Sunday
When I woke on Sunday, my head was furry inside from the nightcaps. I showered, and had breakfast with the others, who were not feeling furry. Wandering down to the harbour, I bought a bottle of water, had a coffee and put my hologram eyeball sunglasses on to see if anyone noticed them.
I went into the Sunday session feeling considerably better than I have done in previous years. Thank you, family, for keeping me on the straight and narrow!
When the session began, Ed announced that ferries were being cancelled left right and centre because force 8 winds were being forecast, and it would be a good idea to get off the island before Monday. I resolved to find out if Flying Cat 2 would be affected as soon as I could.
The first session of the day was C Metin Kodalak's session on the Turkish baglama, which was interesting, but after about twenty minutes, it had turned into various people giving their opinions on the (pointless) tetrachordo versus trichordo debate, which Ed sensibly suggested should be postponed to next year's conference, when the bouzouki would be one of the featured instruments.
The day's second speaker was Panagiotis Agiakatsikas from Lesvos, with a paper on Zeybekiko rhythms. This paper is supposed to be already on Ed's site, but I can't see where, or I would put in a link to it.
We were then treated to some rather good music by Yona Stamatis, C Metin Kodalak, and Panagiotis Agiakatsikas. And then the conference ended, with grand plans for some sort of multi-centred tour for a future conference, and the suggestion that a jam in the Pirate Bar might soon follow.
I went off and told my family about the weather warnings. They were rather concerned, so I went to the ferry ticket booking office to ask if the Flying Cat 2 would be running on Monday, and the girl said "Maybe", which wasn't really good enough. So I went to the Port Police office to see if they had any advice, and they told me the Flying Cat 2 was the least likely ferry to be cancelled. We decided to hang on to our tickets, and went off for lunch. I had some sardines and ouzo.
At the Pirate Bar I recorded for quite a while, chatted to the few people who were still around, and recorded a quick burst on the baglama. Later, we went shopping and then for a siesta, followed by an evening meal at Christina's, where almost everything on the short menu was already gone. This was an expensive and disappointing meal, after my terrific lunch on the roof the year before. The rain started in earnest, and soon there was a fast flowing river outside. We waited until it wasn't quite as deep, and escorted under two golf umbrellas by Christina, we paddled back to the hotel, where we did most of our packing, and went to bed.
Usually, I end with "The next day, I went home." This year was a bit different...
Monday