Thursday, June 5: We are on a ferry in the Aegean; it’s a beautiful day, though a little hazy, warm but with a quite cooling breeze from the ship plowing through air and water. The resulting temperature is just about perfect.
We were supposed to be traipsing around Jerusalem about now, but plans change.
It all started when Berck’s dad Jim told him he wanted to use his travel benefits (Berck’s parents can fly free too) to go somewhere he’d never been, and he’d pay for Berck and me to go too if we wanted. I would have to take time off, but it sounded worth it for an adventure of this magnitude.
Berck and I got on the Delta website from our various computers and looked to see where interesting they flew. It came down to three main choices of places that WE had never been and wanted to go (even though that was not the prerequisite): Kiev, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, or Tel Aviv. While Kiev sounded intriguing, there wasn’t anything we knew of off-hand there worth visiting. Tel Aviv, on the other hand, had LOTS of things to see, or rather Jerusalem would after a quick bus ride. Berck checked the loads and saw that there were over 20 seats available, and while there were multiple buddy passes trying to get there, as an employee, he was above their priority and figured his dad would be too, if we traveled together.
On the morning we were to leave, Monday, the loads had gotten a lot worse. The flight was oversold in coach and had people above us on the seniority list taking up the rest. But we tried for it anyway, all meeting at the Atlanta airport. On our flight from COS, there was only one seat in 1st class, which Berck got to have, since we couldn’t sit together. I read a paperback scrunched between two guys the whole way and then had to listen to how good Berck’s turkey sandwich was when we arrived.
We met Jim at his gate and then went all the way to the E concourse for our international gate. Unfortunately, we discovered that Jim did not have a higher priority than any of the other buddy passes, and that while Berck and I could get on just fine, Jim was stuck below everyone else.
So we regrouped, finding some free wireless in the middle of the E concourse (you have to pay for it anywhere else in the ATL airport). There were no other flights going anywhere we might want to go that night, so Berck bid on a PriceLine hotel, and we got a room at a Hyatt Place for $40. It took an eternity for the shuttle to come, during which we waited in the hot and muggy Atlanta night. Two or three Holiday Inn Express buses came in the meantime, which we found out was right next door once our bus finally arrived. The hotel had wireless too, so Berck viewed the loads for flights on the next day. We discovered there was plenty of room on a flight to Athens the next afternoon. While Berck and I had both been to Greece, we hadn’t spent much time on the islands. Plus there was the added benefit that I know Greek, Athens, and people there who could put us up.
So Tuesday morning we arose and waited again for the never-arriving shuttle to the airport. Jim asked the receptionist where he could find some coffee, and she procured some for him in some fashion that impressed him so much that he went into the manager’s office and told him how much he appreciated it.
The plan was to take Marta to Decatur, so Berck studied the Marta machines to get fare for each of us. He decided to put it all on one card/ticket, but then we discovered that it would only let one of us through. A lady came up and started yelling at us, so Berck yelled back telling her that it was stupid to design a system that way. She yelled back, “Do I LOOK like I designed this system?” which we decided later was a good response. She told us who to talk to about getting our fare straightened out. Jim talked to the lady who yelled at us and told her she was being mean. She said she was being laid off and “didn’t give a shit.” The Marta person, who had Berck fill out the paperwork required to refund the money we’d “spent” trying to get through the gates, was amazingly efficient (for Atlanta or Marta standards), and we were finally on our way. Jim called Marta once we were on the train and politely complained about the lady who yelled at us.
We took Marta to Decatur, had a very nice lunch at the Brick Store Pub, Berck’s and my second in a week, then Martaed back to the airport in time to let Delta go through the painfully slow process of checking us in. We didn’t have to wait to go through security, because Berck can escort people through the employee line. The guy checking ID’s asked me if I had ever been to Greece, then said something in Greek. I answered him, and we laughed. The last time we went through the employee line at ATL, the guy checking ID’s was excited to see my Colorado driver’s license because had hadn’t had one yet to check a certain something to see if it were authentic. I keep waiting to be told to go to the back of the line because I’m not crew, but it has yet to happen.
