At the end of the course a few days ago, one of my students gave me her fake white ray-bans as a reminder of the fun we had together. Those were the eight euro ray-bans I made her buy after our first lesson, the kind you can find easily on every stall in Antiparos. They make me smile every time I look at them, so I think it’s the highest time to write about the Eight Euro Glasses Phenomenon we have here on Paros ;)

The thing about Greece is that the sun here seems to shine stronger. It burns your skin and it burns your eyes. Without sunglasses you’re gonna go blind.

And if you have to look at the kite for three hours straight you’re gonna go blind at least twice.

When the student goes into the water for the first time, you can bet they’re going to look at the kite continuously. It would be unreasonable to expect them to do otherwise, since they are already overwhelmed with the wind, water, kite lines and all the other new things around them. To make it at least a bit easier for them, I always say before our first lesson “if you have any sunglasses that are not extremely expensive, take them with you into the water. If you don’t, go today to Antiparos and buy the cheapest ones you can find.”

Turns out I have good students. Veeery good students who listen carefully to what I say :) They do go to Antiparos and they do buy the cheapest sunglasses they can find. So if you ever wonder why so many people are running up and down the beach in extremely fake colorful ray-bans, huge black ’60 styled shades or zebra/tiger stripped glasses, this is probably partly my fault ;) I think for the past two months I went with my students through all the shapes and colors of glasses availiable on Paros… and we had always so much fun with it! :) I love how you can slip all those small details into your lessons which make people enjoy everything more. Because what could be more funny than a guy who just finished a crazy bodydrag, with a big smile on his face, water dripping down his nose and pink ray-bans barely hanging on one of his ears?

Try not to smile at that. Try not to think “there is no better job than mine.”
It really is impossible. :)

So yeah. Eight euro glasses on Paros are THE thing to have this season. And if you ever decide to wander into our humble abode, you better not forget to bring them with you.


May wind be with you,
-Suzana

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