Surprisingly enough, the story has come to an end. Yes, we were in Crete for only a week, and mostly just lounged on the beach, so there isn't much left to tell. The photos will be from Tanya's previously unpublished ones, because I only got my hands on them recently.
After returning from the bike tour, I read a book in my room for a bit, rinsed off in the shower, and went to the restaurant. There I consumed a proper farewell dinner, savoring as much watermelon as possible for the road. I was thirsty, and I was so sick and tired of lemonade, so I had to lean heavily on the wine after all. I was sitting alone, because my comrades in arms had already had dinner by then, and I polished off glasses one by one, downing a whole liter. I was in no rush; a couple of beautiful French people were sitting nearby — a man and his wife. I almost wanted to hit on them (NOT GAY), but I'm such a bore sometimes that even when drunk I don't want to bother people. So I just sat and enjoyed the waiters scurrying back and forth, the snow-white tablecloths, and the fact that even though it was evening and I was sitting outside, it was warm and bright. And all this with the French language as a musical accompaniment. In general, I looked around, soaked in the laid-back Cretan mentality, and needed absolutely nothing else.
I sat there practically until the restaurant closed. Then I went to the beach bar, found my fellow travelers, and continued to dwell in a state of nirvana, aggravating it with additional infusions of white wine. There were five of us sitting there, because Andryukha had found a Russian girl somewhere who was vacationing in Crete alone. (We freaks forgot his name, © the band 2h company). Even though I was in an elevated state of mind from the more than a liter of wine I'd drunk, I couldn't help but notice that behind the pool on the left, where we usually hung out and looked at the sea, there was a huge group of locals loudly celebrating something. Then I spotted the hotel manager, the very one who controls everything. Next to him was a man in a suit and a baby stroller. A drunk man fears no ocean, so I went over to ask what they were celebrating. Tanya, despite usually being quite pushy, periodically stops me when she thinks I'm getting carried away. But this time she didn't manage to, or maybe didn't even intend to. There could have been a thrilling story here about how I dragged everyone into the pool, but nothing of the sort happened — they just told me they were celebrating a christening. I’m not that kind of man, maybe it's for the best.
The shadow gets in the way of the composition. Prevents it from becoming too glamorous
The Russian girl left us first, then Tanya and Sergey quickly bailed in hopes of getting some sleep. Andryukha and I chatted a bit more about some philosophical nonsense, and then went to bed too, because there was a bus for the plane at two in the morning. I didn't really manage to sleep in the room or on the bus, but I woke up without an alarm clock and woke up Andrey. By the time we were at the airport I already had a hangover kicking in, and I have no idea how I survived standing in line. My suitcase weighed 27 kg with the limit being twenty, because it was packed full of olive oil, wine, and spices. The laid-back Cretans let it slide though — maybe because they counted it for both me and Andrey. Andrey and Tanya forgot to put their toothpastes and whatnot into their checked luggage, and they had to throw them in the trash, since the EU doesn't let you carry liquids in the cabin. Funnily enough, Andrey forgot to throw out one toothpaste, and of course, they didn't find it. They weren't even looking — as if Cretan customs officers care what tourists bring back to their home country.
On the plane, I pulled off the reverse of Andrey's maneuver on the flight out — I took his seat by the window. It didn't do me much good — the view was partially blocked by the wing. Good thing it at least had a “Do not walk here” sign on it, at least some entertainment. And upon landing in Riga, we were greeted by the usual Baltic rain. Some boring straight-A student would write that, oddly enough, this made him happy because he was sick of the Cretan heat. But I will write that it made me happy because I love rain. Also pretty boring, but at least it's a different dull cliché, the right one.
Anyway, it's time to wrap things up. Crete is wonderful. It would be great to go there for half a year — to bike around everything. I liked almost everything: sitting on the beach is nice, the ancient fortresses are nice, the sea and the lake too. I don't regret that I didn't see everything — that's stupid, in a week I would have just overexerted myself, and still only seen a tiny part of Crete, and even then, just as a tourist. As it is, at least I chatted with some new people in the form of locals, Tanya and Sergey, and even built another mythological theory about chilling — it's good when you have somewhere to fit the facts. Now my sister will come running, and with a persistence instilled by consumer society, will start asking what exactly I liked the most. Since she wants a deliberately false answer to an incorrectly posed question, I'll try to come up with one. (By the way, Dr. House does this often — giving completely arbitrary answers to inherently meaningless questions).
Let it be the tavern above Kournas on the bike tour. It's very beautiful and peaceful there; I haven't felt that way in a long time.
And yes, I liked it in Crete. I generally like everything new and varied. (Oddly enough, not everyone is like that). Will I go somewhere else all-inclusive — I don't know, it depends on the circumstances.
It's just a pity that the world is huge, and even if you visit two countries a year, you won't cover them all.