Last Day!!!

This is our last day in Greece! I cannot stress enough how glad we are to have ended the trip here, it is definitely in the top two of our favorite places from the trip. The other one? Well you'll just have to wait until we're back and ask us in person to prove we have an IRL friendship.

We saw the ancient sites yesterday, except for the Temple of Zeus, which we are going to see today after the Museum of Musical Instruments and before we visit the Greek Communist Headquarters (KKE). The Acropolis definitely didn't have as big of a punch as the Colosseum, but it was still very interesting. They're in the process of rebuilding/restructuring most of the sites, including the Parthenon, and in all of the places that new marble has replaced a "stolen artifact" (eh hem the Brits), they've put little blue squares about the size of name tag stickers to mark the spot and remind us of how incomplete of a picture we're seeing. Some walls are almost entirely covered in blue stickers, not to mention to empty rooms left in museums ready to be filled with returned "stolen items." The tension is thick, but it makes it that much more interesting.

There was a riot in Syndagma square yesterday, but it's probably more accurate to describe it as a passionate protest/demonstration. Yesterday was The Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Pontic. I've got to say, the traditional Greek music they blast from the booths is pretty effective... before I even knew what going on, I started feeling really sad. I noticed the music and Jack and I turned around to discover all of the pictures and literature, and people of course. Again, a lot of tension here.

The third night in the dungeon was okay. We got four stinky Irish roommates, and aside from lack of deodorant and the overuse of body spray, they were pretty nice. We also got four additional roommates, 2 girls from California, and an Korean couple that immigrated to Montreal (most confusing French accent I've ever heard). The couple seemed a bit creeped out with us as we have been sleeping almost every time they come home (morning, siesta nap and night)and Jack has been constantly eyeing their cool travel gadgets. Seems we could stand to learn to make better first impressions.

Tomorrow we have a long day of travel, so this may be the last post before we come home. I'll add pictures tonight when I log in from our computer.

3 Days In the Dungeon

We arrived in Athens last night around 11:30pm. We missed the last metro to our hostel and had to haggle with cab drivers at the port offering prices double that of the listed fares. We got to the hostel and checked into what the receptionist described as the dungeon. It's really a basement which holds 10 beds, but since it has no windows, it's not considered to be desirable and is thus called the dungeon. I hope the receptionist continues to try and talk people out of the dungeon for the remainder of our stay because it's dark and quiet and we only have one roommate. :)

Greek Tragedy

My fake Dolce&Gabbana sunglasses broke after just 2 days, and then got covered in beeswax.
RIP.

Mykonos

We arrived in Mykonos safely, in the middle of a heat wave, and once I changed into a beautiful turquoise mumu (just for you, Drew), we started having so much fun.

I'm so glad we followed the advice I got from a Greek man I met on our last day in Rome: don't book anything before you get to Greece. We got off the boat and walked into a swarm of local women offering rooms to rent out of their houses. The first woman to approach us tried to muster all of her motherly charm, cooing us with sweet English phrases only to snap in Greek at the other women around her, competing for business and shouting out cheaper prices to us. We did not settle with the Greek mama, but instead with a woman named Maria who strongly resembles Marissa Tomei.

Now, sit down if you're not sitting already because you will not believe what I'm about to tell you. We rented an ATV and rode all around the island. That's right, WE. Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are?! Maybe it was peer pressure, or maybe I'm embracing adventure, but I have to admit, it was pretty fun, definitely more so on the second day when we had helmets.

The beaches are beautiful, but that's to be expected. I'll keep this post short and try uploading a video I took while on the ATV. Tomorrow we're off to Delos island, just 10 minutes away to look at the archeological sites they have there.

OH!! And I almost forgot! I've met some nice Greek kitties finally! The first nice encounter was at the port, but the cat had a tape worm hanging out of its butt, so that was disappointing. However, the cats that hang out at the restaurants are well groomed and quite social. One even licked tomato sauce off my finger! I almost died. For the most part though, the wild kitties that walk amongst the wild chickens, roosters, ducks, goats and sheep are pretty skittish. I think it has something to do with the confused roosters that crow all day and all night, disrupting their cat naps and making them grumpy.

Greece Lightning (title at Jack's insistence)

Our last stop in Italy was a small coastal town called Ancona. It was nice enough- fresh fish restaurants and boutique shopping (participated in neither) -but we were only there for one night. The boat ride (22 hours!) from Ancona to Patras, Greece was not what we expected. For starters, the boat was quite fancy. There were two restaurants, one for sit down service and the other for students, I mean a la carte. Beyond the restaurants was the Acrobats Disco, although we fell asleep too early to check that out. On the 10th level there was a pool and a giant litter box for the animals housed up there (mostly dogs, Jack saw one unhappy kitty), placed in close enough proximity to the pool that I had to wonder if they've ever had some “misunderstandings” with children or maybe even adults who happen to love playing in sandboxes.