There was one seat available in first class, so we gave it to Jim. Berck and I were seated in aisle seats in the middle with a an empty seat next to each of us, and rather than sit together and be cramped, we elected to stay where they’d put us. I watched both movies, some of the TV, and finished my book. Fortunately, both Berck and his dad had brought books they finished that I haven’t read. Unfortunately for them, they’ve either read the books the other brought or have no interest in reading Grisham or Pynchon respectively. I managed to sleep probably a couple of hours. Breakfast was served an hour or more before landing, Wednesday morning, and I couldn’t sleep anymore after the incessant rattling of foil bags containing croissants. Berck and Jim said they didn’t really sleep at all. The flight attendants wouldn’t give Jim breakfast, though Berck and I had full ones. I guess that made up for his filet the night before in first class.
The Athens airport used to have free wireless, but no more. After getting money and buying a phone card, I managed to contact Emma, and she told us to meet her in Omonia Square at 1 pm. That was two hours away, but I knew it would take us a while to get there. I bought tickets for us for the bus, and took that to Ethniki Amyna, where I knew we could catch the Metro. I bought us Metro tickets, and we went down to the platform, where we discovered the Metro now goes all the way to the airport. I told Emma about it later, but she said, “Oh, but it’s more expensive,” 6 euro as opposed to 3. We got to Omonia about 15 minutes early, so we waited at the McDonald’s until it was time. Emma took us to the Nea Zoi safe house, which is where we could stay. We dropped our bags, Berck and his dad collapsed into the nearest furniture, and I talked to another missionary Jim, who had just started working when I left Athens, about the hot water heater and keys. Emma had to go feed her new baby, but Jim let me use his mobile to call my old roommate Susan.
Next we found some guidebooks in the guest room and decided we needed a new one. We locked up the apartment and walked to the only bookstore I know of in Athens that has books in English. We purchased two guidebooks on the Greek isles and a novel for Berck. By the time Berck and I had decided on which guidebook to buy, Berck’s dad had flipped through a Lonely Planet and decided he wanted to go to Santorini.
Next we walked to Thanassis, for the best beefteki in the world and some Kaiser beer. Then we walked all over Plaka trying to find the Metaxa store. Jim asked why we were walking in circles, but Berck and I answered at the same time that it wasn’t circles, but a search pattern. In the meantime we found a travel agency who booked us on a ferry to Paros, then Santorini the next day. He also found us hotels on each island that were as good a price as we could find in our guidebooks. This made me extremely happy, though Berck continued to be skeptical about the whole travel agent thing, since he is used to making all arrangements himself. I don’t know how else to do the ferry thing, so that’s why we went to a travel agency in the first place.
We did eventually find the Metaxa place, and Berck and his dad enjoyed a shot glass each of the finest brandy made in Greece. Which is saying something. Berck bought another gyro for dessert, and then we made our way to Syntagma to try to find an Internet cafe, which we eventually did after asking several periptero proprietors. Neither one of us had any mail, so that accomplished we blew off the rest of our half hour and went back to the Metro station for the trip back to where we were staying.
We were all utterly exhausted. I made the beds, which Berck and his dad immediately collapsed into. Then I went out and found an empty pay phone to call Emma and Susan and let them know of our travel plans. We were too exhausted to do anything that evening, and we were taking an overnight ferry on the way back which would get us into Athens in time to fly out the same day. So I only got to see Emma for a few minutes. But Susan and I talked forever on the phone, and she is coming to see me at the end of July anyway.
I came back to find Berck and Jim snoring. I asked Berck if he’d set an alarm to get up. The travel agent had given us strict instructions to leave Omonia Square no later than 6:10 to get the ferry twenty minutes ahead of time. Berck mumbled that he had set the alarm on his phone for 10 pm and that I could do the same. My phone, in fact, would not work at all when it couldn’t find a signal it could use. Berck had said he would set up the MacBook to wake us up, but he didn’t. He started snoring again and became completely unresponsive, so I gave up.
The little room we were staying in had air conditioning, which was quite a luxury. I laid down and was asleep before I could even turn over. Of course, I woke up in the middle of the night when my body said it was time to finish my nap. The next time I woke up, it was light out. I looked at Berck’s watch, which looked like it said six o’clock. The noise woke Berck up, who confirmed the time and cursed his phone for not alarming. We didn’t have time to take showers, but we did leave the apartment in 15 minutes.
