Brian's Blog

Hello this is Brian. Erica asked me to write a blog describing my last team trip to Chios since she was not there. Chios is one of the many Greek islands scattered between Greece and Turkey. However when you are on the eastern side of Chios you can actually see the mainland of Turkey.

We arrived for our game against the team from the island on Friday afternoon and went directly to the pool for training like so many of my trips around the world have started. After we went back to the hotel had dinner at the hotel restaurant (with a very good Turkish desert!) and then went to our rooms to relax and sleep eventually. I had a plan though for the next morning. Since we had rented four cars to drive to and from the pool and three of those cars were driven by teammates, I was going to borrow one the next morning and see as much of the island of Chios as I could. I wanted to be a tourist for a few hours. So Friday night I researched where to go from the trusty Lonely Planet Greece travel book to find a destination. The next morning I convinced the two Slovakian teammates, Jozef and Michael, as well as the funniest guy on the team, Alexis (nickname Bull) to come along so we could find an interesting setting for a coffee.

Chios isn't a very touristy place but as we started driving we soon found out how beautiful it really is. Chios is known for the production of Mustica trees which are used to create the ingredient in chewing gum. We headed south to where the majority of the Mustica groves were grown. The first place we went to was a town called Pirgi which was a small local town but with some interesting Turkish influenced architecture. The houses had small connected black triangular shaped art on the sides which almost looked like the face paint designs the Mauri's (sp?) wear, in New Zealand. We decided we wanted to go somewhere else for coffee, somewhere closer to the water so from the map we decided we would go to a town 6 KM away called Emboreios. It was a very picturesque little cove with pebble beaches but most things were closed save for a few petite Greek taverna's (restaurants). We also went a little further up the coast to Mavra Volia beach but there were no cafe's there. There was however a nice beach of black volcanic pebbles looking out toward Turkey. So our road trip continued and we decided to head back toward our starting point but along the water toward the next town of Komi. When we stumbled upon Komi we found a small village with two visible people and one of them was working in a cafe so we parked on the sand beach and asked if we could take one of their tables from their patio to put right in the sand. It was a great scene to relax and drink a coffee (or even a corona). I felt like I was in the Corona beer commercial where there is nothing but two beach chairs, an umbrella made of straw (there was another closed cafe next to us with these umbrellas), sand, and sea. Since we had a game that afternoon, we drank our cappuccino's looked out at the water, and decided we would try and continue up the coast.

There was no one around and I think we were driving on a board walk for a while made out of cobblestones but then it continued into unpaved roads up over hills. On Chios there is the largest military presence due to the proximity of the number one foe Turkey, and I read that if you are driving on dirt roads that you shouldn't stop because they will think you are doing something suspicious. We were driving in a small Hyundai Accent car not made for off-road travel and the road was very much made for an off-road jeep. I had to maneuver around deep mud puddles, sharp rocks, and the occasional half to one foot drop offs while the other guys were telling me "Slow Down!". I didn't think I was going too fast. The guys in the car were starting to think I was crazy but I was having so much fun on this adventure that I kept pressing on until they were afraid we would run out of gas! The gas light came on and there was nothing in sight but hills. So they convinced me to turn around. (I am happy Erica wasn't there because she definitely would have made me turn around immediately.) We turned around and headed down hill and the gas light turned off. We headed toward a main road that we weren't sure existed and suddenly we found it and were headed back toward Chios Town.

On the way back in a small village there was a truck with a an over sized box in the back of chickens and hens for sale. Bull our Greek entertainer said in his broken english "We buy chicken". It was half statement and half question. We pulled up next to the stopped truck and he rolled down the back window to ask in Greek. Jozef and I were laughing hysterically with tears in the front of the car as the transaction took place. We weren't sure if he was going to do it and as we were laughing we heard him say in Greek "two euros, three euros, or four euros". Michael was in the back with Bull. I don't think he knew what to do but handed Bull a five and then took something back from Bull. Jozef thought it was the five and as we were driving away he found out it was the change and that there was actually a chicken in the back seat of our car! Bull was petting and talking to it like a proud father. We were thinking we could give it to our coach as a funny prank but were unsure of his reaction so Jozef decided we should drive around until we found someone who would want to add it to their farm. The first person we saw was driving on the road opposite of us in a tractor and definitely looked like a great candidate. Bull spoke to him from the back seat across Michael's lap but he said "no" with a weird look and told us to go to the gas station coming up in about 100 meters. We thought great we can get some gas and maybe pay with the chicken. The gas station was closed. So we found another gas station and put five euros in the car but they definitely didn't look like the type who would want a small chicken. The next town we found was Kallimasia and we turned in. At the first house we saw an old, typically dressed, woman (all black clothes) beating a rug over the railing of her patio. They had cages full of birds outside their garage and we thought they would love an addition. Bull started to yell out to the old lady. When she looked at us dumbfounded we saw the old man (her husband?) in the small driveway cleaning something and he came out to the car and agreed to whatever Bull told him. Then he gently took the chicken across Michael's lap.

Finally we made it back to Chios town for another coffee and then to our hotel just in time to make our team lunch. A few hours later we beat the team from Chios in a wild high scoring game, 16-13. It was my first game since my surgery and I was happy with my performance considering I had been out of the water for almost a month. Overall it was a great trip, and one that I will never forget.