At first you thought that this photo was repetitive and not worth including...and then you looked again and noticed Fatty's ridiculous expression in the background and suddenly everything made sense.
Then Chris, being the "master of my own body" ninja that he is, destroyed them with him spot-on perfect impression (Well, except for the fact that he's not wearing a little brown dress). And the more we started taking, the shit was so funny that WE almost forgot that we really were taking him to his surprise party.
After we finished eating, the plan was for Emma and Lorelei to call and say that we should meet them at the Sunburned Cow, a bar all the way over on Avenue C. We'd try to arrive right at 10pm, and everyone would jump out yell "Surprise!" (hopefully both surprising Grant and scaring the living shit out of him simutaneously).
Here's Chris and Fatty back at my apartment getting ready to head back to their respective homes - so ends our journey.
Between the three of us that had cameras, we managed to take just over 2,000 pictures which I edited down to 21 entries comprised of exactly 790 photos. And so it's with these last few words that I end the European Vacation Series (which is by far, the longest diary project I've ever undertaken). Back to life in NYC!
Here's another one. This one's my pensive and artsy "I'm acting like the camera's not there, but clearly I must know it is because I'm the one who took the picture" picture. Who's more emo than me? Motherfuck this photo diary nonsense, I'm gonna get me a LiveJournal. (ps - look at the two cutey patooties passed out next to me like little sleeping lambs. Teeheehee.)
Awww, yeah - check tha setup! Awwww, look how cute Grant's mom is all displaying the food with the boys. (And be forewarned, anybody making remarks about Moms in the comments section will be promptly banned. In the words, of the Wise Fatty, "Dat shit ain' coo'!")
...we arrived safely and without incident (save a slight yelling match between Grant and the rest of the passengers in the car who politely asked him if he would "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN SO DON'T HYDROPLANE OFF THE ROAD AND DIE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!") at Grant's parent's home and celebrated with some stiff drinks...
Being that we were leaving Crete in the morning to head back to the UK, we decided to take one more trip into Rethymnon to walk around and get some ice cream.
Not completely happy with the shaky, hand-held quality of the previous "Scootering" footage we'd shot a few days earlier, Chris strapped the camera to the back of my bike so we could film our mountainous ascent on the coastal backroads. (I'll get around to posting clips of this someday. Don't worry, with the exception of Grant trying to brain we while I'm squatting down and talking to the bike-mounted cam, you're really not missing much).
After fucking around for too long in Bali, we ended up having to make the 35 minute trip back to our condo at dusk (freezing our asses off the whole way). After dropping the bikes off and picking up our car, we headed to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner.
...I claimed I wanted to get a picture of these three on their way down, but it was really just my sneaky was of getting them to go first in case there were any ScoobyDoo-esque villians waiting below.
A small chapel off to the side of the Monestary tells the story (which I grabbed a rehash of from this site):
"The Greek freedom fighters would register their displeasure with the Turks (normally some Turks would be discovered dead) and the Turks would show their displeasure by killing everyone in a town or village. In 1866 around 1,000 Cretens took refuge in the Monastery fearing Turkish retribution. The people, which did include several freedom fighters, held out for two days before the 12,0000 Turks laying siege were able to rupture the walls. However, instead of surrendering the abbot (a local hero) and the people inside decided to ignite the gun powder in the powder keg room. 829 of the Cretens died. It is said anywhere from 100 to 1000 Turks were killed in the explosion."
We saddled back up on our HOGGZ and hit the road. We only managed to get about 1/4 mile when Grant, who was leading the pack, slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road hysterically laughing and pointing...
Here's Fatty, Grant and Chris upon arrival - quasi-drunk from dinner and already in awe of the stupid amounts of hot Greek women. (Make sure to look at all three of their priceless expressions).
Looky, looky! What's going on here in this picture? After Grant was done giving her the "See, aren't we fun guys?" photo review, she quickly cozied up to tha Grizza.
We chatted Michael up for a few minutes and after we'd established a rapport, I asked him if I had any shot with his cute friend and he replied (please make sure you read the next sentence in your best Balki from "Perfect Strangers" voice) "Don' be ree-deek-you-los!"
With the leather-panted Gunther giving us the stinkeye from across the table we took a view pictures more pics without her in the background to try to throw him off our perv trail. By the way, ever notice how stuff like Coke, ketchup and McDonalds always taste not-so-great overseas? Well with beer, it works the other way around. The beer we are drinking is Amstel. (not Amstel light, regular Amstel) Maybe it was the crisp sea breeze or the abundance of badobnkadonk butts out there but it was hands down one of the best beers I've ever had.
And then a group shot. HA HA HA HA. Notice in the background you can see the chick's equally-attractive German boyfriend totally catching on to what we were up too. Das gig ist up, ja?
We walked around town for awhile and eventually managed to find the steak joint. After we'd been seated, we noticed a heartbreakingly attractive German woman sitting at a nearby table and all of a sudden Grant wants to take a picture of Chris reading a menu.
The camera never lies. That's why the picture is blurred. But turn down a complimentary digestif in Greece and you might get your ass handed to you along with the check. Looks like we have some shots to drink. Oh well, here's to minimal liver damage.
Immediately after scaring him in the shower, we ran back inside, set up the camera and Chris hid behind the door to see if we could manage to scare him twice in ten minutes.
All the caves were carved in the rocks by the Romans and were used as a cemetery! In the late 1960s, a bunch of hippies found them and for two years the caves caves became a commune (Joni Mitchell actually spent six months here living in one of the caves). More and more hippies kept coming until the local authorities got fed up and kicked all of their dirty, patchouli-smelling asses the fuck off the beach. ("Take your guitar and MOVE IT, Harpo! Now!"). Boo-yah!
Where we proceeded to throw down group beach coldlamps, awww yeah. Check out all the rocks on the beach. The waves there made the craziest sound. Each time the water washed out back towards to ocean, it would drag all of the smaller rocks across the larger rocks on the bottom and make this bizarre, underwater rumbling noise. After a quick swim, we laid down to dry off in the sun and were all quickly lulled to sleep by the sound of the water.
Here's us bright and early out on our front porch enjoying a breakfast of Greek yogurt and granola. Mmmmmmmm. (ps - what's up, busted dudes in the morning?)
We wandered the streets for almost an hour trying to decide on where we wanted to eat (ok, trying to find the place that had the most hot girls dining there). The problem was, there was so many restaurants (and so many hot girls) that we couldn't make up our minds. Finally, as we neared the point of collapse from hunger, we were courted by this dude, Kostas Vallasso, and he was so friendly and funny that we decided to eat as his place.
...he brought out more white wine. Amidst all the merriment (shit-talking and recalled moments of scooter-glory), we suddenly realized that we were all completely shit-hammered. When we (slurringly) asked him, "Kostassssch, why are we schooooo drunk?" He explained that the local wines contained approximately 14% alcohol. (Which explains why these pics are starting to get as blurry as our vision was).
Which led to us getting hopelessly lost. With all the narrow, windy roads it took us a good 25 minutes to find our way out of town and back to the road that led home.
How tough is the Fatty in this pic? See that drop off behind Fatty in the pic? That's actually a steep road that leads down to this little tiny part of the penninsula that goes out into the water. We drove down to explore and take a closer look.
