Love, Life and Santorini

‘So you’re writing a book huh?’ Nikos leant forward onto the bar and stroked his overly long goatee. ‘What’s it called?’

I shrugged and sipped my local wine. ‘It doesn’t have a name.’

‘I have a name for it.’ He rubbed his hands together, and for a moment, looked like the love child of Lucifer and Perez Hilton. It may have been the overly long goatee.  ‘Love, Life and Santorini.’

At the time, I laughed. But, had I known what lay in store, I would have agreed to that title quick smart. See, Nikos, who would come to be as much my friend as my informant, knew better than I. Having worked countless seasons at his mother’s bar during the peak summer season, having encountered ferry-loads of backpackers who flood the Greek islands during the summer, looking for work that will allow them to continue traipsing through the winter months and, bottom line, being Greek, Nikos knew the well worn ropes of small village life far, far better than I did.

I was there for two months, to work a season, live the island life and assuage my constantly itching feet, at least for another semester at university. An English woman I had met whilst travelling around Europe the year before, had extended the offer of a job at her bar, that was there for the taking whenever I wanted it. Within two days of voicing a desire to flee Sydney for my mid-year break, I had emailed her, confirmed a job and booked a ticket. Six days later, I was on a plane, my suitcase full of summer dresses, books and my faithful laptop.

Santorini, home of the white washed buildings clinging precariously to sheer-drop cliff faces, acres of shrubby vineyards, allegedly thousands of disinterested looking donkeys, and some of the most dramatic views the Greek Islands have to offer, suspends reality somewhere between getting off the plane and fetching your luggage from the lone conveyer belt, and it will not give it back to you until you are far, far away. The pace of life is quietly seductive. It’s unhurried and unapologetic. No one is appalled if something doesn’t arrive the next day, post more often than not turns up on the other side of the island months later, and the locals can stretch a frappe into a three hour long event. Particularly if the conversation is good, which, considering the Greek penchant for drama and gossip, it usually is. And, at the end of long, languid days spent in the sun, if the water runs out mid shower, there’s not much you can do until the water man does his next round. Not that showers have to be long, just enough to rinse off sand, sunscreen, and the salt of the Aegean Ocean.

Within days of arriving, the Mediterranean lifestyle had seeped into my bones, warming them much like the hot Greek sun I spent so much time splayed beneath. I slept till Midday in my little tiled room with its blue walls and wooden bed, drank cherry juice for breakfast, and headed to the beach, usually collecting any of the other working travellers at some point along the short walk to the black-sand beach for which the village in which I lived, Perissa, is famous for (Santorini also has a red beach, Akrotiri). After lying, sprawled in the syrupy sun, we’d swim in the flat waters, watching the German tourists play some sort of racquet ball on the beach and the English roast their delicate skin. Lunch was late, and usually a fresh gyros from one of two local places, the rest of last night’s late night moussaka pie, or spanikopita from Babis (whose café was conveniently opposite the bar in which I worked, and thus my room above it). If the afternoon called for it, which, let’s face it, it often did, the best way to see the day out was with a jug of local wine at any one of the ramshackle restaurants lining the stretch of Perissa beach, all the way down to its neighbouring beach village, Perivolos. And most days included a siesta with my adopted black kitten Herb, or writing in my room with a cider or two, before work started at 8.

Living in a small village isn’t something I’m accustomed to. I didn’t live near where I want to school, not overly close to where I go to uni, nor where I have worked (save for a brief stint at the local McDonalds). I have never had the next door neighbours know what I did for Christmas, let alone what I did last night. And suddenly, everyone from Babis the café owner to the lovely man who made my daily gyros, knew exactly what I did every night, exactly what time I got home in the morning, and whether or not I was last spotted going for a 3am dip in the warm waters of the Aegean.

Initially, the cosiness of knowing every second person in the village, and skipping down the main road, calling out Kalimera to all the shop owners, was so seductive. What one forgets is, on the flipside of knowing everyone, is everyone knowing you. And knowing everything about you. Swap water for wine, throw in the mercurial hearts of Mediterranean men, and bake it all beneath the heat of a Greek sun, and reality bows out to make way for a perpetual dreamlike state.

Tourists roll their burnt bodies off the beach at about 5pm and head home to nap before big dinners of largely fresh produce. Fava, tzatziki, tomato balls and moussaka.  Souvlaki, spanikopita, feta laden Greek salads. The English, who were earlier spotted roasting their delicate skin on the beach, are invariably bright red and shifting uncomfortably in the heat (or wearing garish sarongs) the Irish settle in for the long drinking haul, the Northern Europeans are bronzed, stylish and appear not to sweat because they’re irritatingly perfect, and Australians and Americans abound. Just abound. And talk a lot. They usually, despite the Aussies slagging the Americans off non-stop, find each other and drink/sleep together to form one ghastly ball of humanity.

