between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Pictures.

Divers.

Archanes house model at Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

Venetian Fort at Herakleion. Inside. Outside, upper courtyard. Another view. Ramp to courtyard.

A bit of Knossos. 'Royal road' at Knossos.

Countryside near Kritsa. Hawk near Kritsa. Lato, agora. View from Lato.

I have about 500 pictures from Lato alone. The same amount from Herakleion and Knossos.

Looking at them now, god, I want to go back.

( Tuesday. Herakleion. Archaeology Museum. Venetian Fort 'Rocca al Mare'. Town centre. Knossos. )

( Wednesday. Day off with diving. )

( Thursday: the second trip to Kritsa, and the polis of Lato. )

Friday was full of travelling, and the rest you know.

Pictures will follow in a separate post.

( Friday: diving again )

Saturday: a day off. Swimming, lunch in the bar run by the two Dutch ladies, and then hiding from the heat.

Diving in the evening, from five to six. With Baptiste again, from the shore. This time I held two octopi in my hands, cool and warm and soft and fragile and strong, strange alien creatures that they are.

And fish. A multitude of fish, big ones, small ones, colourful ones, dark ones, pale ones. And the detritus of settlement on the sandy bottom, pots and handles and bottles and a bit of old newspaper, or page torn from a book, the lettering still sharp and clear, until you trailed your fingers against it and it dissolved into mulch. A thing that looked like a starfish, five spines, but it eeled and moved itself under a weed.

Afterwards, dinner at Pasifae Restaurent, beside the lake, for the second time. Their lamb kleftiko is excellent, and they do a damn good pizza, too. And, by the way, two of the waiters are absolutely gorgeous. And there is a little catling that runs in and out of the tables and turns big begging eyes on you: a very cute animal, indeed.

( Sunday: the first trip to Kritsa. )

( Monday: I reproduce here verbatim my diary entry of the time )

Tuesday, with Heraklion, Rocca al Mare, and Knossos, soon to follow.

I will put a picture of the fluffy-tailed marmalade cat up soon.

Watch me lose track of what day it was.

( Tuesday: Agios Nikolaos Archaeological Museum ) But after the morning's sojourn in the museum, I spent the rest of the day hiding from the heat. Apart from dinner in a place called, "Trata."

( Wednesday: Diving )

( Thursday: Ierapetra )

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will follow. Although I will note here the weird dream I had on Saturday night - my dreams in Crete were rather fertile, to say the least. Very vivid and memorable, and full of narrative.

Anyway. At the at the tail end of Saturday night, I dreamed of travelling to Toronto, except the city resembled a mirror-maze version of Dublin and bits and pieces of American cities as seen on tv, all distorted and labyrinthine. And I got lost by a river, and eventually found the bar where -- for some reason -- I was supposed to meet cristalia and some handsome Greek bloke who appeared to be her boy.

And in the manner of dreams, it turned out to be my birthday - or somebody's birthday, at least - and everyone knew. And wouldn't listen to me when I got embarrassed about celebrating. And J. and C., who I (in the dream) had met and left in a mirror-maze version of Dublin airport (complete with palm trees) turned up. And there were pink lanterns on the tables, and in the logic of dreams, the celebration changed, and became one for cristalia's book deal and movie option.

So, you know. That one was a little unusual for my dreams: they're usually more full of people trying to kill me.

( Monday and the Venetian fortress-island of Spinalonga )

Pictures of the amazing Spinalonga start here.

Okay, fuckit. You know what? If you really want to see more pictures of Spinalonga - in fact, of my whole Cretan trip - email me, and I'll zip a folder and email you back. Because trying to put even a representative selection on Flickr is... probably not going to work.

On Thursday, before our minor exodus, I went climbing. Four routes, much improvement: only sent one of them, but I got my hand on the top hold of the white 5 (it's been regraded to a 4+), but there's nothing on it, no friction, no purchase. I also improved the greys, to the top of the overhang, and a couple of other routes, and ended up ripping the middle part of my right hand's middle finger down to blood. Luckily R., the gorgeous engineering MA from Amsterdam, had surgical tape, because I wasn't about to stop. (It's only just started to heal.)

Thursday was a good day. I got my mile in nine minutes, and my 1.5 in 14:30, and after climbing went to the open mic poetry's third anniversary. There was poetry, much of it good, and chocolate cake, and a couple of people whose opinions I respect complimented my mass grave/war crimes poem, which reassures me that it is not made of complete fail.

Of course, I didn't get home until midnight, and I had to get up at three am.

And all that progress has been lost now.

( Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning )

( Sunday afternoon and the church of Agios Nikolaos, c11th or 12th century CE, after which the modern town takes its name )

Monday, and the island of Spinalonga - former Venetian fortress, Turkish fortress, and one of the last leper colonies in Europe - to follow.

