Getting Lots of walking in :)

Monday - Micheal came to the house to pick up the rental car. Pretty good service for the 100E we paid for 7 days. Delivery and pickup from the house :)  Originally we were going to meet him in Chania and spend the day in town.  But when the time came I just wanted to spend the day at home.

It was a great day to get caught up with house cleaning and get the laundry done since it was a nice sunny day.  The whole week is suppose to be warm and sunny.  Guess it was better to have the car during the rainy week so we weren't stuck in the house :)

The cats always like to lay on Dwayne when we let them in to eat

Tuesday - by noon we were ready to walk towards Chania. After having lunch we headed out. I'm wearing jeans and sleeved top and after 2kms I was getting pretty hot and sweaty!  So I rolled up my pants to my knees and sleeves up and it felt much better :)  Not to worried about how I look - just need to cool down. Guess I can bring out the capris again :)

We stop at a cafe along the way and have a cappuccino freddo, coke and split a huge donut (I keep forgetting to get a pic of the huge donuts here for only 1E!)  After that we keep heading to the central square in Chania.  But first we check out the Ikea store!  I remember seeing it when we drove by with the car last Friday, I had read there was an outlet here but mostly for online order pickup.  But once we got inside I think it was bigger then the Ikea we stopped at last week in Iraklio.  It was also nice and cool in there so spent quite awhile inside to cool myself off :)  Did end up buying a carpet for outside the back door for the rainy days - a whole 79 cents! Now we can wipe our shoes off before coming into the house and getting the floor wet.

After I cooled down we head out and further towards town.  Then come up to another Chinese market  - need to go in and see what surprises we can find inside.  Ended up buying some weather stripping to try to keep the screen up on the window. The tape we have doesn't seem to stick to the screen. Hope this will work.  Didn't find much of anything else so out we go.  A little further up was a grocery store, need some bread.  But came out with bread, bananas and a frozen pizza :) which meant we now have to find a bus stop and head home. We've walked 5km so far and if we have it timed right we can catch the Tsikalaria bus that left centre at 2pm.  It's now 2:10 so may we'll be lucky.  We walk a couple of blocks to the next bus stop and wait. But no bus 22 came - guess we missed it probably while we were in the grocery store. We catch the next bus to Souda and get off at the nearest stop to our house - a 2km walk.  Once we get off I remember there was a store I wanted to check out just down the block.  This is more of a variety store - clothes, bedding, towels etc.  Looks like it just opened because there are many boxes on the 3rd floor (kitchen supplies) that still need to be unpacked. All good quality China products LOL!!! Just amazes me how much STUFF comes from China!!  Anyways, we did find a cheap dish rack since the house doesn't have one - makes Dwayne's job a little easier - hahaha :)  Then we hike up to our place - picked a couple of oranges along the way to enjoy as we walk.  They taste soooo good. By the time we got home we had walked 8.5km :)  Think I've walked more kms since my knee replacement then I walked my whole life LOL!!

Wednesday - This is another day spent around the house.  I do some yoga that I've been doing for the last few days that I found on youtube. Then make a big batch of chicken vegetable soup with orzo pasta.  Dwayne keeps busy cutting a piece of wood from a pallet in half lengthwise with a small tree saw,  to make a frame for the screen since the weatherstripping lasted about 2 hrs!  After he gets it cut and placed, he cut some short piece and wedged them in between window frame and shutter frame to keep the wood slats tight against the screen - and it worked perfect! There are no nails around here so he improvised:)

We spent most of the afternoon out on the patio reading and enjoying the warm sunshine.

Veg soup simmering

 

3 of the 4 cats that come with the house (all outdoor cats) enjoy it when we sit outside and can then lay on the lounge chairs

Thursday -  Another nice sunny day so this time we are heading out earlier to Chania and will walk all the way into town and take the bus back at 2pm.  Want to buy some fish from the big indoor market. The same place where I took a picture a couple of weeks ago with the guy smoking.  I've read the guy running the place is a greek who spent some time in Canada and is helpful.  This time I am wearing capris and sleeveless shirt to stay cooler - should be about 25C today.

Our half way stop to town break :) Cheese pie for me and cappuccino freddo,  HUGE chocolate eclair with vanilla custard filling(2.50E) for Dwayne!  He could only eat half - the rest is for dessert tonight 

We made it! Walking around I found a nice red bag on wheels to put our groceries in and haul onto the bus - now I'm like the old greek ladies and their grocery carts LOL!!! So much easier then putting groceries in a backpack or carrying bags. Anyways only cost 10E so leaving it behind wont be so tough at the end of Dec.

So I put my backpack in my cart and we keep walking around checking out stores in a new street we haven't gone down yet. We find a place where they make Ouzo so bought a small bottle - not sure why I haven't bought some already since I love the licorice flavour :)  Then passed a bakery and bought a loaf of bread - into the cart it goes.  By now it was time for lunch and we were close to the gyro restaurant by the market so stopped there.  This time we wont order fries with feta sauce.

Then into the market and to the fishmongers.  There was George and I asked for something easy to cook and not octopus. He said calamari!! Just dip in flour and fry it up - ONLY 4mins though! He picked a squid out got it cleaned and cut into rings - 9E.  Then he takes another one of those paper cones and starts putting shrimp into it.  At first I thought he was just going to give us 1E worth instead of giving us change. But he was putting in handfuls! Thought maybe for someone else, but no he gave it to us FREE!! Then one of the other fishmongers there said to cook it in lemon. I didnt get everything he said but to me that means it would be like ceviche, but using lemon not lime. He just said it is good!  But we had to get going because still had to go to the grocery store to pick up vegetable oil and the bus was coming in 15 mins. Figured I could google it and find out what he is talking about.

We get to our bus in time with all our goodies and once we get off we'll only have to walk .5km to the house - all up hill.  By the time we get home we've walked a total of 7kms.

I open the cone of shrimp.  These are not cleaned so lots of cleaning to do to get these suckers ready to eat! Since there are so many I decide to pick out the big ones and put them into the freezer. The small ones I will feed to the cats.  The calamari just needs to be rinsed and dried with paper towels to get it ready for dinner later.  Guess Dwayne is having more chicken veg soup for supper - not a calamari guy.  More for meeeeee :)  When I checked google for shrimp recipes with lemon, nothing plain came up even when I googled how greeks eat shrimp with only lemon.  Oh well guess I'll just cook them the usual way in garlic butter with some hot sauce.

I take the small shrimp out to the cats and put it down, they're not to sure about what to do with them, guess they live to far from the sea to know LOL!!! So I peel the shell off and the head and THEN they love it!! Oh well what else was I planning on doing anyways? :)  But when I had some calamari left after rinsing it and threw it out - I heard growling so I guess they have had that before from the neighbours!!

Squid all cleaned and cut :)

All this shrimp for free!

Well deep fried it all without starting a fire ;) tasted not to bad - as long as there is a good dipping sauce on the side - like most expensive seafood eg lobster!  Will have to try some in a restaurant and compare the taste. Never cooked fresh squid before

Bought our Christmas tree to keep outside by the window. Rocks to keep the cats out of the dirt!