My training spot today 😍

My training spot today 😍

It was also nice and empty until 8:30am...the last 30min. it then became a training session for spectators...and that was really funnyyyy..."come to the website...can't be bothered typing here...😂" was the announcement in the Telegram channel and ba, ba, ba, baaaaah...after that unfortunately didn't work yesterday and all my time I spent on it was unfortunately eaten by the "system" and vanished into nirvana, so now again. Even though I had to, spontaneously, change location, but more on that in the next post.

So I had a fantastic 2-hour training session and although I had the beach to myself at the beginning, it naturally filled up with holidaymakers from the surrounding hotels, apartment complexes, holiday flats and whatever else there is around here. Funnily enough, my exercises, which I was doing on my mat, 2 m from the water, became the "morning entertainment" for the beach visitors. Four of the five women around me were secretly watching this and one kept nudging her husband with each new exercise of mine, and he kept smiling and giving me a "thumbs up" and grinning. At the end of the training there was applause from him and again his raised thumb with a big grin and "Bravo, Bravo!"! Another man came up to me grinning and while I was still thinking "No pat on the shoulder please!" I took a step towards him with my hand outstretched in greeting (No, more like between hip and chest height 🤣) and said loudly in German: "Hello, my name is Iven! I do this now and then and I'm usually alone on the beach!" and before I could invite him for tomorrow's session, he shook my hand with his big grin, pointed to himself, grunted a "Manosz", turned around and walked along the beach. The highlight, however, was the 15-strong extended family who, because I was probably "doing sports" on their spot from the day before, set up camp less than 2 metres away from me. I basically have nothing against people! 🤣 But I'd just had almost 2 hours of the finest sea breeze in my nose, could taste the sun and absorb the scent of salt rising from the sand as the sun was already properly "sizzling". And then 7 different sunscreen scents and the smell of sweat from at least 5 of the family members, who were trying to cover it up with various perfumes. That was just toooo much 😂 Had to skip the obligatory jumping jack at the end of every training session 🤷‍♂️

Well, and after a nice breakfast, a proper one with boiled eggs, toasted bread, tomato salad and delicious jam (I ate something sweet in the morning 🙌) I decided to explore the beach to my right and maybe make it to the ferry port.

The challenge now was to survive the 2 tourist "sunbathing spots" on the beach on the way there unscathed. That was intense, as these people were standing, walking, squatting, jumping, lying in the tightest space possible, I mean this is a kilometre-long beach, under this palm and sun shade facility, ...and watching THEIR sunbeds when they went to the water or came out of it. On a stretch of almost 400 metres I therefore had to perform 16 evasive dance steps or stop abruptly to avoid collisions with the protagonists. 😜 And that doesn't include the number of evasive manoeuvres around the children on the beach! 😎 Anyway, I made it and arrived at the port. Watched a few ferries entering and leaving on the way there and observed the people in the beach bars. The closer I got to the tourist centre, the more littered the beach became and the more intense the smells of people who, in my impression, sprayed some "stuff" from pump bottles onto their skin every 5 minutes. WOW that was INTENSE!

Oh yes, me and random encounters with people...when I was at the port and a ferry from Thassos was just releasing people and cars, I noticed one with loud music blaring from it, probably because the windows were down to get rid of the hot air via the air conditioning. 😎 The driver grinned at me and drove past...only to be standing right in front of me at the bar I'd scoped out on the way there. His white polo had a big print front and back saying "Keramoti against CO2!" with green colour applications of course! And the guy buys, while his SUV hybrid is standing in front of the bar with the engine running, what feels like half the shop! The 2 people behind the counter shake, pour, stir, squeeze, spoon, ...now a coffee-based milk ice product into 5 large plastic cups for him, while his son grabs 3 cans of that disgusting sweet stuff without sugar, whose name I don't intend to give space to here, from the fridge. So while we're being "cooled down" by air conditioning through fans in the open bar, getting some electro-mainstream-cover-song thrown at us and waiting for his ice-cold 5 cups of "whatever" to be made transportable in the styrofoam holders, yes he takes 3, since only 2 of his drinks fit in each holder, whereby of course 4 plastic bags are also needed, he looks at me grinning and I can't help but point to his polo and ask him in English if he stands by what's printed on it!? And boom off we go! Of course, he's just coming with his family on the ferry from Thassos, since there was an "event" there that this movement organized! My grinning thumbs up and the question why he has his car standing in front of the beach bar with the engine running doesn't really seem to reach him, because he leans slightly towards me and explains with the deepest inner conviction: "It's standing in the blazing sun and when he and his family get in shortly, it shouldn't be so hot inside!" I suppress my "snort" and wish him and his family health and a peaceful life! THAT on the other hand got through and he wants to pay for my beer, which I gratefully decline! Me, idiot! Standing in the queue, taking the bottle out of the fridge myself and putting it on the bar after I've waited 25 minutes to pay 4 euros for it, is just the best! Comparable to 3,- for a Sterni at the Späti in Berlin...LAUGH...

So I'm sitting in a beach bar at the ferry exit from Keramoti to Thassos, watching the people and asking myself, when did we elevate "hypocrisy" to a moral icon? Please help me, because I've forgotten the date! 🤣

So way back, along the beach and I really only took photos of the 6 km where there were no or hardly any people. But in between....crowds of people...all in one place! Yes, it's SEASON, I've figured that out 🤓

And since I'm a sensitive, delicate person, I of course also notice when people look at me for a long time or even stare! 😊 And with the experiences of the day so far and a beer in me, I'm naturally even more cheerful than I already am anyway...GRIN...and then of course it happens several times, when I then look at the people on the beach who are lying around and standing and ..., that I intensify my smile and raise my hand in greeting. To be clear...with the "peace sign" of the right hand! ✌️ The guys usually nod or indicate a greeting, which is characterized by the slight raising of the hand. But their partners, because that's what I assume when they're spending time on the beach loungers in pairs, wave. The faces of the guys was worth every metre I walked along the beach today 🤓

Ah and the evening in town....almost forgot...of course not...😜

So I'm sitting at the snack bar on the "main street" opposite the police station drinking my ouzo! People watching, classic 🤓 Might become its own short story...so among others a family walks past...pretty close, since narrow pavement and mum, who's walking at the end, has her little daughter in her arms, who's literally staring at me and whispering something to her mother. I wave smiling, mum stops, comes a step back and explains to me that her daughter thinks my beard is cool. Whereupon I invite the daughter to touch my beard...no idea why, it was an impulse, since I actually can't stand that at all...she tells that to her daughter, who then veeeery carefully, still in her mum's arms, bends down towards me, since I'm sitting on my chair, and touches my beard slowly, but with such intensity that I can't help but be completely perplexed. She smiles at me as if I've given her the greatest joy of her life...and that's how it felt for me too...WOW that was a MOMENT ❤️ I am so infinitely GRATEFUL for these things that the universe reveals to me. The little one touched my SOUL and was so careful doing it, as if she could hurt me....

YEPP, a 0.33l for four euros...🤪

And so you know what makes me flinch now and then while writing, here's a normal "pine cone" that makes quite a bang when it hits Frankie...