The Girls Weren't Ready for Athens

My trip to Greece - Athens Part One, The Arrival

I'm starting with stories from Athens because it was the starting and ending point for our trip, and I thought I'd just go in sequential order in the hopes it would help me better remember everything.

My friend and co-worker, Dana, and I show up in Athens, Greece at 4:30pm on Friday, September 16, weary after about 13 hours of travel that began in Atlanta at 5pm the day before. We saw the edge of night over the Atlantic Ocean by plane (where night falls going West, and day begins going East). Even at my best attempt at sleep, Tylonol PM included, I didn't get much rest. The sleep that I did succumb to was extremely light and very elusive. I'm a side and/or stomach sleeper, which makes finding a comfortable position in a mostly upright chair, lying on my back, and on the aisle seat, nearly impossible. Regardless, I was simply too excited to sleep. After tight quarters on the plane, airplane mystery meat food for "breakfast" (yuck, can I just another dinner roll instead please?), and running the rat maze they like to call Gatwick Airport in London for our layover, we were glad to be on land for a while. We pick up our luggage from baggage claim, head for the front of the airport, and stop dead in our tracks. Now what?

You see, Dana and I are somewhat of the adventurous types. Please don't get us confused with the "backpacker" type, because our 50 lb suitcases filled with cute clothes, make-up, razors, and hair products will attest that we're anything but that. However, we literally purchased round trip tickets to a foreign country where we didn't know the language whatsoever, and yet didn't make the first reservation, plan, or agenda. We didn't really even do any research. We just showed up ready to do and see and experience - whatever. We purchased a phone card, realizing first hand that standing in line over there meant absolutely nothing, and made our way to the pay phones. Dana had an acquaintance in Athens, so we decided to call her to test the water on the potential for a free night's stay with her. That was a no go, but we'd meet up with her, along with her boyfriend, later that night for dinner. In the meantime, someplace to stay for the night was top priority. So we walked over to a travel agency there in the airport in the hopes of finding a room.

The first travel agency we went to said that there were 3 conventions in town and no hotel rooms that they could help us with unless we wanted to spend 120 Euro ($144) or more. On a budget and not quite willing to spend any major money on a hotel, we asked to go ahead and catch a ferry to the island of Mykonos that night instead. The travel agent all but rolled on the floor in his fit of laughter at this request. In his broken English and between his cackling, we were able to understand that Fridays are a popular day to catch the ferry to the islands, and seats book up quickly. All reservations for the last ferry had been made already. That was pretty much the extent of his helpfulness. Bewildered at the lack of courtesy or service, we move down to the next travel agency for some help. We fare a bit better at this agency, booking a room down at the port of Piraeus for 55 Euro ($66), and a 7:30am ferry ticket to Mykonos for the following morning. All of this happened in the span of 2 hours. Yes, 2 reservations took 2 hours. Another of our first observations that the Greeks are definitely on their own time schedule. When they feel like it, they'll do it. When they do it, they'll take their time. Quite the culture shock coming from a country that prides itself on "quicker, faster, better."

Directed to the express bus bound for Piraeus, we figured out the purchasing of a bus ticket, the validation of the ticket, and took our seats after handing the driver a slip of paper asking him to notify us of our stop. The city whizzed by in a flash, with honks from the bus driver and other cars (apparently driving is one of the few things that creates a sense of urgency in Greek people), and I wasn't all that impressed with the view. Even coming from a large city myself, Athens seemed very dirty to me. Bleak. Cluttered. I was very surprised that the Olympic Committee agreed to hold the games there to be honest. You could tell there were attempts to freshen up for these games last year, but most often only the fronts of businesses and condo complexes were painted, leaving the sides of the buildings an eyesore; the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig in my opinion. I was yet to be impressed with Greece. Several stops later, Dana gets up to ask the driver when we're supposed to get off (they don't announce stops on the express bus - you're just supposed to know I guess), and he shouts at us that this is our stop. Thank goodness she asked! Hurriedly, we lug our suitcases off the bus amidst the crowd still packed on there, and are suddenly standing left in the bus exhaust on some random street in Athens. Unsure of exactly how to get to our hotel from the bus stop, we get out a map and anxiously begin trying to figure out street signs. But, it was all Greek to us. A good Samaritan sees us with the map and stops to help. As he's trying to figure out where we need to go, I happen to look down one of the streets and see the sign for our hotel: The Dream Hotel.

Trudging down the street with carry-on and a rolling barge of a suitcase, we make it the 5 blocks safe and sound and check-in. The very small "lift" will only hold one of us with our suitcase at a time, so Dana goes up the elevator first. Once I make it up to the room, I find her standing in a dark room that appears very clean and very nice for the money, just extremely tiny. Just enough room in there for the two twin beds and nightstand, but we weren't complaining. We just wanted a shower, but first, we needed to figure out how to turn on the lights. After fumbling around feeling up all the walls, we realize that we had to slide the key in the lightswitch in order for the lights to work. Voila...or should I say Oompah...the lights came on. She called shower first, which was the first experience with showers in Greece. Very few have shower curtains, and usually when you're done with your shower, you've pretty much flooded the bathroom. They're basically just a platform, open to the rest of the bathroom, with a faucet and handheld showerhead. We quickly learned to move the toilet paper to higher ground while showering!! While she showered, that left me to call her friend, Cathy, to make plans for the evening. They were to come pick us up at the hotel and we'd go to dinner somewhere close as to not make it a late night out. We were pooped, and had to get up early to catch our ferry, so her friend suggested a local restaurant at the marina called Skippers.

Cathy and her boyfriend Petros came to pick us up about an hour later, and Petros drove us around Piraeus. It's more of the business district of Athens, so there's not much to see, but we did end up seeing a few of the venues built for the Olympics. At Skippers, they only had one thing on the menu - Greek salad. I'm not kidding, that's all they offered that night for dinner. However, the atmosphere more than made up for the lack of offerings. We sat down by the docked boats, as far as the eye could see, all waiting for their turn to sail the Aegean Sea. The Greek salads came, and this was my first realization that Greek salads don't have any lettuce. A true Greek salad consists of tomatoes, black olives, onions, green peppers, cucumber, a block of feta cheese, and olive oil. The only thing I really eat out of all of those ingredients is feta. Starving after the disgusting plane food, I power through a few cucumbers, green peppers, and the feta. We learned a few pointers from Cathy and Petros during dinner - when to tip and how much, learning that you have to ask for your check to be brought to you instead of like in America where it arrives at the end of the meal, how to get to the port in the morning to catch our ferry, and some suggestions on beaches to visit while in Mykonos. After a few hours visiting with them, they dropped us back off at the hotel, and we were out for the count.

6am came fast. We loaded up the suitcases, threw on some clothes, hair back in a pony tail, and waited for our taxi to take us to port. Once there, we climbed aboard the Blue Star Ferry, waded through the crowd for an iced coffee and a cheese pie (flaky pastry phyllo dough wrapped around a soft cheese) for breakfast, and found some seats outside so we could enjoy the view while on our 5 hour trip to the Greek island of Mykonos. The sunrise was amazing...