We really did it

Hello my dearest friends, honorable and dishonorable family, and greatest enemies!

My husband Joshua, my 18 year old son Felix, our adorable anxious American Staffordshire Terrier BMO, a 14 year old cat named Bowie, and I moved to Crete, the largest Greek island, from Colorado in May.

BMO’s first time at the ocean!

So many of you have wanted to follow along with our adventures, and I’ve been meaning to start a blog. So I did. A little late, but I figured I better start now or it will never happen!

We have officially been in Greece for seven weeks now. That’s the longest I’ve been away from America since I was 19! I am finally starting to feel a little more settled in, although I don’t think it will truly feel like home until my treasures have arrived. Home just isn’t home without some good art, crystals, and a bald eagle statue or two.

First things first: Our apartment that we put a down payment on in March of 2022 STILL ISN’T OURS due to a lot of reasons.

The house is made up of four apartments, and the owner has them listed under one dwelling. Getting them legally separated so that we (and the people buying the other three apartments) can buy our spaces is currently one of the last things we’re waiting on. Things move very slowly here! We were told this should be finished in early July, but it’s been a week and we haven’t heard of any progress yet.
The owner/builder did not build the house exactly as he requested the permits to do so. This was the biggest issue that took forever. The bedrooms in the basement were listed as storage rooms and the loft above a sitting area was not permitted at all. There were various other things around the house as a whole that also needed to be fixed, including, but not limited to, demolishing the storage shed that housed the washing machine. He had to remove all bedroom furniture to make those rooms look like storage and completely remove the loft. Then he had to wait for the government to come approve that the building was being used in a way that matched with the permits. This happened right before we arrived, so the house wasn’t ready for us for a good week and a half after we got here.
Currently the water and electricity for the whole establishment are on one meter/account, and that needs to be separated as well so that everyone pays their own portion of the utilities.

I think that’s all, but I swear to Zeus, if it’s not one thing it’s another around here. We can’t actually start our visa process until the sale of this house is finished, so hopefully that happens soon.

We can’t buy our own car until we have the visa in process (actually 40 days after we start it), so we’re renting a terrible car with almost zero bells or whistles. Like the screen to control the entertainment/navigation system is broken, so I have to wear headphones in the car if I want to hear where my good friends at google are telling me to go. Sometime they tell me to go the most difficult or absolutely wrong way, which is also fun! If I could see it on a screen without having to take my eyes completely off the road, some of these wild goose chases would be avoidable!

My pool!

I will share so much more in no doubt excruciating detail, but I needed a jumping off point. So to start, things that are awesome so far:

The pool, obvs.
Being able to go to the beach whenever I want. I can be standing next to it in five or so minutes, but that beach is super shallow for a long ways out. My favorite close by beaches are 10-15 minutes away.
The view from my back porch! We are overlooking the bay and have a direct sunset view every night. Watching it is a highlight of almost every day.
The plants. Cacti. Flowers everywhere.
The cats! There is pussy galore around here, and at least 75% of them are friendly, especially if you have snacks. Don’t worry, I’ll share some favorites in a separate post!
The food, especially getting to buy fresh local stuff from the farmer’s markets. They have the cheapest and most delicious produce, cheeses, herbs, honey, etc.
An abundance of oxygen and a reasonable amount of moisture in the air (most days, some days it’s a swamp, but that’s not super often). Coming from high altitude to sea level living is the bees’ knees to my lungs and sinuses.
Going on mommy and me dates with Felix and drinking cold beers together!

Some things that I miss:

American pepperonis. For real. Top of the list.
Showers that are always hot. Or even warm. I’d take warm? The water is heated with solar power unless you turn on the boiler, which doesn’t always guarantee a hot shower. The best hot showers are in late afternoon when the sun has been on the tank all day, but I don’t really want to waste clean good hair on a late day shower!
Reliable running water. Sometimes they shut it off for repairs or because more important people need it. More important people are tourists at hotels and their pools. I think I just said pools are people. If corporations are people in America, hotel pools are people in Greece. Anyway, it’s mostly been fine, but there was a four day stretch a week or so ago where flushing the toilet was not guaranteed.
My friends and family. I had cultivated such a beautiful garden of people in America. I personally bloomed so hard with them over the last year, and I miss them terribly. I am so grateful to them for helping me find the confidence in myself to know that I will be able to make friends here too! I have actually already made one amazing friend here and am getting to know some more.

Here’s a quick butt surprise just so you don’t think I went all wholesome on you. This space will be mostly family friendly, but some of my current hobbies involve being topless at the beach and taking pictures of my butt. So you can’t say you haven’t been warned.