"But surely it would have been a pity not to have seen the trees along this road, really exaggerated in their beauty, not to have seen them gesturing like noble pantomimists, robed in pink."
-Elizabeth Bishop, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/questions-of-travel/
One very funny thing about this trip has been that on three separate occasions, people have asked me and Josefin if we were sisters. As you can clearly see in the pictures (correct me if I’m wrong), we look nothing like sisters. Josefin has blondish hair and mine is redish brown. She is shorter and smaller than me, we have totally different facial features, and though we are both pale, we still have every different skin tone (I have lots of freckles and she has none). She has blue eyes and mine are brown. We also have very different accents—Josefin’s is Swedish and mine is East coast. We theorized that perhaps people think we are sisters because we both smile a lot.
Today, we woke up early to board a bus to Lindos on the other side of the Island. This day trip, I have to say, was my favorite part of my trip so far, so I’m glad it came at the end. First, we walked up a steep mountain to see the Temple of Athena. It was SO SO hot that I felt like my face was going to melt off, but we made it up there, buying a couple cute Grecian dresses on the way.
On the top of the mountain was the most gorgeous view. It was the kind of view that makes your heart flutter in your chest and makes you wonder how any evil could exist in a world as beautiful as this one. We both wore our new dresses and took some pictures:
After exploring the rooms of the Temple (there were few left), we walked down the mountain to the beach, where we got some lunch and swam in the sparkling, warm, salty water. Because of the high salt content, it was very easy to float, so Josefin and I held hands and floated on our backs in the sun. We joked that we could fall asleep in that position and wake up on another island. I wished we could float there forever, but we had to make our bus back to the old city, so we left after a half hour or so.
Once we were back at our hotel, we showered and booked ourselves a short two-person Swedish massage. Even though Josefin was Swedish, she had never heard of this type of treatment, but, luckily, it turned out to be amazing.
After our massages, we walked around the city feeling warm and light and clean, and we watched the sunset again on a dock. Then, we had a delicious dinner of pizza and pasta and explored the city one last time.
As we were exploring, we noticed that all the guys in Rhodes seem to have the same one pick up line: “Ello” in a deep voice with an accent on the “Ell.” That was the only pick up line we heard during our entire trip, and if we didn’t respond, they would repeat it once or twice in the exact same tone as the first time. “Ello, ello… ello.”
We ordered a huge fishbowl drink which was a full Liter (but probably only 7% vodka), and we drank while watching the soccer game and listening to the occasional “Ello.”