Most of the men hung out at the casino (including Jack who gambled 50 cents in the casino and won 4 euros!) which doubled as the TV lounge. They watched passionate Italian soap operas at first which switched to passionate Greek soap operas at some point during the night. I think there were about 10 bars on board, and while that may seem excessive, we figured out that each bar served a separate purpose. For example, you might go to the casino bar to buy a wi-fi card but to the disco bar to buy a bus ticket. This was only slightly confusing.

We landed in Patras and took a 3 hour bus ride to Pireaus where we had a 6 hour lay over before boarding a 6 hour boat ride to Heraklion, Crete. We explored the city a bit, which was nothing special but did open my eyes to a couple of things. 1. Dolce & Gabbana is huge in Greece. Whether knock offs or the real thing, it's everywhere and on everyone, including infants. 2. Jewelry featuring The Blue Eye is very important and also found everywhere. The explanation we got from a Turkish street vendor is that “the blue eye keeps the devil eyes out.” Not sure if that was supposed to be the devil's eye/s, but decided not to get picky over grammar as I was just happy to find someone who spoke English.

The wild dogs in Pireaus are very street smart. We saw a sleeping pack of dogs wake up when they heard the rival bark of another dog across the street. The dogs were sleeping in a median on a very busy street but when the light turned red, they went into the street to bark at the other dog until the light turned green, at which point they went back to the median and resumed their naps. One of these dogs had puppies somewhere, evidenced by her teats which resembled black stretchy cow utters or even rubber gloves. I found them to be so fascinating, but Jack wouldn't take the picture because he thought it was too depressing.

We chose to upgrade to a cabin on the Pireaus-Heraklion (overnight) boat ride, which turned out to be a great idea because like Italian schedules, Greek schedules are also “flexible”, meaning the boat ride was closer to 9 hours. We arrived in Heraklion at 5 am, took a 3 hour bus ride to Rehthymno and then an hour bus ride to Plakias (with a David Sedaris look-alike bus driver). About 50 ft from the bus stop, we found a woman named Aleka (who is also the town hair dresser) and rented an apartment from her for 30 euros a night. We were settled in and at the beach by noon. So, after all of this travel, I'm sure you can see why we haven't blogged in a while.

Plakias was very nice, “a lot like Catalina if you sub the buffalo for goats”-Jack, with not much to do but hike and hang out at the beach, which is exactly what we needed. Who knew we were such country bumpkins? Plakias is a popular German tourist spot (we figured this out given the 3 languages featured on the menu: Greek, German, English and also the abundance of German tourists) so I'm sure it's crowded during the summer, but this time of year worked out great. All of the town dogs walk around as they please, wearing The Blue Eye on their collars. Clearly, they know what's going on.

One of the restaurant owners owned a goose, cat and a sweet blond dog (who befriended us over the course of the week)- all of whom hung out together under a tree outside the restaurant until they got hot or bored, at which point they would circle one another in and out of the restaurant. As mentioned, the dog was sweet but the cat and goose were another story. I have not met one nice kitty in Greece, just a bunch of teases who roll around like they want a chin scratch, change their minds when you get close and then scream. We saw the goose chase several patrons out of the restaurant as well, hissing and holding it's neck down low, swaying from side to side. Amazingly, the restaurant was always somewhat busy, so maybe hissing geese and screaming cats are endearing to German tourists?

We were too scared to eat at the goose/cat/dog restaurant so we tried a place called Souvlaki House on the third night. When we ordered wine to go with our food, the waitress/owner/cook/Greek Mama lifted her eyebrows and grinned, clarifying our request with the question “You want ½ liter of wiiiiiiiine?” We didn't know if maybe this was inappropriate but answered again that yes we did. The mystery behind her tone was revealed when she returned with a pitcher of homemade wine and 2 shot glasses. Yes, shot glasses. Two shots into the meal, I was drunk and passed out immediately upon returning home.

We took a bus from Plakias back to Rehthymno (David Sedaris bus driver again), where we are currently waiting to catch another bus back to Heraklion, where we will catch a boat to either Mykonos or Santorini. The buses are inexpensive but a pretty reliable source of car sickness. The good news, and final note of this blog, is that coke (a-cola not the amphetamine) is cheap in Greece at 60 cents a can, providing relief from a number of maladies including car sickness, mood swings, headaches and devil eyes.

