Greece Redux: "Celebrity" Volleyballers

August, 2010

I couldn’t move on to the next country until I had closure over telling you about our time in Greece.

I’ll try to contain myself to brief highlights, but brief does not capture my typical blogging style.

We hit the Greece beaches on the first day, hitting the hottest, “volleyball celebrity,” beach filled with models. I don’t exaggerate. That’s what they told us at the gate. I laughed. Then they were completely right.

Avery, the eldest cousin at age 16, had just gotten his driver’s license and had to be dragged away from his partying friends in Scarsdale to come to Greece, to slum it with his younger cousins and elders. To console him, we tracked him down and steered him towards the volleyball celebrities and models. And, they did not disappoint. Note his beaming smile in every picture. He watched the models frolic in the water for a photo shoot, all advertising the drink Frulite (get this – it’s a drink where they add chocolate to orange juice! It made me want to vomit but Avery didn’t seem to notice).

The other Frulite model-based activity was a volleyball game, filled with female models in butt-baring bikinis who don’t know how to play volleyball, one real Olympic female Greek volleyball player, and a couple buffed male models who actually knew how to play and made the game happen. Avery immediately signed he and Ken up to play. Ken told me he had to play with the models, to make Avery happy.

The entire Freeman family showed up for the “celebrity” volleyball game a couple hours later. We sat in the small stands, we dominated the lounge chairs, we yelled as only New Yorkers can. We drank beer and got louder. We watched a whole lot more bounce than just the volleyball. Jen was nervous that Avery would embarrass himself on the volleyball sand, but she was relieved when he hit his first serve, right into a model on the other team, who, surprise surprise, missed the ball! Ken was one of the better players, along with the male models who were more than just eye candy for the female Freemans in the crowd. They didn’t bother keeping score, but Griffin and his cousins ran around telling everyone his Daddy and cousin won the game.

After that we posed some more on the beach, then the kids got henna tattoos. Griffin got a dragon and Boom a spider. Within a day, their tattoos started to swell. After a few days, Griffin’s started oozing puss, dripping down his arm. By the time we were leaving town, we had to put Griffin on oral steroids because his body was reacting by breaking out in an itchy rash and hives all over. Tina did her research and found out that Greek henna tattoos on the beach are known for giving allergic reactions to some people who get them. They put black hair dye, PPD, I think, in the henna to make it darker. More than a month later, Griffin’s finally cleared up leaving a ghostly white trace of a dragon on his arm.

Later, at the same beach, Lisa lured me into trying windsurfing for the first time. Ken said no because he thought his upper body wasn’t strong enough. Steve said yes, maybe because his upper body strength is solid. Lisa was an excellent teacher, and I got up pretty quickly then watched Steve struggle. Turns out it’s about balance not strength. But, Steve eventually figured out how to turn the windsurfer around while I didn’t. On my last, most tired, attempt I started flying over the ocean surface, incredibly fast feeling like a bird. I kept on trying to turn around but couldn’t. I continued heading south and finally pushed the windsurfer into the shallow and walked it back. Lisa swam back to help me. Then, Harvey huffed his way down the beach, telling me he almost called the Greek Coast Guard to come get me.