As it was, we got to Pireaus with more than an hour to spare before our ferry left. In retrospect, I think the travel agent said six when he meant seven. We bought some pastries, Coke, and a coffee and then boarded our ship. Berck and I amused ourselves by watching the port semi drivers backing big rig trailers into the ferry, unattaching them, and then backing more in. They were having trouble getting them all in place quickly, and we didn’t leave until 20 minutes late.
The ferry ride was very pleasant. We got Paros and were met by the proprietor of our hotel, an American who decided to buy a hotel in Greece to run in the summers. She apparently spends the winters in Vancouver. After parking our stuff, Berck and Jim finally got to have their showers. Then we went out to explore the town. We walked a little ways and stopped to get some lamb kabobs and Stella Artois. Then we walked a little ways further and stopped to get some frappes. Berck and his dad talked about CRJ’s, and I fell asleep sitting up, yes, right after drinking an iced coffee drink. We eventually returned to the hotel, where I went on a mosquito hunt, and Jim and Berck started snoring. I would like to join them, but I’d never wake up.
When they finally got up, it was 9:30. We walked down to the nearest restaurant, Apostolion, a seafood place recommended to us by our hostess. Jim ordered some grilled fish that was probably snapper. It was pretty good. I ordered the octopus. It was very chewy, not cooked correctly. Berck got some horrible souvlaki. At least the saganaki and fried eggplant and zucchini were good. The bottle of local wine was good too, at least Berck and I thought so. I asked for the check, but the waiter cleared our plates and brought us halva instead. I couldn’t remember what it was called, so I asked the waiter in Greek, “What do you call this?” We had started out ordering in English, but it was clear our waiter didn’t understand a whole lot, so I had switched to Greek. I asked for the check, and he brought it to me, but I pointed at Jim. The waiter laughed and said that in ten years I would get it. Then he asked me something I didn’t understand, which I told him, so he said it more slowly. “How old are you?” I couldn’t remember the word for 30. “Ah, I can’t remember! Uh, three four.” “Three four?” he repeated, “Truly?” “Truly,” I said, “That’s correct.”
We walked down the strand some more and settled at a nearby cafe and ordered a couple of caramel creams, a couple of Greek coffees, and a beer for Berck. When we left, we were the last tourists standing. It was midnight. We all fell straight to sleep when we climbed into bed.
We woke up in Paros, had some breakfast at a cafe, at which Berck and his dad ate all my toast, ordered more, and ate all of that too, then packed our bags and went to the nearest Internet cafe to check e-mail. They sold time on their computers for 1 euro for 15 minutes or for 1 euro for half an hour via wireless. We opted for wireless, but it was so slow, that we couldn’t get anything done. It was time to for our ferry, so we gave up and boarded a Blue Star ferry to Santorini. While our ferry to Paros on Anak was pretty empty, the Blue Star was jam packed with tourists. We managed to find a few empty seats. I found a chair and moved it around to stay within the shade. Then the wind picked up, and I got cold, so I moved it into the sun. Unfortunately, I got a sunburn reading my book like that, Berck’s finished Wonder Boys.
The ride into Santorini’s caldera was pretty spectacular. Our tickets told us what time we left but not what time we arrived, so Jim and I had gone in search of food when we realized everyone was on one side of the boat all of a sudden looking off into the water. The boat landed, we disembarked with the myriad of other people on board, and looked for a guy holding a sign with the name of our hotel. A whole crew of guys with signs stand where the tourists get off the boats, hoping to lure people to their particular abode. I walked all the way through the chaotic throng and back again, finally finding our guy. He told us to wait, which we did until it he had gathered as many people who would fit in the van. Then we took the torturous journey up the switchbacked road from the port to the top of the volcanic rim. We were the last on board, but I told Berck to gather my bag while I checked us in.
We were in our room in no time. It was a really nice two room affair with a great balcony and A/C in each room. We cranked up the air, took the key off the thing you have to fit in a slot by the door to make the electricity in your room work, and went to find food.
