There are many beautiful ways to wake up in Greece. Sunlight filtering through the shutters. The distant murmur of people beginning their day. The smell of coffee drifting up from a café below. Birdsong.

And then there is the Holy Metropolitan Church of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, also known as Trimartiri, located directly beside our hotel.

It has bells.

Dear reader, it has bells.

Good Morning, Chania. DONG.

Trimartiri is absolutely beautiful. It sits right in the heart of Chania’s Old Town, with gorgeous architecture, a lovely courtyard, and the sort of history that makes you stop and remember just how old this part of the world really is.

It is peaceful. It is spiritual. It is serene. Until Sunday morning.

Apparently every service must be announced using bells forged somewhere near the molten center of the Earth.

These are not cheerful little ding-a-ling, good morning, everyone! bells. No. These bells declare themselves.

DONGGGGGGGGGGG.

Low.

Deep.

Ancient.

The kind of sound that doesn’t enter through your ears so much as travel directly through your rib cage.

And just when the final vibration has faded away, and your jet-lagged brain has managed to convince your body that perhaps, just perhaps, sleep might return…

DONGGGGGGGGGGG.

Round two.

Good morning, Kimberly. God would like you awake now. Apparently.

Fine. We’ll Get Breakfast.

Eventually, we admitted that sleep was no longer an option and dragged ourselves out of bed. Our friend Makis wasn’t working the morning shift at The Red Bicycle, so we made a bold decision. We would branch out. Explore. Try something new.

This was our first mistake.

We walked across town to a highly rated breakfast spot called Phyllo.

And this seems like an appropriate time for a small Kim Goes Somewhere Public Service Announcement:

A high TripAdvisor ranking is not legally required to taste good.

I checked. Probably.

The menu certainly sounded impressive.

• Avocado toast.
• Overnight oats.
• Quaker pie.

Lots of fashionable breakfast words arranged in combinations that made us think, Ooooo, this is going to be good.

It was…ok-ish.

The service was underwhelming. The food was fine. Even the coffee was just fine. And there are few things more disappointing than being on vacation, desperately jet-lagged, ordering coffee with great hope and receiving adequate coffee.

We missed The Red Bicycle almost immediately. I missed the single serve French Press delivered to me with usual snark and ribbing from the staff. I miss the rich Greek Coffee aroma.

Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe Phyllo caught us on an off day. Maybe we were the ones having the off day. That is entirely possible because my brain was still operating somewhere between Missouri, Greece, and a mysterious third time zone known only as What Day Is It?

The Jet Lag Zombie Evolves

I wasn’t quite in full Walking Dead: Vacation Edition mode anymore.

Progress!

Unfortunately, I had evolved into a slightly more advanced form of jet lag where I was technically awake, but nothing seemed entirely connected to reality.

My eyes were open. I could form sentences. I knew what country I was in. Mostly.

But my internal clock was spinning wildly, pointing at random numbers and screaming, “TIME IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT!”

So naturally, after breakfast, we did the only sensible thing. We went back to bed.

Again.

At this point, I would like to remind everyone that we traveled thousands of miles to beautiful Crete so I could experience its rich culture from underneath a hotel duvet.

Travel blogging is glamorous.

Attempt Number Two at Being People

By evening, we decided to make another attempt at functioning adulthood. We didn’t go far. We headed downstairs to Steki, a cozy little restaurant near the hotel.

Dinner was…fine. Apparently fine was the official culinary theme of Day 3. Nothing was wrong with it. Nothing was particularly memorable either. It was simply food, and at that point food was an accomplishment.

But afterward, we rallied enough to take a walk. And that helped.

Chania Works Its Magic

We wandered along the old city walls beside the bay.

The evening air was cooler. The light was softening over the water. Chania was doing what Chania does best, quietly reminding us why we keep coming back.

For a little while, we stopped worrying about what time our bodies thought it was. We just walked. No schedule. No must-see attraction. No heroic attempt to maximize our vacation. Just the old walls, the bay, the evening, and two exhausted travelers slowly becoming human again.

It was lovely. It was also not enough. Because eventually we had to face reality. We needed help.

Enter: Science

On the walk back, we stopped at the chemist. Melatonin was purchased. Hope was restored.

We returned to the hotel armed with modern pharmaceuticals and the determination of two people who had finally accepted that we were not going to defeat jet lag through positive thinking.

Sometimes travel is adventure. Sometimes travel is discovery. Sometimes travel is standing in a Greek pharmacy saying, essentially: “Please. Make. Sleep. Happen.”

So ended Day 3.

Chania remained beautiful. The church bells remained terrifying. My circadian rhythm remained somewhere over the Atlantic.

And the scoreboard?

JET LAG: 2 KIM: 0

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