Three days in paradise.

#summer2k16 so far has everything but what I imagined it would be. I left for Germany on July 5^th for three weeks of intense catering to teenagers’ needs. To be honest, I don’t know what I expected but I can with 100% certainty say, I did not expect this. The three weeks were intense emotionally and physically but it was fun and enjoyable and beyond everything very informative. Furthermore, Germany taught me that you can get so much out of every experience, if you just allow yourself to embrace it. The other thing you need to actually enjoy an experience is time. Lots of it.

But sometimes you don’t make your own agenda and have to follow someone else’s planner. So A and I had exactly three days together before I would leave for a 7 week field course in India. So naturally A and I jumped on the opportunity to visit with A’s relatives who were visiting “the old country” from the US. If you know A, you might know that he is half Greek, his family is from a small island of the coast of Turkey called Chios and if you ever make it to Greece, stop by in Chios. The flight (or rather the landing) alone is well worth it!

So A and I left Oslo a day after I came back from Germany to have a wonderful and more importantly well-deserved holiday together. We were picked up by A’s cousin who instantly told me, that I should change my plane ticket so I could stay a bit longer in Greece and let India wait for a while and if I could have I would have… The cousin then proceeded in saying that, “Three days is not enough to gain any weight”, which apparently Europeans are well known for doing when visiting Greece. And I have to admit, the cousin was right. Three days are definitely not long enough to gain any weight (not that this was my prerogative anyways). Three days are hardly enough to do anything at all… other than falling in love. You can fall in love in three days, take it from me!

Three days went by way too quickly. We tried to make the most of every day (read: eat as much good food as you can only in Greece). We toured the island and got to see where A’s family came from. But mostly, we enjoyed each other’s company, drank coffee early in the day, set together, talked, played games and laughed… Three magical days, wonderful in every way possible. We did everything the Greek way, meaning, a lot of detours, lots of arguing or yelling, for no apparent reason at all, but that’s what makes Greece so wonderful.

Although my time was limited, Chios gave me the greatest gifts of all: it reminded me of my love for the ocean. The feeling of dried salt on my sun-tanned skin, the smells that only cities close to the oceans can produce and the refreshing feeling of the deep blue when you need a break from roasting in the sun. But Greece did one other thing as well, it allowed me to fall in love with my husband of almost three years all over again. Not that, I ever fell out of love in the first place. But sometimes, three days are just enough to remind you that the world is full of wonders and that you should live every moment to the fullest…