“Excuse me? Is this your receipt?”

Mykonos

                After checking into our hotel up a mountainous hill overlooking the town, Sara and I began the descent and began trawling our new set of shops. We fell in love with the jewellery and artwork and even bought a few things... that night Dad picked his new favourite bar and bought a book on Greek Mythology which he read over the next few days. After dinner, Sara and I thought it was time to check out the night life and left the parentals to do their own thing. We bar hopped to a few places, each getting more expensive than the next but eventually settled at the Jackie O, gay bar where we talked to some other tourists and got our dance on.... after that... things get a little blurry... Sara and I are not proud of this. Though neither of us has EVER forgotten an evening, so surely we are entitled to one night in our adult lives to... well... forget...

 

                The next morning Sara and I awoke quite puzzled about the events from the previous night. We both remembered the bar we started at... and the bar we finished at. We both remembered walking through town and getting half way up the mountainous hill to our hotel before caving in and getting a taxi the remaining 3 euro fare... and I remember tipping the taxi driver 1 euro. (trust me it was worth it that hill was a nightmare!) We remembered people we had spoken to, and things we had talked about... so far not unlike any other night out... but one thing plagued us both...

                We had both woken up feeling remarkably well... meaning... we were not at all hung over. This was the problem. You see, from our ‘limited’ experience of perhaps having a few too many drinks... we have come to the conclusion that one must have spilled their guts the previous evening, or had a late night meal in order to not feel the effects the following morning...

                Neither of us remembered throwing up...

               

Neither of us remembered eating anything...

And so began the day of retracing our steps...

                We spent the morning discussing each of the events we could remember, and managed to piece most of it together. We remembered every bar we had stopped at, which ones we had had a drink in, which ones had been too expensive and therefore we had scoffed at the barmen and walked out, but we could not for the life of us remember what we ate. We were certain we had not thrown up. There was no evidence in our bathroom and we did not have a burning sensation in the back of our throats. We must have eaten something...

                Ah ha! Check for receipts! One of us... probably me... had the brilliant idea of checking through our wallets for receipts... and there it was... a receipt written in Greek for approximately 5 euro, time stamped for 4am... Gotcha!... now if only we knew how to read Greek...

                We got dressed and headed out to discover the truth... and let’s face it with that blasted hill we were not coming back to the hotel until bed time so we made sure we packed for the day... once again we made the descent into town, with wonder in our hearts ... we began retracing our steps. We walked past an ice creamery... nope don’t remember eating ice cream... we walked past a crepery... nope definitely didn’t have a crepe... pizza, pasta, sandwich... no, no  and no!... wait... KEBABS! Suddenly pieces of the puzzle came flooding back... we definitely ordered kebabs... though we still don’t remember eating them... we walked into a kebab shop, but it was all wrong... the counter was different – this wasn’t the place... but they could read Greek... We strolled up to the cashier and said “excuse me, do you know where we got this receipt from?” They told us we were on the right track, and confirmed that we were indeed looking for a kebab shop, and it was just down the street a bit further...

                On the walk down the street, we started remembering what the shop looked like. We knew the position of the counter, and the tables. We knew there was a glass casing over the counter, with buckets of salad ingredients below... I remembered ordering... I remembered saying “twwooooo keebbabshhh psleeese with that and that and that and that... (while pointing to various items, lettuce, cheese etc)...” and I knew we had paid, because I had the receipt... but I still couldn’t remember actually holding the kebab.... or eating it....

                We found it! We walked in, and there was the glass counter, the tables we had walked past... and perhaps sat at... we walked up to the server, handed him our receipt and said “excuse me? Is this your receipt?”... he confirmed that it was, but as he had not worked the night shift, did not remember us... or whether we had actually eaten our ordered meal...

                We thanked him for confirming the receipt and walked out. Sara and I turned to each other... we must have eaten... we feel too good not to have eaten anything... but why can’t we remember it?... Surely we didn’t line up and say “We’ll have that and that and that and that”, hand over the cash and then walk out saying “ok thankyou bubbye!”... surely not... did we?

                To this day... and it is now 4 months later, I cannot confirm whether we ate our kebabs... though I do have a vague feeling the kebabs had hot chips rolled into them... which is quite common in Greece but I had not tried it... so... honestly we must have eaten them... right?

                The next hour or so was spent working out exactly which bars we had gone to and confirmed that we had indeed remembered the entire evening and each place we had been... just not the eating part... strange really... I can remember every other meal in Greece because they had all been so delicious... but this mystery kebab... nothing... completely erased from our memories...

                Later that afternoon, Sara and I went to Paradise Beach, where we read our books in the sun, and even went to a swim!.. though it was a little chillier than we would have liked so we didn’t last long... that night we all met up for dinner and watched Eurovision in one of the pubs... very funny watching it with a European crowd!

               

                The next morning Sara and I had massages in our hotel before we all headed to the boat back to Athens... farewell Mykonos and your mystery kebabs...