Berck discovered some pretty good lamb gyros right in the town square, but by then Jim had decided he wanted to sit down somewhere. So we walked over to the rim and found a ridiculously expensive restaurant and ordered some calamari, which Jim thought was mediocre, I thought was excellent, and Berck deemed “fishy,” and some tomato balls, that were interesting but not particularly good. There was also a ramekin of olive paste, consumed only by Berck, who spread it thickly on bread, and when he’d run out of that, ate it by the forkful. Berck and I had some Amstels, Jim had a scotch, and thus refreshed, we headed back out on the town. We made it back to the square, where Berck finally got his gyro and Jim found a cafe and ordered a bloody Mary, which came with nuts. Berck and I ordered some more beers, which came with popcorn. We sat for an extremely long time watching tourists on newly rented motor scooters or 4-wheelers navigate the narrow cobblestone street.
Then we moseyed on up the city in search of one of the restaurants in our guidebooks. We decided on Nausos, which was really quite good. We started with some mussels in spicy tomato cream sauce reminiscent of curry. We decided the mussels tasted like dirt, but the sauce chock full of onions was delicious and like nothing we’d ever tasted. We had lamb chops, lamb roast in lemon sauce (spelled sause in the menu), and stuffed bell pepper and tomato. Berck and I decided it was the best Greek food available on the island. Jim decided he didn’t particularly like Greek food.
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We’re currently sitting on the runway in Rome. We’re waiting to refuel and get a maintenance check. And to get the bags off the plane of the people who had a medical emergency.
We somehow managed to get seats back for all three of us in first class. Yay! The flight attendants were about to serve us bread and wine when they made an announcement asking if there were a doctor on board. Jim had willingly switched his seat next to us with the boyfriend of the girl sitting next to him, so he was in the next row down and over. But sure enough, a flight attendant appeared at his seat. Berck said he guessed his dad didn’t know that he’d have to fill out a bunch of paperwork for admitting to being a physician.
He went back to the back of first class with the flight attendant and examined a lady who appeared to be either comatose or dead, eyes rolled back in her head. Her American husband told Jim she had ALS and they had been in Greece to engage in an experimental treatment involving stem cells. Jim figured she had probably suffered an embolism of some sort, administered as much aspirin as he could give her, and told the captain that, if this were the case, she would need medical treatment within two hours, otherwise, the damage would be permanent, and we might as well keep on going. We were over southern Italy at this point, but the flight attendants started serving salads anyway. Berck told me to eat anything I wanted quick because they were about to take it all away from us. Sure enough, as soon as we turned to the north toward Rome, our flight attendant told us to wrap up our silverware in our napkins and stick them in our seat pockets and took everything else from our tray tables away.
The pilots hauled ass descending, and soon we were on the ground met by several fire trucks, an ambulance, and a stairway. A bunch of paramedics came on board with a board, which they tied the lady to, who was looking alert by now, and took her down the stairs to the waiting ambulance. Before they could take her off, however, a guy in a uniform wanted to see her passport.
We probably landed overweight (we were mostly full of fuel, though we burned enough in the descent and in our upcoming take-off to have to get some more), so that required a maintenance check. In the meantime, they also got off the checked bags of the stricken lady, her husband, her daughter, and her nurse.
Jim said later that there was a dermatologist behind him that told him she didn’t look like she was suffering from any scratches, so he just let Jim (an emergency room physician for years and years) to handle it. He was also helped by an RN and a massage therapist, who we’d struck up a conversation with at the gate.
We’re now waiting for the paperwork of the new flight plan. While we’re waiting, the captain is walking through the cabin with a bag of Dove dark chocolates offering them to anyone who will take them.
So anyway, back to where I left off in Santorini.
Our first morning in Santorini, I woke up to see the sun attempting to stream through the curtain to the balcony. I jumped out of bed knowing that we faced east and would have a spectacular sunrise. But I was too late, and the sun was already too high. Berck demanded to know what I was doing as I hopped back into bed.
A couple hours later we got up for good and took showers. The hotel offered breakfast (a basket of bread, two slices each of cheese and ham, jellies, jams, honey, Nutella, and butter, orange “juice,” and instant coffee or tea.
Next Berck and I took some clothes to a laundry place, and then we all walked to the nearest scooter rental agency and rented two blue ones. Then we headed south through town to the nearest gas station, because they take all the gas out of the scooters when you turn them in. Then we headed south some more, Jim following Berck, with me hanging onto Berck and telling him where to go. The scooter theoretically fit two people, but if both of us had our butts where they could go, Berck’s long knees got in the way of the handlebars. This meant that I ended up falling off the back of the seat. This was extremely uncomfortable, but I found that if I backed up a little further, I sat not on the seat but on the little piece of hard plastic bolted to the metal rails on the back. This arrangement was surprisingly more comfortable, and I didn’t have Berck pushing me backward constantly or screaming because he couldn’t steer.
