Santa "Run" LOL!!!

Well its been a busy couple of days for us :)  We met up with Vivien and Chris and they showed us around the east side of Chania.  This is where the old tanneries were located in the mid 1800's.   Most are pretty run down but now the rich are coming in and buying up the lots so they can have beach property right in Chania.  Very expensive from what I've heard.

We then drove over to the restaurant for our Christmas Day lunch.  Dwayne had Wild Boar Cheeks!! He said they were good - but who knows could just be pork butt LOL!!!!! I had Sea Bass - and it was really good - thought I would change it up from sheoat for a change. Vivien and Chris had Osso Buco - veal dish.  Then we had to order a bottle of wine since they don't have the refillable 1/2L and litre bottles. This is "ritzy" restaurant and the wine menu was thicker then the food menu!! There was one bottle of wine in there for 790E - that's like $1100C!!! Who spends that much money on wine just to p..... it out???? RIDICULOUS!! Anyways, we settled on a bottle of Rosé for 27E and that seems crazy to me since I can buy a very nice 1.5L bottle of rosé for 2.98E at the Lidl store!! LOL!!!  We also had a nice salad and a warm fava bean dip.  It was a great lunch.  And then when the bill came Vivien took and said they were paying!! What?? They said they enjoyed the company - well then I should have ordered that 790E wine!! LOL!!!!

My sea bass cooked in parchment paper and Dwayne's boar cheeks :)

Osso Buco and the Fava dip

After lunch we head back to their place to see it and have coffee and cake.  They have a beautiful condo over looking Chania. They live on the 5th floor but today its raining pretty good so can't see the mountains. They also own a second condo next to them that they rent out on airbnb.  Think for about 1200E a month. I've seen the pictures and it is very beautiful.

Around 4:30 we head home.  As we are walking past the neighbours place Christine calls out to us to come have some wine and sit by their fire.  OK.  Her husband speaks NO English and Christine knows some.  She use to know more when working in the hotel business on Hydra Island, but since no one speaks English around here she cant keep it up. But she did well.  She is always opening her door when we are outside to say Hello! How are you? Come for coffee.  So we have some wine and she shows me her house. Its an older stone house like the one we are in. But they have a nice fireplace to keep the place warm.  There are 2 floors - 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom upstairs.  She also cooked us up some cheese pies she had made and also a few spinach cheese pies.  Plus Christmas cookies, we were so full!!! We were there about and hour and a half and then said we had to go because it was time to try and Skype with the kids.

We were able to get ahold of both families and had enjoyed our talk with everyone.  We don't really use Skype we us facebook messenger video that works just as well and much easier to use.  Got to talk to all the grandkids and see what they got for Christmas - so much fun with little kids around :) 

We couldn't seem to end our call and hit different buttons and funny screen shots came up!!

We got up Boxing Day to cloudy skies but no rain!  Which is good because no way am I going on a Santa "Run" in the rain.  The street party starts at 1pm and the walk at 3pm.  We have lots of time so I decided to make mushroom soup for lunch.  I bought some of those huge mushrooms - miatake- at the store along with button, cremini and oyster mushrooms for added flavour.  Once the mushrooms were browned I added onion and celery, then some roasted red peppers and some chopped up leftover pork roast and it was DEEEEElicious!! as my grandson would say :)

Mushroom soup never looks very appetizing in pictures- but it was good :)

We left the house just after 1 to head to the park.  Not hard to find when we see ALL the Santas and music blaring!! It was a great street party - there was even the traditional sirtake dancing in the middle of the crowd - which we joined!  Great fun!  Then we had a  large Creten Beer for 1E and also a couple of pork souvlaki for 1E per stick. Didnt want to have anymore beer since finding a bathroom might be difficult PLUS a lot of clothing to move around! LOL!!!

Dressed and ready to go!!

Walking to where the car is parked

Even doggies are dressed up for the run

At 3 a group of motorcyclists left the park to start closing off the streets and everyone started filing out of the park and down the road we went.  All around the harbour - where restaurants provided beer in small take away cups!! Hey I like these kinds of "runs"  I put runs in "" because no one ran!! It was just a walk around the city centre - about 4 kms.  We were close to the front and the leaders would stop everyone and make us crouch down and then jump up to make a "wave"  Needless to say I was always a bit behind when it came to the jump up!!Hard enough to crouch let alone jump up!! Geez!!

When we got to a large open area of the harbour there was music again and people started dancing the sirtaki and another more difficult line dance. We watched for awhile and it seemed like this was the end of the run and they were staying in this area so we continue with a bunch of others. It was almost 5 (I thought maybe back at the original street party site there would be music - but there wasn't). We walked along the streets and continued to enjoy some more free beer and raki.  Even the girl that gave me a pedicure was outside her shop handing out shots of raki - so she waved us over and the 3 of us had a shot :)  If she keeps this up she wont last long - but then again she is young! LOL!!

 It was all a lot of fun and a great way to spend an afternoon with the locals :) I'm going to have to post the videos separately since they don't load on my blog :(

Street party in the sports field 

Those dressed in Elves outfits are the volunteers

The V-Strome Greek riders that closed the streets along the walk 

And they're off to close the streets 

and everyone starting to file out of the park ready to go!!

It was a little cool and windy along the open sea area 

I like these "athletes" they stop to have a large beer!!

Quite a few Santas doing the walk

Along the harbour were lifeguards in and out of the water - do they know something about this run we don't?? LOL!!! 

FREE BEER!! Maybe that's why the lifeguards LOL!!!

Stopped to get our free beer along the way

More Santa Savers on in the harbour

 Hope everyone had as great a Christmas and Boxing Day as we did :)  Kala Christougena!