NOT writing/rambling on) that very cute video of Eleni singing had to be deleted along with it, which is a shame, so I'll just re-post it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS3y1__0Mg8&list=UUeZEwov6ySNdnwvXzcf50BA 

Ok, now I'm off to figure out soup and ask about some boxes. And then maybe a nap. I should probably get some more tissues too. And hopefully next time we chat, we'll be all moved into the new house and all the internet/phone/tv issues weren't issues at all and everything went smoothly.....knocking on wood again....

The Castle

FALL HAS FINALLY ARRIVED IN MOLYVOS!

Oh Fall, I've been waiting so impatiently for you! 

Everyone you meet in the street is saying, "It's winter! It's winter!" because it's so cold suddenly....you know, now that the temperature is in the low 20s.........

Of course I'm being sarcastic, as usual, but I'm not joking when I say people are calling this 'winter'. And I'm really not joking that the temperature is still around 22 - 24 degress celcius. A lot of people are wearing sweaters and jackets already and EVERYONE is talking about how cold it is. 

Everyone but ME 

I could.not.be.HAPPIER!

I can finally leave the house during the day without feeling like I'm going to faint in the street from sun stroke!

I can finally wear normal clothes, other then just underwear....and I've stopped feeling like even the underwear is too much!

I can finally sneeze without breaking a sweat!

I feel like THIS is perfect beach weather, but even I have to admit the sea is pretty cold now so swimming is not on my list of things to do at the moment 

But building sand castles, ABSOLUTELY! 

Speaking of castles, Eleni has been very curious lately about the castle here in Molyvos. Where ever we are in the village, she always has to see if the castle is visable from there and if it is she says, "Oh look! There's the castle again! Eleni made it, the castle!".......that last bit is a little confusing but I'm assuming she's talking about making sand castles. Or she's telling us about her past life as a castle builder. Either way, the girl tells a good story! 

Anyway, to celebrate the sudden change in temperature, and the slight drop in population due to the tourist season almost coming to a close, Eleni and I went on our first castle adventure today!

(and yes, this was the first time inside the castle for BOTH of us. Sad, I know)

Sitting at the entrance with a giant chocolate bar that a stranger handed her without asking me first.

It was a fight and a half getting her to hand over that chocolate bar, obviously

But luckily she forgot all about it by the time we got home

....and I ate it while she napped....

Yeah yeah, go ahead and judge but just remember she's only 2 and I'm pregnant with twins,
who do you think needs a giant chocolate bar more??
DUH!
And just so you stop thinking I'm the meanest mom ever,
she still had a cookie when she woke up from her nap.
And then she bounced off the walls for 4 hours straight....
SEE!
 I clearly made the right choice by eating the chocolate bar

Small room inside the castle that has lots of information and history about 

the castle, Molyvos and Lesvos

I didn't get to read anything because I was too busy watching Eleni run around like a maniac
but I do know that the the original 'castle' (although it probably wasn't much of a castle at the time) was built in the 5th century.
Over the centuries it was invaded and taken over many times by many different groups of people:
Persians, Turks, Venetians, to name a few.
Each group of course did 'renovations' while they had control of the castle, and as we all tend to have our own particular taste and style, this of course influenced the architecture and design each time, making it what we see today:
an ancient, eclectic, and very cool, pile of rocks!

There are a ton of articles about the history of the Molyvos castle, if you're interested.
A quick google search will bring up a bunch of them.
All of them far more intellectual than my own description here, but hey
I'm no genius when it comes to architecture, nor am I a history buff
....which is really unfortunate because if I was, this blog would probably be a heck of a lot more interesting!

Excited to explore and VERY excited to finally be inside the castle

This is the stage, seating area just ahead

There are a lot of events that happen inside the castle throughout the year;

concerts, theatre, cultural exhibitions

One of Antonis' favourite stories to tell is one about his first time getting drunk
It was here, in the castle, at a concert
He was 15 and drank an entire bottle of ouzo
(a 2-6 us Canadians would call it, however other normal people would know it as a 750ml bottle)
I can't remember the name of the singer that was playing that night, a famous Greek guy,
Antonis remember's who it was
not surprisingly, that's about all he can remember from that night.
This is one of his shorter stories....

Still inside the castle, even though there's trees growing in it.
I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect to see trees.
I think I thought there'd just be a bunch of rocks, which there are a lot of rocks of course
but it's really kind of peaceful and park-like inside with trees and bushes and benches to sit on.
New benches.
Not 5th century benches.

Sitting in the audience, facing the stage

Since we were surrounded by totally un-fenced ledges that drop off way down into the village below

I was more then a little nervous about letting Eleni explore by herself,

and I definitely wasn't taking my eyes off her to read any of the information boards

So I decided to turn this into a lizard hunt!

Pretty view, but we stayed a safe distance away from the edge

Except for one little alcove with just a tiny hole in it that I was confident Eleni couldn't fit through

Sea view

After searching the ancient piles of rocks

Eleni finally had a face to face encounter with a lizard!

I know this is nearly impossible to see, and I couldn't get a close up of the lizard because he ran away soon after this,

but you can see the small wall of rocks, and over to the the left of the photo there is one orange rock stacked on top of that wall,

just behind that orange rock, poking his head out and checking out Eleni

is a small green and black Bearded Dragon lizard.

Eleni was thrilled!

And I think the lizard was too.....

until Eleni climbed onto the wall and started to chase him yelling

"ELA LITTLE DINOSAUR!!!"

("ela" is "come here" in Greek)

It was really nice but I'll have to go again sometime because I would actually like to learn a bit more about the history of the site. The information is all there but I was a bit too preoccupied to read about anything. The view is absolutely stunning, but again that's something I'll have to see another time because I was too nervous to take Eleni near the edge or even take my eyes off her for a second. We had a ton of fun looking for lizards, but I think we'll stick to building sand castles for now. I'll bring her back when I finally feel comfortable enough to have her near heights...so when she's about 45 or so, that should be fine......

Overall, it's a beautiful place. Peaceful, calm....a bit creepy in some areas, but I'm sure there's hundreds of years of ghosts all jammed in there haunting the place. But if you know me, you know I love that kind of thing and I'd go back at night if I could just to hunt ghosts! Hmmm, Halloween is just around the corner too!