No More Ruins. Please.

June 1, 2009
If there’s one ferry we should have missed, it should have been this one.
I can’t believe it.

We got to Athens at probably 6ish and by then end of that night ferry and traveling on this terrible train, I didn’t even want to be in Athens at all. I didn’t want to see the Acropolis. I didn’t want to experience the culture. I wanted a beach and I didn’t want to move. I was a little cranky.

We got to our hostel and the reviews were right: It was the right hostel in the wrong part of town. We turned the street and literally the smell of piss and garbage was overwhelming. There was a corpse looking person lying on the sidewalk two doors down from the Easy Access Hostel with their mouth gaping and a hand down their pants. Where in God’s name were we?
The hostel was clean, friendly, brightly lit, had free wifi, and you got a free shot of ouzo when you arrived. I’m not a fan of licorice and I’m not a fan of ouzo.
We asked the girl working at the bar where a good place to eat was and she gave us directions to her favorite restaurant. She told us the salads were good and the waiters were funny. She was right on both counts. It was one of the top three meals we’ve had in Europe. Number 1: Seb B’s mom’s Weiner Schnitzel. Number 2: A restaurant in the smallest town in Austria. Number 3: This Greek place last night. I also really liked the meal we had in Bari, Italy, even though I hate that place.

So after we ate we went back to the hostel and tried finding an island we could stay at for days. One of the waiters had said Santorini was the place to go. It was calm and good for beaches. After a little research we found a really good hostel for seven euros a night, a two-minute walk from the beach. We also decided to extend our Greek adventure to accommodate for the missed day and travel time to and from the island. The only catch was all the ferries to Santorini left at 7:30 am. We’d have to get a train from Athens to the port in the next town about a 15-minute drive away. Could we get a train that early?

I went down to reception to ask about 6 am trains. There were a group of French girls, a pair of American girls, and one surfy looking Aussie guy ahead of me. The French girls were super giggly and couldn’t figure out how to work the elevator. That took forever. The two American girls were wearing Roma City pub-crawl tee shirts and had matching sandals and backpacks. We were propositioned to go on the Roma City pub-crawl and we opted No. Pub-crawls are not exactly cool. They didn’t take as long as the giggly girls. The Aussie offered to let me go first but he’d been standing there a while so I insisted he get checked in. The hostel only has one key for each room and the last person just drops the key off at the front desk. So the receptionist reached up for key 307 but it wasn’t there. Because Lori, Lyd, and I are in 307 and we had the key. I introduced myself and told him he could go up to the bar and look for a girl painting in the corner and another girl next to her on a mac. They’d have it.

And trains started running at 5:30 am! We could do it! I went back upstairs to book ferry tickets and book the hostel. Dizzy sat with us and we talked about movies, books, traveling, ukulele, and other various instruments, hostels, and islands. For some reason the ferry website wouldn’t let me access the reservation page but Dizzy said if you just showed up at port, you could get your tickets there. He’d done it. So we booked 5 nights at the hostel and decided to get up at 5:30 to give ourselves plenty of time. I set my watch alarm.
I think I was the last to fall asleep sometime after 2 am. Lydia was out like a light as soon as she hit the bed. Dizzy, whose real name is Cam but last name is Gillespie so everyone calls him Dizzy after the Jazz musician, and Lori talked about football for a while. They were both on top bunks. We also tried to get him to change his U.S. travel plans to include a bit of the Midwest and not just see NY, LA, and San Fran. We might have him convinced.

The next thing I remember I’m looking at my watch and it says 6:45. Not good. My watch is 7 minutes fast but in all honesty I thought, “We going to miss the third ferry in a row.”

I told Lydia what time it was. Can we make it, she wondered. Should we even try, I worried. “Lori. Get up!” We discussed and discussed even though time was wasting. The ferry leaves at 7:30. 10 minutes to the tram. Another 10 minute ride. Finding the place. We haven’t even got tickets. No one wrote down the name of the hostel or how to get there! I was incredibly tired and incredibly pessimistic. Lydia just kept saying we could do it. We Could. Should we try? We asked again. And then, the voice of our guardian angel came from above with an Australian accent: “Get a texi. You’ll mayke it.”
Alright, Dizzy. We’ll try.
I was still quite pessimistic. We called a taxi. Lydia looked up the name of the hostel. I had told Lori the night before that I’d make her breakfast cuz she knew she’d be cranky in the morning. When we were sitting down stairs waiting for the taxi she said she’d make me breakfast. I asked her if I should tell the taxi driver to “step on it.” We laughed a little.

Our cab driver was awesome. He drove like the wind. He asked us what gate we were leaving from. We didn’t even have tickets! He asked us what island we were going to. Santorini! Gate 7 he said. What a great guy. He knew which gate left for which island! He dropped us off at the ticket office and helped us on with our backpacks. We ran in. Three tickets to Santorini! Can we do it? Yes yes. 33.50 each. Cash only. Cards? No, cash only. We had 65 euros in cash between the 3 of us. Ok, card.
Right, cash only. Whatever. But you must run! Hurry. Run. You have seven minutes!

So we did. We got to the boat and they were pulling up the walkway. Wait! We have tickets! There were two Canadians behind us who didn’t have tickets but were gonna get on the ship anyway. We all made it.

It was exactly 7:30 am. We were on the ferry. The ferry that if the world had any order to it at all, we should have missed. But seeing as this part of the world functions on a different plane of space and time, we made it.

In the cab I remembered that the Blue Star Ferry left at 7:25, which is the one we were taking, while the Hellenic Ferry left at 7:30. I didn’t have the heart to tell Lyd and Lor. But this is Greece and much like Italy, there are no rules and things don’t happen on time. So I assumed the ferry wouldn’t leave at 7:25.

I was right about that, but gloriously wrong about not being able to make the ferry. I hugged Lydia for being a source of strength and confidence. I hugged Lori for carrying my heavy heavy pack in the interest of time when we got out of the taxi.

I still made her breakfast in the form of crunchy oatmeal cookies with nutella and strawberry jam on them.

We stole about 5 hours of sleep in second class before being forced into the economy class, which is what we really paid for. We would have gotten away with staying in the second-class seats if it weren’t for the annoying Australian women in front of us who also didn’t belong in 2nd class. We’d unnecessarily revealed to them that we didn’t have seat numbers on our tickets either and when they were asked to move by the people who’d reserved those seats, they loudly turned to us and said, “We all have to leave, cuz we don’t have seat numbers on our tickets.” No, you vindictive wretches. You have to move because someone’s reserved your seats. We don’t because no one’s reserved ours. But it was too late. Every vulturous person there with a seat number was watching, with a bit of condemnation in their eyes. They all seemed to emanate the same thing: a mood of rightful ownership. They’d paid extra. They deserved a seat with a number in front of a TV screen with a horrible Greek show on. Greek television, by the way, is complete and utter crap. Inane. Obnoxious. Ugly. Loud.
Some people just care too much about belonging to things that have a strong correlation to money.

Sooooo we found a table and got frappes and busted out the laptops and ate bread and cheese. We’re still about 2 hours from our destination: paradise. Apparently Santorini is where the Lost City of Atlantis is. Lori asked if that was the Disney movie. I just stared at her. Oh! Haha. Right. Atlantis.

May our next adventure includes finding it.