Last days in Crete

We have run through many parts of Crete and leave here tonight by boat to go to island of Sifnos. Thursday we had 6-7 stops, which are referred to as ceremonies and each village and some larger towns put on ceremonial dances and tables of food etc. I’m not sure if I mentioned it but our group is Route 3 which consists of 3 teams of ten of us. We also have 3 Special Olympic athletes who are part of our team…it is a way of including them as they are not competing in the Games. All of us (including the athletes) are tasked with doing speeches at the various stops.

At the end of the day (10 pm last night)it was my turn with Special Olympic athlete Adam Hayes from Maryland USA. He is a very good speaker so I knew I had to be up for the challenge. The town, Agios Nikolaos is a tourist town with a lot of British influence.

As the bus dropped our team off, we mustered in threes and began our short 1 kilometer run through the cobble stoned streets. Some local athletes joined in and many people cheered us on from shop fronts, restaurant patios etc. As Adam and I approached the large plaza the crowds became larger and I could here the band playing the theme song for Special Olympics. The crowd became bigger and bigger as Adam and I led our 3 teams into the plaza - I couldn’t believe how enthusiastic and outwardly gracious these people were. This is bigger than I ever imagined.

We ran up on stage and then as the music continued many local athletes joined us shaking our hands hugging us, wanting just to touch us like we could really change their lives.

The mayor did his welcome speech followed by a few other speeches and then it was Adams turn. He was incredible (wow talk about pressure for me)! As they introduced me I thought to myself…if Adam can do it so can I. By the way the crowd estimated at approx 1000 people.

Keep in mind the majority are Greek so we need an interpreter. So after a few lines I had to stop so our so rep could repeat in Greek.

As I approached I leaned over to Adam and said “hey no big deal right just a small family gathering…” he laughs “oh yeah sure!”

I’ll post my speech in a separate blog in a bit.

After I was done, there was incredible dance performance on the stage. After about an hour Adam and I lit the torch from the caldron and led the teams back out with the 1000+ crowd cheering us on.

After all of this we hopped back on a bus for more travel time. Most of us cat nap to catch up on sleep. But also we get our Greek officers Marita or Panos to get the radio turned up with great Greek music. Panos made us instant Greek coffees in to-go cups. I have helped Gonzalo from Portugal translate his speech into English - although he is quite fluent in both speaking and writing we have all had many laughs with some of the translations.

Our team leader, Bill Buford from Arkansas is an old hat at this and there is too much in his bio to go into but he served in Vietnam, and at 66, only recently retired from policing. He wears a cowboy hat and often has an unlit cigar. Lots of us posed with his hat and at his request we all signed it. We are known as the roadkill team. He is one of those once in a life time kind of guys and I am so lucky I was picked for his team.

We are pool-side today and it is a nice break after lots of long days. I think it was after 2 am before I hit the pillow. I caught up on what happened with the Canucks. It sounds very disappointing and really embarrassing for our city. I hope everyone that had to work it came out unscathed.