Roma

8 days in Rome, mama mia! Our first four days were spent doing Rick Steves' suggested walking tours and visiting all of the ruins including a site that has been turned into a cat sanctuary! :)

We checked out of our apartment and into the Walter Guest House on the fifth day, and it was the worst hostel we've seen so far. Yes, Hollis, you could say it was a hostile indeed. To sum things up, it was unsafe and we checked out two days early, the desk manager telling me “you women cry about everything” and yelling “fucking Americans” as he literally slammed the door in our faces.

We found another hostel that was safe and checked in for our remaining 2 nights. We were getting ready for bed at the same time as one of our roommates, an older woman from Serbia who just had the best day- spotting both Tom Hanks and the Pope! (Not together, of course.) We talked for a bit before she urged us to get to bed early, before the other roommate got home. She told us his snore was so disruptive, it was impossible to fall asleep once he got started.

That night was sleepless and this man's snoring could not be stopped. Seriously, neither of us had ever heard anything like it. It was otherworldly. After having been physically shaken myself at the last hostel, I was reluctant to touch him and shake his shoulder a bit to stop his snoring. So, when it got really loud, we jostled the metal ladder attached to his bunk bed, and that slight noise stopped the snoring for about ½ hour ...before starting right back up again.

The following morning after my shower, I came back into the room and met Sam, our middle-aged Korean roomate who had been snoring so violently the night before. He looked a little distressed and after a quick hello, asked me “Did you have trouble sleeping last night?” I laughed and answered yes. Still distressed, he asked “Did you hear any noises?” I told him it was actually his snoring that kept me awake and that I did not hear any other noises. Something seemed to click with him and he asked “Did you move my ladder?” I answered yes and he informed me that he has a problem of rolling off the bed in his sleep and when he heard the sound of the ladder, he woke up startled, thinking he was falling from the top bunk, unable to see what had moved the bed without his glasses. In a thick, south Korean accent, he told me “For me, it was like nightmare.” How could I be upset with him after that?

Jack was in the shower for all of this, and in case you don't already know, Jack takes a LONG time to groom, so Sam and I had a long time to chit-chat. He told me he's a Religious Studies professor on sabatical and that he's traveling alone, lonely, especially during meals. He dropped several hints that he was ready to change his plans for the day in order to hang out with us, and so, what choice did I have? I broke down and invited him to join us for the free hostel breakfast and then along to Vatican City, even though he went the day before.

We got to the Vatican Museum early and the line was very long. Sam had an unexpected surge of independence and decided he did not want to wait in the line again. He left to go see the Colloseum- but not before inviting us to meet him back at the hostel for dinner of course. Four hours later, we walked out of the Vatican Museum only to hear “Jack! Jack!” and met, you guessed it, dear Sam waiting for us on the steps just outside St.Peter's basilica. He confessed that he didn't want to be alone again, and that no, he hadn't been waiting very long at all.

Even though he was slightly annoying, he was very sweet and a great resource of information as we were visiting religious sites that day (“See that key he's holding? He thinks it will get him into heaven. Ha!”). We went through the St. Sebastian catacombs and Sam took us out to a fancy Chinese restaurant (cheapest food in Rome, hands down). During dinner, he explained that Koreans are the most skilled at using chopsticks and shared the secret behind the long legs of the Westerners (answer: we lack the super long intestines that Asians have, enabiling our legs “to grow so long.” His words, not mine.). Later that night, we took him out to do some non-church stuff because he told us he hadn't done that at all over the course of his two month trip. After Sam threw his coin in the Trevi fountain, we took him to have his first-ever gelato.We stayed out so late with him that the metro stopped running and we had to walk across town to get back to the hostel, Sam walking right behind us like that dog back in Pompeii, peppering the conversation with questions such as “Do we turn here?” and “Should I cross now, too?”

We had another sleepless, snore-filled night, dozing off at some point in the early morning only to be woken by Sam at 6 am asking, “Are we waking up now?” We were sad to leave him behind (well, Jack was anyway), especially since we had to skip breakfast in order to make it to the Borghese Gallery at 8:30. We said our goodbyes and exchanged e-mail addresses, leaving him with the Rick Steves Italy book he so coveted the day before, hoping he would enjoy the presence of another long-legged Westerner, if only in book form.

From Sara With Love

Jack swears this song has been haunting him throughout Europe.
And it has.
Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7RKM32CvIc