Working my first season at Fusion Bar, I unwittingly stepped into my own Mediterranean soap opera. I joined a colourful cast of pseudo locals, like me, from all over the world – the English woman fresh out of a tempestuous marriage to a Greek man, looking for all sorts of fun; the Albanian posse whose legal status was at best questionable, at worst non existent; the Australian and American backpackers whose summer wages would ensure their world wide traipsing could continue into the colder months. These psuedo locals form a little community of their own, they are the friends you make because they are in the same position as you – working for volatile bosses for whom firing a hapless bar-tender is as much part of his day as mixing his sixth frappe – friends you drink with every night when you clock off from a nine hour shift serving vomiting Irish wedding parties black sambucca, friends who you help try and translate a garbled profession of love from a local romantic, and friends who pick you up, hold your hand tightly and scream abuse at your boss who fly-kicked you in the stomach because you dared speak to a man out of turn.

And then, of course, there were the locals, who have watched floods of tourists and workers drink, eat and sunbathe their way through the seasons. Who while away the hottest part of the day pondering the latest drama to befall the village, which invariably involved the town drunk and/or a nearly impossible love triangle. Over the course of my stint in Perissa, according to those who sunned at the hotbed of gossip every day, the pool/bar run by Perez himself, I would be embroiled in countless trysts, have numerous boyfriends, often a couple at once, and unwittingly promise myself to several more. And I would be watched by a steady audience, every step of the way.

Perhaps the most recurrent and relentless speculation surrounded my friendship with my male bestie on the island, a hapless and hopelessly funny Brit. It simply wasn’t fathomable that we would spend so much time together and not, in some way, be involved. No one ever stopped to think for an instant we spent so much time together because it was the only way the both of us would retain any level of sanity. Anyway, how do you explain that to a hot blooded Albanian man who can’t speak English and keeps trying to make you get on his scooter so he can scoot you down the road and buy you lunch/regale you with proclamations of love he has memorised from a bad romantic comedy?

Of course, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch the soapie lives of others with the same keenness they watched mine. Workers acquire a sort of temporary-local status, and whilst tourists come – throw up, pass out on the beach and fall off quad bikes with soothing regularity – and go, the lives of locals are fair frappe-conversation game. The more illicit, passionate and unexpected the love affairs, fights, fall-outs and love-ins were, the better. When Stephan the Serbian stabbed a member of the Albanian mafia (who, somehow, have a branch on the island of Santorini) you could hear the grapevine pulsate, the words drift up and down the main street in curling whispers. When one of the town lovers-of-alcohol picked a fight with a bar owner town stalwart, everybody knew where and when the showdown was happening. And if you think you’re safe sneaking home, or sending someone sneaking out your room at 6am, think again.

About six weeks in, an Australian girl arrived in Perissa and came out with some of the girls one night, after we’d finished work. Over farcically large cocktails, she said, ‘do you have any suggestions for surviving a season here?’ The four of us girls, a circle of enduring friendship borne of surviving the season, looked at each other, then tripped over ourselves, yelling out garbled instructions.

‘Ignore leering men. Just ignore them.’ Danielle, a fellow Australian, waved her glass.

‘Greeks are temperamental bosses. Give them their drama, and get on with it.’ Jess, the wise one from Oregon, nodded sagely.

‘Don’t worry when people talk about you, because they will.’ Michelle, another fellow Aussie who was at the time, living in Ireland, was matter of fact. And spot on.

‘And you will be at the centre of numerous love triangles, without your knowledge.’ I sipped my Champagne Passion. ‘I have been in several. In fact, I think I might be betrothed to Nikos the Albanian whose name isn’t really Nikos.’

The New Girl nodded, wide eyed, her face glowing red from that day’s sunburn.

We nodded back, narrow eyed and sipped at our sweet drinks. A month on the island, and we were as adept at drama as the Greeks themselves.

At the flicker of worry that passed through the New Girls eyes, we all hastened to add in some form of unison, ‘I mean, don’t get us wrong. It’s a fabulous life. It’s just not at all normal.’

In a place where you are expected to say Good Morning until at least 3pm, and evening is anything beyond 8 o’clock, it is so easy to get sucked into the simplest of rhythms. To spend your days on the beach, watching children clamber up the slippery rock face like baby monkeys, their brown sugar skin gleaming in the midday sun, and jump like darts into the clear water below. To spend hours over one meal and several carafes of cold, local wine. To sleep well past midday, and then back go to bed for a siesta four hours later. To get your evening started at midnight and not notice 3 or 4am slip by, and realise it’s well past 6am only when the sun begins its morning ascent. To catch a wink from the little old men in their waist high slacks and taut train driver caps, as they shuffle behind their black clad wives.

I wasn’t writing a book on Santorini, I was writing a book on something far less volatile, dramatic and beautiful. My characters were not as colourful or strange, the backdrop not a patch on Santorini’s sheer cliff faces, or beaches carved out of ruby red rock. But, who knows, maybe one day I will.

All images copyright Olivia Hambrett. Please do not reproduce without permission.