Well, have I got allot to tell you. Blimey where do i begin. OK, I'm going to get my plug of the week out of the way. The Strada Marina Cafe Bar, it is now my favourite bar in Zakynthos town. Firstly for large bottles of beer it has the best prices, secondly you get free crisps, snacks etc with every drink you order, thirdly which is the most important for me as I'm not really a beer drinker or a crisp eater is the surroundings, i just love it. Music is good (indie most nights), the atmosphere is relaxed and they show the premiership football. Oh and if you like sitting tapping and swiping at your phone or tablet they have free WIFI also. Its just so nice to be in a bar that just feels real comfortable and you can just enjoy a drink without any hassle or noisy people in. Just locals meeting up and having a chat. They have a seating area also upstairs, both downstairs and upstairs show sport when its on. If you head in to town you have to pop in here for a drink. Panagiotis or Panos as he has now asked me to call him and his wife have a great bar here. He always takes time out to come over and chat with me, lovely guy.
So here are some piccies of The Strada Marina Cafe Bar.
The main seating area
The comfy corner where i sit and relax
The bar area
The upstairs seating area where many come to watch the sport.
Upstairs seating area from another angle
So lets see if i can get my brain in gear. OK just looked at my last update. When i last typed for you i was waiting on a new floor, well its done, its level, no more slabs that rock, no more wobbly tables and the rain now runs out of the building instead of in under the roof. Sorry folks, no more laughing at me getting soaked trying to be King Canute stopping waves of water. Also i have done away with steps and had a legal requirement ramp put in instead at the side of the bar, well, so many people were falling out down the steps at the end of the night you can now roll LOL.
The lovely new floor.
Now at this point i would also show you a before and after shot of the bar but i have a few finishing touches to make tomorrow then i will post those pictures on the next update as it is my opening night tomorrow, didn't bother tonight as most are opening tomorrow due to it being a bank holiday here today. I have spent 12-15 hours a day in the bar for the past 4 days getting it ready and i am proud to say i did it all by myself, every little thing without any outside help. apart from a spot of painting with great thanks to Helen, i hate painting, YUK! That's not to say people didn't offer, Tassos, Steve, Leigh and David all offered but me being me I'm very independent and will only ever ask for or accept help if its in the very last ditch attempt and desperate. I always say "If a job is worth doing badly, do it yourself" LOL.
Helen came over for a week for Easter but i am always so caught up in paperwork and running around my head was all over the place but what time we had together we went out to tavernas or watched my columbo collection. I'll explain, we had quite a few cold, rainy days while Helen was here so we were stuck indoors. No digital TV, no analogue TV, no sky TV, i had thrown all the DVD sellers films out that i had bought last season so all we had was Columbo. That's fine by me but i think Helen got a bit bored of "Just one more thing". We went down to town for the Easter pot smashing (no its not a drugs raid) celebration at 5.30am and guess what, it was freezing and started to rain but its still nice to go down. I have to say, there was hardly any pots smashed compared to what i had seen in previous years, Helen smashed one in the square which she enjoyed. I enjoyed it when i first went and smashed one but i think this was my 4th time of seeing it maybe my 5th so i stayed warm in a cafe under a outdoor heater. It was nice for Helen to have a break anyway, she deserved it.
The Easter parade making its way from Bochali in to town.
Now what else. Ah yes, there is a new sushi/Asian restaurant in town, WooHoo! No thats me me getting excited as usual when i talk about food that is its actual name WooHoo. I went there with Tassos, Demi and Anastasia first then went again with them and Helen when she was over. I loved it. I like Sushi anyway, that is my second favourite food after Greek. I started off with a Singtao beer,. followed by Shrimp noodles with Salmon sushi and banana fritters, one portion with chocolate over the other with honey. No i wasn't expecting as many salmon rolls as i got but i still ate them all. It was a pile of shrimp noodles and 8 salmon sushi rolls and i ate nearly all the fritters as Tas, Demi and Anastasia didn't like them,mmmmmmmmmmm, i don't mind if i do. All at a very fair price i thought. The highlight of both trips to WooHoo was on the first visit, me teaching Tassos how to use chopsticks, i have to say he did really well but half way through he got cramp in his fingers and decided to use the chop sticks to stab his food. When he first started trying to use the chop sticks without me tutoring i was creased up and my eyes had tears rolling from them in laughter but he stuck with it. Good man Tas.
