This is winter in Crete or "how I introduced myself on steemit"

I fucking hate flying. I believe it's the sense that I have no control over my life during those "up in the air" hours combined with a much to sensible internal ear. I can feel the plane losing altitudine even if the cabin crew doesn't move a muscle.

Yeah, that's me taking off from Athens. I though that I should immortalise myself before being sent to my maker by that iron bird so I just snapped a selfie and sent it to my dropbox folder so when everybody who made fun of me being afraid to fly will mourn me, they will find that selfie on the cloud and say: "he knew but we didn't want to listen to him!" and more crying, sobbing and screaming will follow. They should all suffer if I suffer, right?

But the planes didn't crash this time though It felt like it a couple of times. The cabin ladies were nicely offering to me refreshments, water or sandwhiches but I was to busy squeezing those arm rests or just firmly inserting my hands between the seats, trying to hold on to something while the plane was bouncing in some turbulences.

The landing in Crete was rough by my standards and I have to say that I clapped like a monkey when I felt the wheels touching the ground...unfortunatelly I was the only one and I think I created a weird moment. But who cares? :)

January in Crete is not what the normal, continental European would expect. Grass here is greener than romanian grass in summer. Oranges are not sold but picked up from different places, wherever an orange tree decided to spring out. The palm trees may make you think that you are in the Carribeans and some "colonial" architecture is present, though I have no fucking ideea why (maybe you guys have some clues about it and can drop it in the comments). You can see that architecture in the photo below.

The island seems nice and it has a certain flavour of old greeks resting on the marina, playing whatever traditional dice games they play, while a fishing rod is left unattended; that flavour is real and you can smell it once you enter Chania. It's a combination of sea water smell, fried callamari, saganaki mussles, light, cheap bear and dirty fisherman's pants.

There were no fishermen on the old dock as the wind is crazy right now, in spite of the pretty high temperatures (13-15 Celsius degrees). Is so windy that if you wanna take a pee in a small corner of the old walls, you will surelly pee on your chest, face and hair. Whatever stream of water get's in the air is instantly pulverised. Here's a recording I made last night on the balcony:

This is considered hard winter in Crete...while my country struggles with -20 Celsius degrees, only 1200km more to the north. Somehow I am very concerned about this wind for saturday's morning take off. Yeah, I know how the plane is the most secure means of transportation but sorry, it is also the most unnatural to us humans.

I am here in some job's confferences, every morning from 8:30 to 18:30-19:00. Just sitting on a bloody chair, listening to all sorts of PowerPoint presentations, from colleagues all over Europe. It's not bad but really I would need a little bit more spare time if I decided to make such a sacrifice and board a plane for this. Fortunatelly there is the lunch break when I'm able to have one hour of roaming around in Chania's old part of the city. Below some pictures I took yesterday. The old part of the city still keeps that old mediteranean port aspect: narrow streets, old marina buildings, lot of different architectures that stand testimony to the many types of civiliations that either passed through here leaving their mark or, like the venetians and turkish, came here as conquerers and decided to stay, subdue the greek population and impose their building's architecture.

And then, there's the sea.

Rough and troubled as an angry, dead drunk sailor who didn't see any kind of pussy for months. Speaking of pussy...here's a cretan one:

I'll be here untill saturday morning, listening to lectures, eating as much sea food as my body can take and being afraid of the plane trip that is developing in front of me. Please wish me luck and a safe flight so I can keep on posting photos and stories.

the Bogdan