I'm home.

Guys, it was fantastic. Travelling is shit, but Crete? Too hot, but fantastic.

I have something on the order of two or three thousand pictures, and so much I want to babble about. But I will refrain, for now, until I can marshall my thoughts tomorrow and make them line up in semi-comprehensible order.

It was also a fertile fortnight for poetry, in lieu of the prose I did not write. I wrote four poems, two of which I'm actually almost okay with and the other two aren't unremittingly bad.

And oh. I came home, and there was post from college. And it seems I have been awarded moneys in respect of two academic prizes. (Not much moneys. But over a hundred quid for nothing? That doesn't suck.) One is for best result in Greek (out of six people taking the exam). The other is a thing called the Williams Roberts Prize, and I haven't been able to figure out what subject it's been awarded for. The College Calendar offers several options, you see. I know I didn't win it for Latin or Classics or Classical Civilisation, being classes I don't take, but that still leaves ancient history or archaeology.

Anyway. I am feeling pretty good right now. Tired, but good.

I appear to have a poem up in Ideomancer.

It's cooler here today. 28, not 34. Can't wait for Friday.

Knossos tomorrow. Wish me luck.

To all concerned:

Am still alive. In Crete. Weather hot, highs occasionally hitting forty, mostly early thirties. Very interesting history around here. Internets rare and expensive. Good fun. Very hot.

Expect no response to email/comments for at least another week. I won't get home till Saturday, and god, I cannot wait for rain.

Miss you, internets. And rain.

So, the wall closed over the last few days to do maintenance and completely reset the routes. Today was the first day it was open again, and I hied me there after a half an hour in the gym, to see what was what.

The good news: I finally have definitive confirmation over what grade system the wall uses: it's French. The bad news: there is nothing, now, easier than a French 5.

Now, the fives aren't alphabetised, yet, so I don't know whether they're at the easy end or the hard end. (The sixes and sevens are alphabetised, but not the fives.) There're two on the slab wall, which I sent: one with a little bit of cheating at the very last move and one clean, with no dogging on the rope. I'm pretty proud of that: both of them required a good bit of thinky.

There're two other fives, both on overhangs, which I tried. One's a grey, and I think the only straightforward way up is to smear, dyno, and jump, which'll get you to the top of the overhang. I can get my fingers on the hold after the jump, but I don't have the strength to pull it off.

The second one's a black. I can see two ways of getting to the top of the overhang, and over it: one's a dyno, and I tried that several times on my first attempt. Again, I can get my fingers up, but I don't have the strength to capitalise on that. The other way involves clever footwork, and balance, and smearing: I tried that on my second attempt, and I can see how it should work, but I just couldn't make it go right.

Two more fives, a white and a blue, share a slightly overhung corner: really the most minor of overhangs. Now, the white, that one's almost easy until you get to the top. I got stuck on the third move from the finish, where the holds stop being even slightly juggy and there's a move - two moves - that require much fingertip grippy and balance while smearing. No can do.

The blue - I'm quite proud of my attempt at the blue: I got up over the crux of the overhang, and then you have to smear up and reach sideways, and I couldn't quite get my arms to do the right amount of heaving.

There's also a red five, but I think that's closer to a 5c than a 5a: I could barely get it started, certainly couldn't string together the first three moves.

I'm going to be made of ouch tomorrow, but I'm going to try and get in another attempt tomorrow evening, before the open mic poetry. Last chance to conquer before two weeks of slack: I'll probably have to spend a week or two playing catch-up before I can send anything after I get back.

Wow. Did I get lengthy, much, over climbing? Well, I love it, and there were a great bunch of lads down there this evening to trade belays with (and even a girl or four, after half seven), so it was really great craic. (I spent two and a half hours there. Definitely going to be ouch tomorrow.)

---

Achievements:

Some of the Ehrman book, some of Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem (much more enjoyable than the Ehrman). .5 hours Latin, .5 hours Greek.

Running: 29 minutes, for 2.3 miles. Intervals of 7.5mph, and man did my bad ankle complain. It'll complain even more when we do it again tomorrow.

Rowing: 5 minutes, for 1.1km.

Climbing: See above, re: 2.5 hours.

Writing: .2K, some cleaning-up work.

---

I got deep-fried chicken and chips on the way up the road, the supermarkets being closed and no fast, greasy carbohydrates in the house. Mmm, grease.

My hands, where I've ripped through callouses, hate me, I think. I've taken a paracetamol to make my shoulders stop screaming, and now, I need to make with the packing and throw some more shit into the case for the day after tomorrow.

All I really want to do is fall over. But necessity calls.