I think Homer Simpson may sue if he finds out
My shrimp noodles after Tas had eaten half by mistake and Salmon sushi that i had eaten half of on purpose
mmmmmmmmmmmmm, deep fried banana fritter ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-na-na
I have been eating quite healthily up until i started on the bar then i just forget to eat. At the bottom of Bochali hill the is a fish monger that of course sells fresh fish so i treated myself to 2 cuts of salmon, well i think it was salmon, it looked like the salmon i see on tins of salmon so i guess it was salmon. Anywhoooo, I got them home and by golly gosh, weren't they enormous don't you know. Just to show the exact size I'm not going to say like all fisherman do (steve) "it was this big but didn't have my camera". Yes i have my camera and yes they were this big. They were only the size of my flip flop, i kid you not, here look.
My flip flop size fish. Its OK, there was no cross contamination from the salmon lol.
But i also have my weakness in food, Greek Souvlaki and Gyros. I had not had one for the first 2 weeks. That's a record for me as by the second day I've usually had 3 or 4. But i could resist no longer so i had both. My stomach was much satisfied.
I'll let the picture speak for itself.
Now here in our lovely Greek home we have a wood log burner, no central heating luxury here I'm afraid. I love making the fire, I'm like Tom Hanks in Castaway (one of my fav films). "Me make fire, me man" as i beat my chest. Now Helen also likes to make fire which is fine but I'm the one that has to get the wood. Over here you can buy a ton of wood for €150 which is great if you got somewhere to store it and keep it dry, i haven't. So every day i would go out looking for wood, anywhere and everywhere but i was running out of ideas. I did try the old Bear Grylls bit by taking an axe out with me and chopping wherever i could. Where else could you get away with walking down a road with an axe out, isn't Greece great. The whole chopping wood business to be honest was a pain in the ass but just behind where we live i found an old run down house which i have now visited a few times for wood. I used to joke to Helen that its where an axe murderer may live. It looks like one of those places you see in the horror films like "Texas Chainsaw massacre", "The hills have eyes", "Friday the 13th", "Jeepers Creepers", "The last house on the left" and "Pee Wees Big Adventure". OK the last one wasn't a horror film but it was shocking. So I'm now going to tell you a story (not like Max Bygraves). Turn the lights down or off, sit in a silent room and read on:-
Here is the log burner that needs the wood.
Here is the bike that to collect the wood on.
Here is the over grown track that leads to the house that has the wood.
Here is the house that has the wood.
Here behind the house is the pile of wood. Oh, whats that circled at the bottom of the pic. (yes i know its not a circle its a Oval but you wouldn't say "Oh, whats that ovaled at the bottom of the pic" would you, it doesn't sound right)
ITS A TRAINER! A GOD DAMN TRAINER! A GOD DAMN NEW TRAINER! AAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! JESUS H CHRIST, HELLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPP! Now I've watched enough columbo and horror movies to know that:- 1/ You don't bury a new converse trainer upside down in the dirt , B/ Mad crazy killers do live in houses like these, 3/ Its close to a nicely stacked pile of wood where the rest of the body could be covered and Z/ No I'm not digging any deeper than the part i did as i know there will be a foot inside that trainer. Look at the heal of the sole, its hardly worn down.
So we either have a crazy killer living here or a crazy new trainer burier living here, you choose. There is no way I'm going back there for wood and thank god i open tomorrow as won't need the log burner anyway.
And being a reverend myself, as god is my witness i did not plant that shoe there just for this blog. I had never seen it there on the 4 visits previous so how did i notice it only on the 5th? Man I'm locking myself in every night and keeping MY axe next to my bed. I put that bit in just in case he or it maybe a she you never know, it was a she in Friday the 13th which scared the life out of me at the end, that's the original film of course not the re-make that was awful, look I'm getting side tracked, i put that bit in about keeping my axe by the bed just in case he's reading this blog as i know many strange people do. Oh no, i don't mean you my lovely followers i mean other people.
Well thats about it for now but as usual it will now be back to a weekly update, thats unless the mad crazy axe murder gets me. I just heard a noise outside as its 9.15pm and dark. Now where's my axe.
So hopefully until next my lovely lovely followers.
Serve All, Love All, Peace All (Safe All) Kevlar Out!
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