Ferry to Tinos, our temporary home in a beautiful little bay
Tinos | Andros
Ideally, I’d like to write every day. And about the day at hand.
Not describing yesterday’s events. But writing about here and now.
What happened to me a couple of hours ago and how I am today.
For now, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to. After all, that takes time.
On the other hand, I should have plenty of time here.
I slept terribly. One of the worst nights in a while.
It was very noisy. All night long people were walking around the hotel, laughing and talking.
And of course there’s no soundproofing at all.
Yesterday I had such a strong desire to write honestly.
And more about myself, rather than about sights or whatever it is that one is supposed to write about in travel notes.
And today I’m thinking whether I should at all. And I keep thinking too — what if I decide to publish this after all.
And then what. Should I keep that in mind. How other people will read it.
It turns out that there seem to be at least two of me — one who writes for herself.
And another who writes for an audience, trying to guess what people are interested in and what one is generally supposed to write about oneself, and what not.
But I don’t want that anymore. It’s some kind of split. I want wholeness. But how?
Maybe by being the same (myself?) with everyone, with myself and with other people.
Mykonos. On the way to the port.
We need to get to the port. From there we have a ferry to the island of Tinos.
We’re walking to the port from the hotel. A taxi costs €40 (for 4 km!). And you can walk there in 50 minutes.
Today the wind is strong again. It’s making a roaring noise in my head.
The ferry turned out to be very beautiful inside.
Ferry to Tinos Island
I feel as though something inside me is slowly thawing, and I rejoice in what is happening to me.
We are sitting by a large window. Drinking coffee with a delicious bun. Waves all around us.
The ferry cuts through the sea, spray rises into the air, and for a moment a rainbow appears above the sea, quickly falling apart into multicolored shards.
The sea outside the window
On the ferry there was a magazine, one of those you find on airplanes, where they write about everything and nothing. About all sorts of places you can visit, mixed with advertisements. And it’s hard to tell where the truth is and where the lies are, where they want to sell you something and where you could actually go.
So, in the ferry magazine (is that even a word?) there was an article about solo travel.
About how good and useful it is. It listed various reasons why traveling alone might be a good idea.
And I thought a lot about it myself.
I thought that on the one hand I’m curious to go somewhere alone.
To try what it’s like at all. How I will perceive the world.
And on the other hand it seems to me that without Volchy I will perceive only half of the world.
As if he were my second eyes or ears or all my senses. Another dimension of me.
Without which the world will be incomplete.
Or maybe I can find some other dimension within myself?
If it even exists in me.
Yes, for sure, there was something like that in that article about solo travel.
About how in solitude you understand who you are better and can find yourself.
Find yourself — it sounds strange. Here I am.
I remember a picture from the internet. There was an iceberg drawn there. The tip of the iceberg stuck out above the surface of the water and next to it was written “consciousness”.
And the larger part of the iceberg was hidden under the water and next to it was written “subconscious”.
To find yourself — is that to dive under the water? To see the hidden part of yourself?
To descend as deep as possible, to the very bottom of the ocean, to the foundation of the iceberg?
***
On Tinos we rent a car — a white Fiat Panda. We stock up on food (and local beer :).
Volchy doesn’t believe we’ll drink 10 small bottles of beer in 5 days.
We stay in a beautiful house overlooking a small bay.
Waves. Wind.
We drink Greek coffee with Galaktoboureko pastry — a layered pie with custard. Delicious.
Our cottage is the farthest one out
Coffee with Galaktoboureko
Then I lie in the bedroom overlooking the sea. And in the evening we go to our cove.
The sea seems unfriendly. Dark, murky. There is a lot of trash in it, mostly plastic bags.
Volchiy didn’t even want to swim. But I go in. The water is warmer than the air, but still cool. Strange. Unpleasant.
Whether because of the trash, or the waves, or the color of the water.
Dinner. Sunset.
