Told me pools were too plebeian / Told me you were in th'Aegean

May 26, 2005

The Last Time I Went Swimming

by Stephen Philip Quincy Arthur
3rd Grade

The last time I went swimming was in the summer of 2003. I had taken a bus from Xania to Paleoxora and, with a confused-looking couple who had meant to go hike the Samarian gorge (which wasn't going to open until the following day anyway) but had gotten on the wrong bus, secured a place to stay for the night. Then I walked up a windy mountain road, the entrance to which was guarded by some bored-looking goats, and during the ascent of which a non-trivial number of bleached skulls were visible. Eventually I attained my intermediate goal, a very small town, and was confronted by a bunch of pre-school-age German kids (or at least: kids speaking German), who had been ferried there by their parents in SU-like Vs. I walked back and forth through this town for a while, and even out the other side where I could look down on it from above (as is only fitting), because I missed the sign telling me where the thalassa was (and probably wouldn't have understood it had I seen it) until some old Cretan told me where to go.

So I walked down the gorge, which at some points featured a small stream, leaping over obstacles real and imagined, until I finally came upon a beach in tres partes divisa, the divisions characterized by varying degrees of pebbliness and empeopledness. I went to the rightmost, which was moderately pebbly and completely unpopulated—important, since if I were to swim in anything other than my by-then thoroughly sweat-soaked clothes, it would be with no covering but that with which I was born, either really (skin) or potentially (hair).

Then I went back to town (fortunately a much shorter walk along the beach than the roundabout path by which I had come) where I encountered the people I met on disembarking from the bus eating at a restaurant, and then we got ice cream (I had coconut and chocolate).

All this is by way of saying that it's great that this place has a pool and all, but wouldn't it be better to ditch that, the "fitness room", etc, and include the utilities in the rent, or offer free high-speed intarweb? Because I've made A Vow (starting yesterday) never to swim in anything less cool than the Aegean. So, eg, the Hellespont, the Sea of Faith: in. A pool in an apartment complex: no go.

Comments

on 2005-05-26 10:52:05.0, Joe Drymala commented:

I wish the feet matched up in your post title.

Told me pools were too plebeian / Told me you were in th'Aegean

Comments

on 2005-05-26 10:52:05.0, Joe Drymala commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 10:57:11.0, ben wolfson commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 11:01:59.0, Joe Drymala commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 11:02:28.0, Joe Drymala commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 11:08:09.0, ben wolfson commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 0:59:39.0, ac commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 13:14:23.0, ben wolfson commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 13:32:22.0, Joe Drymala commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 15:26:53.0, Standpipe Bridgeplate commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-26 18:52:25.0, mandy commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-27 21:40:16.0, ChunkMonkey commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-27 22:57:44.0, ben wolfson commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-28 3:14:05.0, dave zacuto commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-29 20:15:15.0, rone commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-29 20:23:49.0, ben wolfson commented:

and, further, on 2005-05-29 21:11:50.0, rone commented: