Rain, sun, and a little fun

So Greece wasn't exactly what I expected, but like I said before, it was beautiful nonetheless. And although it did rain the ENTIRE time we were there, we luckily caught a little window of sun the day we left. And of course, by the time we were leaving to go back to the boat, it was a beautiful sunny day on the Island.

We did take advantage of the rain and the rental car service offered by the hostel. Yup, we (myself and 2 friends) rented a car for the day on Saturday and decided that since "rain rain go away" wasn't working, we would befriend the rain and have an adventure.

The Pink Palace, our temporary (thank goodness!!--but the thank goodness!! is another story all together...one that wouldn't make an appropriate post) place of residence for the weekend is located in Ag. Gordios, which is on the West coast of the Island Corfu, located on the northwest coast of Greece. We got in our putt-putt white little rental car and started on our 5 hour journey. The first hill we came to we literally had to lean forward to make it up successfully...but the car ended up holding out wonderfully for the rest of the ride. We travelled east across the Island to Corfu town, drove through almost hitting a few pedestrians on the way, and headed up the east coast of the Island.

One HUGE rainstorm later, I stood in the middle of the road, which quickly became a river, while Sarah took my picture and large (seemingly golf ball sized) raindrops bounced off my very wet head. The sun came out, and even though we didn't see any rainbow, we found a beach that God probably intended as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was perhaps the most beautiful beach I have ever been on, and I have been on a few if I may say so myself. The sand was like powdered sugar...soft and wonderful, although don't worry--I didn't eat any. The water was a bit cold but I got in up to my thighs anyway. It was perfect turquoise in color and blended seamlessly with the horizon. Breathtaking.

I was the Scrooge on the road trip, however, and was completely paranoid that we wouldn't make it back in time to catch the bus, boat, boat, and bus back to Florence, so as a result of my time-paranoia we weren't able to spend as much time as I would have liked at the beach. We did, though, see some adorable old towns, wonderful old buildings that were calling my name to explore them, and adorable little Greek grandma's waddling down the street with their loaves of bread and rainhoods on. They looked exactly like the crazy Grandma in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, although I don't think they were crazy. They were just cute and waddled like ducklings down the road. We also encountered a crazy old grandpa who waved us out of his neighborhood as he sat on his plastic lawn chair directly in front of his front door (hope no one was stuck inside his house!!). He laughed at us the entire time as we pulled an Austin Powers to try to turn the car completely around on one very tight road (if you haven't seen Austin Powers, it just means that it took us about 20 very small turns to get the car turned around).

The cute white car we drove held up perfectly as we backroaded on a couple of non paved roads, as well as quite a few very narrow pothole filled paved roads (although at times I had a hard time believing they were paved at all because of the numerous potholes). The road trip made the weekend completely worthwhile. :) And we made it back in time for the bus that drove us to the boat, which took us to the ferry, which brought us to the bus, which got lost on its way back to Florence. But I am now back, safely, in Florence and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day shopping with 5 wonderful girls this afternoon :)

Thank God for rain...and sun...and most of all fun!! :)