Paros Island, Greece

We met friends from Vancouver, Sherryl and Bill for week on Paros Island in Greece's Cyclades chain of islands.

We stayed at La Selini, a small owned by LuAnn, a lady from Vancouver. It's a very fun and economical place to stay in Paros, just a block from the beach.

The main town of Paros is a real beach community, and the whole island is covered in amazing beaches. I'd have to say they are the best I've seen in Europe.

We also to a day trip to the neighbouring island of Naxos on an stinking hot day where we walked uphill to an anicent ruin, and later took a swim in the bay int hemain town of Naxos. This was where we spied the rather noteable practice of drying the day's catch of octopus on a line right around the restaurants. Looks almost like laundry hung out to dry.

I love seafood of all sorts...and have developed quite a taste for "polpo" - (marinated octopus served cold in a seafood salad, or grilled octopus tentacle).

Monica calls octopus "octopod" - eight legs.

As my personal marketing slogan goes "A Day Without Octopod Is Like a Beach Day Without Sun."

One hilarious outing we made with Sherryl and Bill was to a Paros cinema. The movies here screen in the open air, replete with an old style mid-point intermission. We went to see Fast and Furious 4 with about 122 Greek teenagers. It was hilarious. And by that I mean the dialogue. Vin Diesel is such an excellent actor.

Also read Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba The Greek while we were in the Cyclades. It's not exactly a politically correct novels these days, but it's a really amazing vision of Grece in the early 20th century. I now have Kazantzakis's Report to Greco, which I got used in a bookstore in Paris. (As opposed to Paros. One of the best things about being off work this year is all the time I have to read. It's a luxury I've never really enjoyed until this point in my life.