We drove to a winery, looked around, and then continued south all the way to the southern point of the island. It was impossible to navigate with a map while on the scooter, so I had to guess at where we were until we stopped and I could consult my guidebooks and the map Jim bought when we first arrived. I kept trying to get us to go right on the way back up, but there was just a mountain there. The roads through the village would get narrower and narrower, until we were riding through old abandoned cave-like buildings. Then the road turned to dirt and rocks, and Jim decided it was time to turn around. Berck’s scooter could only take the two of us uphill to a certain degree of incline, and the road was reaching that point. So back down again we went. Jim said his most common phrase this trip: “Let’s find a place where we can have a cool drink.” So we stopped at a corner cafe/bakery, and had some Cokes.
Next we drove through Pyrgos, one of the oldest towns on the island, and on up to the highest point, mounted by a monastery, containing one priest, and a NATO station. There were signs everywhere saying not to take pictures, but of course all the tourists were snapping away. Jim had been having trouble kick-starting his scooter, getting it off its stand, and putting it back up. Berck and I were getting situated on our scooter, when Jim kick started his scooter, revved it up, and then jerked it off its stand. The result was a wheelie, Jim getting pulled along as the scooter leapt out of his grasp and and starting off without him for a second until it crashed on its side. Jim suffered a pulled hamstring in his left thigh. The scooter suffered a broken lens for its front left blinker, and more importantly, a twisted fork. We stopped for gyros a little ways down the road back through Pyrgos, also getting some mushrooms in garlic, which weren’t anything special, and some spicy cheese dip and Cokes.
Jim decided the scooter had become undriveable, so we headed back to the rental place. Berck also traded in his scooter because one of his blinkers didn’t work. The result was that instead of two blue scooters, we now had a orange one and a gold one that wouldn’t idle but would go up hills. It also apparently had a sticky throttle, which Berck claims to have told me about. We went back to the hotel, and Jim told us to go driving without us for a while and see if we could find him an ace bandage. It was 3 o’clock. On a Saturday afternoon. Medical “emergencies” always happen to me on Saturday afternoons in Greece. Why? Because the ubiquitous pharmakeos all close at 2 and don’t open again until Monday morning. One in each area or small town is required to be open on Sundays, and they post that information on the door of all the closed ones. Actually, they put someone’s phone number. So you just whip out your kinito, and ask where to go. Except that we didn’t have any mobile phones, and if we did call, someone would answer in Greek, and if they did speak English, they’d tell us to go somewhere where we didn’t know where it was.
So we continued on our way to Ancient Thira, the ruins of the ancient town on the southwestern tip of the island. I routed us along the eastern beach, and we got to the twisty, switchbacking, cobblestone road that led up the mountain. Berck was very unsure about making such tight turns, and the scooter was unsure about the steepness of the hill. I was unsure about the scooter tires turning on the slick cobblestones. But there was hardly anyone else on the hill except for some people walking up, so we pressed on and eventually got to the top. The ancient site was closed from 2:30 and guarded by a snarling Rototiller, if you got too close. But we enjoyed the view and then coasted down, riding the brake, the whole way down. Berck quipped that, if his dad could be the only person to wreck a scooter without actually being on it, he could be the only one to crash without the scooter even being on. But we made it safely downhill after all.
We stopped at a bigger grocery store on the outside of town, but of course grocery stores don’t carry anything you can get at a pharmacy in Greece. We did, however, find some Famous Grouse and some Amstels. We made our purchase and asked the clerk if she knew where the open pharmacy was. She said at 5 o’clock all of the closed ones would open again.
So we brought the Scotch to Jim with the news of the delayed ace wrap. I got some ice from reception and some water for Berck and a Fanta Lemonada for me from the nearby mini grocery. We all sat around the pool for a while. After 6, Berck and I went searching for open pharmacies again, but they were still all closed. I asked a kiosk minder where an open one would be, and he suggested one that was also closed. We went back to the hotel and asked the hotel manager, and he said they would all open again at 7 o’clock.
