Major Holiday Detox (needed)

Crazy, isn't it? You go on a holiday to take a break from real life but once you get back, you really need something akin to a holiday detox to help you jump right back into your normal life. We got back home at around 2 a.m yesterday night/morning and woke up early to get to work. The Husband was excited as expected because he was finally getting to code after 21 long days of shitty internet, no phone and no access to work e-mails. The poor thing missed reading his work e-mails so much that he finished - wait for it - 14 books (FOURTEEN!) in 21 days. That's one book a day for every day spent in Plaka. And 7 of those were from the Harry Potter series which he picked up for the very first time in his life. Those of you who've been with me on this journey of documenting my life on this blog for a while now might know that The Husband never really read many books growing up. He was never a book-worm, and hardly ever had the patience for fiction unless it was compressed into a) a 2 hour movie b) a 24 minute episode of a series or c) a graphic book with speech bubbles. The first time he ever read a personal/story blog was when his wife started writing about his life on the internet. The first time he "read" a full book was when his wife listened to an audiobook in his presence. Actually, no. He'd read one book immediately after we started dating to impress me. Or rather, so as to not scare me away. He (begrudgingly) read a book that I gifted him because he felt it was too early in the relationship to tell me that we didn't share that one interest. But something about the innate bookworm in me rubbed off on him after 5 and a half years of togetherness and nearly one and a half years of marriage. On our four hour flight to Greece, while I was devouring the pages of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which, by the way, I finished in those four hours), I found him resting his chin on my shoulder and peeking into the book the whole time. By the time I was done reading it, he had grasped the entire plot himself and exclaimed, "Holy shit! That was good.". That's what led him to borrow The Bromance's Kindle and devour the pages of 14 books in the span of 21 days. Now I know one thing for certain. Shane Girish can never remain idle. Not even on a holiday. I'm not complaining though. I feel that there's nothing more relaxing than curling up with a book on the beach and eating delicious food whenever you feel hungry. And that's exactly what we were up to for the past three weeks. I only read six books though because, you know, I'm kind of normal.

Let me explain to you why I feel that we now need a holiday detox after all the relaxing and stretching and sleeping in that happened over the last couple of weeks. Let me do that by painting a word picture of what the last couple of weeks were like for us. You see, a Mediterranean summer lifestyle is not necessarily the healthiest lifestyle on the planet. Our days merged into our nights and our nights blended in with our days. On a typical good day in Greece, we'd wake up either drunk or hungover in the morning by 2 p.m with possibly a sore throat and a feeling that we're going to be really, really sick soon. So we'd stagger up to a café and order fresh fruits and fresh fruit juice and mountain tea infused with honey and extra strong espressos in the hopes of getting our bodies to function for another 12-14 hours. And once "breakfast" was done by 3 or 4 p.m, we'd drag our asses to the beach to either swim or get surprised all over again by all the beauty that bright blue waters have to offer. By the time the sun goes down by 8 p.m, we're ready to stuff our faces again. So we'd go back to our rooms, shower etc, and meet up at a cafe to eat. And this time, we really eat. Like, real food. And by real food I mean, not-so-healthy but oh-my-GOD-so-tasty food. And remember what comes free after dinner? So by 10 or 11 p.m, everyone gathers at this cafe and starts snacking, talking, drinking, laughing and...living. People wake up at night. People start living at night. People start playing games at night. People sometimes swim all the way to Spinalonga at night. They sometimes end up stepping on sea urchins and get tiny black toothpick like things stuck on their toes in the process but they never stop living at night. "You have to do it!", this girl exclaimed to me after she returned from her swim to Spinalonga one night. "Everything was closed so we had to jump over the barricade to climb all the way to the top. It was hard at first but GOD, the view! You have to do it!", she said.

"But darling, I can barely swim like a frog."

That night was two nights before our last day in Greece and I was hanging out mostly with the girls. I turn 25 in two months and one thing I know for certain from the few years of my life that I have lived as an "adult" is that I hate hangovers. What I hate more than hangovers is having to puke. So this entire trip, I'd been avoiding both eventualities as far as possible and had been doing quite well for the most part. I hadn't puked in 19 days of this lifestyle and was proud of it. And then, I hung out with my girls.

It started off with good old fashioned red wine and then came shot after shot of 'Rakomelo', which if you remember is the traditional Cretan drink called 'Raki' infused with honey. It's sweet, so you don't immediately taste the alcohol when you consume it. Moreover, the thing with Raki is that it hits you only much later. That's why, if you've read one of my previous posts, The Husband could walk in a straight line while touching his nose with alternate hands even after 25 shots of Raki. But that was in the beginning. Towards the end of the night when the Raki finally hit him, he started professing his love to me in a very annoying German accent.

That night with my girls (well not strictly girls because everyone knows everyone else and everyone's present everywhere in this tiny village called Plaka), we even had watermelon for desert. What's more, it was free. At some point, one of my favourite girls carried me and started walking with such ease as if I was her handbag and not heavy at all. This made me want to try the same thing with her but I thought I might break my back if I persisted. Finally, she carried me all the way to our apartment (and there was even a procession of drunk people behind us) and "deposited" me with The Husband saying, "Shane, your wife". I went to bed straight after that, slept for some time, woke up with an urge, got out of bed, opened the door to our balcony, sat on a patio chair and gave in to that urge by puking red puke. Red because of the red wine and the watermelon. The Husband, who didn't know any better, thought it was blood and freaked out. He didn't sleep that night as he kept checking me every 10 minutes to see if I was breathing or choking. When I woke up in the morning, I felt okay and he said, "Thank God, I thought you were dying! I haven't slept all night!", and closed his eyes to immediately start snoring. "What a drama queen!", I thought to myself, unaware of all the freaking out that happened while I was passed out. Fun times.

So that was the "lifestyle". It was a cycle. Stay up till 7 a.m and watch the sun rise, wake up at 3 p.m to witness 5 hours of daylight. I didn't know the date, the day of the week or even the time during this holiday. It went by too quickly for the same reason and now, it already appears to be a distant dream while I try to get back to my normal life.

Sleep and food routines need fixing and a major holiday detox is needed at 22 Nelson Street X_X But at least we returned to a very clean house. Thanks Mom, for all the nagging and advising. I can't believe I'm saying this and I have the widest smile on my face right now, but returning to a clean home after a holiday is truly one of the best feelings in the world.