The six-hour boat ride from Naxos to Piraias, the main post of Athens, was quite nice; actually, it was preferable to the fast-boat because we had plenty of room to move around and go out onto the deck. People had been telling me for weeks about the incredible color of the water in Greece. It was much more of a blue than anything in the United States, but it was much deeper than the Carribean. Anyway, we were surrounded by it. I got a lot of my book done and caught up on some days of blogging.
Shit hit the fan when we got back into Athens. We had neglected to print the confirmation for our hotel, and we could not remember the address or even the name. Tom thought it was named Miramare, and we spent some time looking for a cab who knew how to get there. Unforunately, the Miramare hotel does not exist in Athens, which we found out after we found an internet café and looked up the reservation. The cab driver took all of four blocks and charged us 15 Euro, to get to the Athena Hotel.
Our hotel was fine, and we decide to proceed directly to the Acropolis, so our driver waits for us. We go do the Acropolis, and many good pictures are taken. We go down and meet our driver again, and he takes us to the Plaka district, for some shopping.
We tell him to meet us an hour later, but we have a good time and we want to stay. We go back to meet him, SPECIFICALLY TO PAY HIM OFF, because, I mean, we could have just screwed him. Tom goves him some cash, and the driver claims he only gave him a ten. Tom is at first distressed because he at first thinks he has misplaced his cash, but it finally dawns on us that the driver palmed Tom's 50 for a ten. I was about to esclalate the situation by simply walking away, but it was requested by other members of the group that I try not to get knifed in a foreign country, so I gave the driver another fifty, and that was that.
Whatever, then we got drunk. I also bought a bunch of gifts at the Plaka, which, by the way, is totally sweet and has cheap food. Our day concluded with shaving Tom's back in our hotel room (copious pictures were taken). Gross!
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
6-Day: OMG no travel
Up to this point, we have not had a single day without some major travel by boat or plane. It has been incredibly ridiculous. Today, however, we are spending the entire day in Naxos.
Tom and I woke up really early and went for a refreshing ocean swim. The trip to the beach is about five minutes, a walking tour which features angry cows, goats, chickens, and fields. There is a quaint restaurant next to the beach at which we had a fantastic lunch of Greek salad, calamari, chicken, tzatziki, and huge beers. Tom went back to the hotel at one point and we then proceeded to do a lot of naked swimming.
We went into town for dinner and retired, prepared but sad about our slow boat to Athens in the morning. Naxos had been incredible.
Tom and I woke up really early and went for a refreshing ocean swim. The trip to the beach is about five minutes, a walking tour which features angry cows, goats, chickens, and fields. There is a quaint restaurant next to the beach at which we had a fantastic lunch of Greek salad, calamari, chicken, tzatziki, and huge beers. Tom went back to the hotel at one point and we then proceeded to do a lot of naked swimming.
We went into town for dinner and retired, prepared but sad about our slow boat to Athens in the morning. Naxos had been incredible.
Day the 5th: Island Transition
Caroline and Hannah come into the room at 5:00 AM, after going to bars for several hours, and they pass out. I had gotten about eight hours of sleep, so I get up to a false dawn and no Tom. I soon found him, however, down at the beach talking to a couple of attractive Asian women. One of them went to Melbourne University and the other went to Cornell.
We talk and the go have breakfast. Tom goes back to the room and goes to sleep; eventually, the Cornell girl and I go swimming in the ocean. This ended up being one of the best mornings of my life (due, in part, to the fact that I usually sleep through them). I sat there, on the beach, under a small tree, and read my book and wathed the people. The people were awesome, especially in the morning; there were big, naked families snapping pictures, couples, friends, and people like me just enjoying the perfect temperature. I was overcome with a profound sense of contented happiness that is somewhat foreign in my experience; different than sitting by the fire with a dog and a good book, different than seeing someone you love do something great, and basically opposite in feeling to the enjoyment derived from personal success. It was more of a sense that everything was right with the world and all of the individual parts of it, and that it would continue to be right as long as places like that beach existed anywhere.