Jim was starting to feel better though, so we walked down to the town and found a cafe with a view of the sunset. He had a Sangria, and we had beers, ate cocktail nuts, and watched the beautiful sunset. Then we walked till we found a restaurant with an empty table right over the water, probably recently vacant because the sunset was over. I had grilled sardines, Berck had lamb stuffed with feta and wrapped in grape leaves, and Jim had spaghetti bolognese. We also had some fish roe salad. Berck and I had to change seats so he could be upwind of my sardines.
After supper I found some presents for our neighbor and struck up a conversation with an Albanian salesman, mostly in Greek. He asked why as an American would I come to Greece, let alone live there for two years? He would very much like to go to America, like all Albanians.
We made the long trek back to the hotel, where Berck enjoyed a glass of Scotch, and I a beer on our balcony with the cool island breeze blowing on us. I see why Greeks go to the islands in the summer.
We set the alarm on the Mac to go off before sunrise, but I forgot to plug it in, and it didn’t go off. We got up much later, ate breakfast at the hotel, and then mounted our bikes again, this time to head north. The road between Fira, the town we were staying in, and Oia on the north tip of the island hugs the rim of the caldera, and Berck was having much fun on it, even with all the buses that often take up the whole road. We drove around the outskirts of Oia looking for a place to park the motor scooters.
Berck was turning the scooter around in a parking lot when all of a sudden it lurched into the driver’s side door of a gold Bug. I hopped off the back immediately, bruising my crotch pretty badly in the process. Berck said the sticky throttle turned while he was trying to get his hand in position to brake, and that this is a risk you take riding a scooter. I thought that was crap, since I was fully prepared to take the risk of hitting gravel and wiping out or flying off the side of the mountain, but going from a dead stop to lurching into a Beetle is not what I had in mind. I took a couple Naproxin and winced as we drove the last little way up a cobblestone street to the parking lot I wanted to park at. Berck seemed to think I was unjustified in being upset, until, I think, I showed him my palm-sized bruise that night.
At least we found an open pharmacy in Oia, where Jim was finally able to get his ace bandage. That made him a lot more mobile.
We wondered around Oia, which was jam packed with tourists crowding the narrow alley-ways that passed for streets, either side of which were lined with restaurants and shops. Jim seemed to enjoy it a lot. Berck and I tend to run away from tourists and head for the open countryside. We stopped and got another something to cold to drink.
When we got back on our bikes, Berck announced that he was out of gas. There was no gas in Oia, so I directed us the quickest way back to Fira to fill up. Then we headed east and then north along the road by the lower coast. We were following a slow tow truck, so I sent Berck down a side road toward the beach. It ended at a big sand covered soccer field and a basketball court. On the way back out the road, I heard a crash and looked in the rear view mirror to see Jim and his orange scooter in the midst of splaying on the asphalt. I told Berck to stop and started walking back toward Jim, who was lying on the ground trying to extricate himself from beneath the scooter. I thought Berck would turn around and come back down, but he parked and ran down to his dad, who was a little scratched up and mostly just had a bruised knee. “I was looking at something in the grass, and I ran into this rock, he said, looking at a heavy stone about a foot in diameter, dislodged from the side of the road and moved about a foot into it. This time it busted the scooter’s front brake, which rubbed while he drove.
We decided to call it a day. Jim had left the map at the hotel, but there was a road going up the very steep volcanic hill to the east. It didn’t look like it went anywhere except that it was nicely paved, unlike a driveway. So up we went. Our scooter sounded it was in extreme pain pulling Berck and me upward, but it made it all the way up this amazing road to the highway up top. Then it was a matter of coasting down into Thira, and hoping that Jim didn’t need to brake too hard on his useless front brake. We turned our scooters in, and the guy said he was going to charge Jim 65 euro for the busted lens and bent fork for the first scooter.
