Hello from Sitia....a small town (around 9000) on the east coast of Crete...we made our way here after hiking the Samaria Gorge (on the south west coast) with the intention of taking the ferry to Rhodes and then Turkey, but we've found a nice place to stay with some hospitable hosts so we might be chilling for a bit....The old guy who owns the place, Manuel, is a self-described "professeur de mathematiques," but i can't figure out if he actually teaches anything...his friend Walther, a 55-year old German dude, writes for a German travel book and and has been staying at the pension for years, but again, it seems that all he does is sit around in the shade reading the newspaper... Manuel is quite the story-teller, though his broken english requires much smiling and nodding (Walther refers to Manuel as the "blah-blah man", also in broken english)

Last night Walther took us out to one of his favorite restaurants to watch the euro cup final...after two more bars and about two bottles of wine, whiskey, campari, heineken and raki later we found ourselves rocking out to the Rolling Stones at 5:00 am still celebrating the Greek victory...who knew old German dudes could be so much fun....plan for tonight is much of the same, though Manuel will be joining us...

The Samaria Gorge was really impressive...we managed to hike it (18km) in 4.5 hours but 30 mins of that was probably spent taking pictures (40 pics and 4 movie clips...).....also saw a lot of goats...

Our plans for entering Turkey have changed a bit...we hear that entering from Rhodes on the passenger ferry is a bit sketchy with the Turkish border guards so we plan on going to a small island called Kastolorizo (or somthing like that) and then hiring a fishing boat to take us across (i know....it sounds ridiculous but apparently this is the best way to go...says Walther)

anyway, my internet time is slowly ticking away (the menu bar is flashing red and yellow as i write....2 minutes left.....now 1 ...) so i guess i should publ

ryan