Anyway, I enjoyed this for at least five hours, and then I went and woke up my crew. We had to get to our next island, Naxos. We had some lunch, the legendary Gyro Pita snacks, and took our (again) crazily aggressive taxi back to the main port serving Mikonos. We had another fast boat to Naxos, but we were quite a bit more cramped on this voyage.
We arrived at Naxos without a hitch and took the taxi to our hotel. This driver was considerably less crazy, although he did seem like a character out of a Greek version of Deliverance. We got there fine, and we checked into our "hostel," which was actually a fantabulous resort. It had two absolutely pristine swimming pools, a small dining area, a bar, and wonderful architecture and bougainvillea growing everywhere. Our host, a large and happy Greek who constantly wore t-shirts with ridiculous English saying on them ("Talk dirty to me, please") , told us that they were actually at half capacity even though we didn't see anyone else. It reminded me very strongly of the Miracle Manor. We had dinner at their little bistro, surrounded by their seven mewing cats. The beds were incredibly hard but we had no problem sleeping.
At this point, some discussion of the sunlight in Greece is warranted. The light is completely different than anywhere else in my experience…it looks like something out of a movie. You may remember sequence in Gladiator with the main character dreaming of his wheat fields back home; the scene looks like it had had the contrast increased as well as a lot of other image processing. Everything looked shiny and gorgeous, with clear colors that all went well together. You can get the same effect if you are laying out in the sun and you close you eyes for a long time and then open them.
Everything actually looks like this in Greece. The landscape is gorgeously sparse. However, the light has a different quality; it is almost more blue and colder, but not like a fluorescent light. Everything almost looks like it's made of crystal.
We talk and the go have breakfast. Tom goes back to the room and goes to sleep; eventually, the Cornell girl and I go swimming in the ocean. This ended up being one of the best mornings of my life (due, in part, to the fact that I usually sleep through them). I sat there, on the beach, under a small tree, and read my book and wathed the people. The people were awesome, especially in the morning; there were big, naked families snapping pictures, couples, friends, and people like me just enjoying the perfect temperature. I was overcome with a profound sense of contented happiness that is somewhat foreign in my experience; different than sitting by the fire with a dog and a good book, different than seeing someone you love do something great, and basically opposite in feeling to the enjoyment derived from personal success. It was more of a sense that everything was right with the world and all of the individual parts of it, and that it would continue to be right as long as places like that beach existed anywhere.
Anyway, I enjoyed this for at least five hours, and then I went and woke up my crew. We had to get to our next island, Naxos. We had some lunch, the legendary Gyro Pita snacks, and took our (again) crazily aggressive taxi back to the main port serving Mikonos. We had another fast boat to Naxos, but we were quite a bit more cramped on this voyage.
We arrived at Naxos without a hitch and took the taxi to our hotel. This driver was considerably less crazy, although he did seem like a character out of a Greek version of Deliverance. We got there fine, and we checked into our "hostel," which was actually a fantabulous resort. It had two absolutely pristine swimming pools, a small dining area, a bar, and wonderful architecture and bougainvillea growing everywhere. Our host, a large and happy Greek who constantly wore t-shirts with ridiculous English saying on them ("Talk dirty to me, please") , told us that they were actually at half capacity even though we didn't see anyone else. It reminded me very strongly of the Miracle Manor. We had dinner at their little bistro, surrounded by their seven mewing cats. The beds were incredibly hard but we had no problem sleeping.
At this point, some discussion of the sunlight in Greece is warranted. The light is completely different than anywhere else in my experience…it looks like something out of a movie. You may remember sequence in Gladiator with the main character dreaming of his wheat fields back home; the scene looks like it had had the contrast increased as well as a lot of other image processing. Everything looked shiny and gorgeous, with clear colors that all went well together. You can get the same effect if you are laying out in the sun and you close you eyes for a long time and then open them.
Everything actually looks like this in Greece. The landscape is gorgeously sparse. However, the light has a different quality; it is almost more blue and colder, but not like a fluorescent light. Everything almost looks like it's made of crystal.
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