We walked back into town and got some gyros, then found a lonely cafe overlooking the water and drank expensive drinks until it was time to head back to the hotel. Our ferry didn’t leave until 7 pm, but the manager told me to meet back for the shuttle at 4:30. We were there at 4:24, right as the shuttle left, but the manager called the driver and had him come back and pick us and our bags up. There was the ride back down to where the ferries dock, and then we had two hours to kill. The driver, however, had arrived just in time to pick up people arriving from another ferry. Our ferry was moored but not letting anyone on. I asked them what time we could board, and they said, “Six-thirty, maybe seven o’clock.” We found a cafe to sit in the shade. It didn’t have gyros, but we had Cokes and a glass of ice for Jim for his Scotch. We were sitting there when our ferry released its moorings and pulled away from the quay. But it was making room for two other ferries that came and unloaded people. There isn’t much room at the port, which is carved out of the volcanic cliff of the caldera. I get the feeling they created the flat space by dumping fill into the water. There’s a line of cafes and shops hugging the cliff, some empty space, and then the water and the ferries in it. In between are bus after bus after bus waiting for tourists to arrive. In typical Greek fashion, they all get in each other’s way while jostling for parking space. It looks like chaos.
Finally, our ferry came back and let people on board. We got our room key and settled into our cabin. Berck hadn’t believed me that it would have a bathroom, but both he and Jim took showers before going to bed. Jim lay down on his bunk and didn’t get up again, but Berck and I went out on deck and enjoyed the view leaving the caldera. There was a French destroyer abreast of us, coming out of the caldera for some reason and getting honked at a bunch by our ferry. We missed the sunset because we docked at Ios next, and the sun was behind the protective cliffs of the port. Ios looked much more like Berck’s and my kinda place, not very touristy at all. But I’ve always wanted to go to Santorini, and now I’ve been.
We stayed out on deck and drank the beers I brought with me tucked deep in my backpack after getting them out of the hotel room fridge that morning. They were still cold. I ate the gyros I got at the pier to take with us. It was a beautiful night. Berck wanted to go to sleep, so we packed into our cabin. It was hot, and we couldn’t figure out how to make it cold. But there were flat places to lie and clean sheets. I didn’t get much sleep, what with the announcement every so often that we were docking at Naxos or Paros or that the on-board restaurant was open. Berck was afraid we wouldn’t know when to get off the boat, but we all woke up just fine when they announced that we were about to land.
So at 5:30 we shuffled off the ferry, took the metro up to Syntagma Square, and sat at a Everest cafe until 9:30, eating some pastries, drinking some Coke and coffee, reading a Herald Tribune, and using the free wireless in the public square. Then we took the metro to Ethniki Amina and waited 20 minutes for the next train to the airport. Berck was afraid it would take us a while to get to through security, so he went on ahead while Jim sat down to drink the rest of his bottle of Scotch before he had to throw it away, as it was over 3 ounces (or in European case, 100 ml). It didn’t take us long to get through security, though all three of us had to get patted down, even with our passports going through the machine. Maybe they just set their magnetometers to ON and pat down everyone. Berck and I were five minutes early before the gate opened, which gave us time to go to the bathroom and buy an overpriced Ritter Sport.
The plane was half an hour late in boarding and departing. But in first class, the time goes by pretty well since they’re always bringing you things to eat or drink. Berck and I watched two movies on the MacBook and slept some. There was the rerouting through Rome. We finally arrived in Atlanta, too late for Jim’s first option to Memphis or our flight to Colorado Springs, where our car was parked. Jim checked in for his second option flight while Berck tried to figure out the best option for us getting home. Jim found out that saving someone’s life and delaying your flight while get you nowhere, and Berck decided we had better rent a car in Denver.
Our flight to Denver got in late. We rented the car and then drove home, me staying awake to talk to Berck and keep him awake. We finally got home at 2:30 am. We’d gotten up at 5:30 am that morning…Greece time. I set my alarm for 7 and got up for work in the morning.
Berck stopped by work that afternoon and we drove up to Denver to return the rental car. Berck also got his parking badge so he can park in the employee parking in Denver. Then we drove to COS to pick up the other car. We finally got home around 8:30 pm. I made myself some ramen and then cut Berck’s hair. He informed me that I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the bed yet because he was still packing. I collapsed on the couch in the living room and woke up every time Berck came into the room cursing because he couldn’t find something else. He finally woke me up and told me to come to bed, where I fell back to sleep immediately. But he woke me up again this morning at 5:30 to say he was leaving to fly to JFK to start work tomorrow. I opened my eyes and said, “There’s a airline pilot in my room!” and wanted to take a picture. So I didn’t go back to sleep after he left.
But I’m going to bed now. Yes, I know it’s only 7.
Pictures are in the gallery. Maybe I’ll tag them some day. You can tell which day it is by the length of stubble on the guys’ faces.