Greece. Eh. I've seen better*

My schedule (see last post) turned out to be pretty accurate. Here is what happened on my trip:

We did indeed get on the last bus out of town for Pesaro, arriving there before midnight. Angela, Danielle and I figured out how the train would work and bought our two sets of tickets; one set to Ancona, the other from there to Milano. After more than an hour of waiting on the platform, our train arrived and we got on to find that our seats were in a humid little box that was almost full. We put our stuff on the racks above and tried to get some sleep. I sat across from a stranger and found it very difficult to get comfortable. As I had predicted, I got about 15 seconds of sleep for the five-hour ride. Stiff and groggy, we disembarked the train at Milano Centrale, which is a very impressive station. We found our way outside to the Malpensa airport connector bus, €7. An hour later, we were in the EasyJet terminal at Milano Malpensa, brushing our teeth in the bathroom and looking for a brioche and a coffee. Our flight would not be for another several hours, so we waited and played Scopa, and waited some more. And, to make a long story short (too late), we got back to Urbino at 2:00AM on Tuesday. Greece was great.

I kid, I kid. We got to Athens at around 4:00PM local time, which is 3:00PM Italian time and 9:00AM EST. We got out of the airport and walked into an oven. Greece has a dry heat, almost like Las Vegas or, as Alex may recall, Kingman, Arizona. We found our way to the Suburban train, which took us to the metro, which took us to a station down the street from our Hotel. Athens is a dirty city. I would be lying if I said otherwise. Everything looks wet and the sidewalks are darkened with grime. We got to a shady (in the sense of no light, not unsafe) neighborhood to a big building with a long sign down its side reading “Hotel Aristotle.” We checked in with a friendly man at the desk. Room 415. The room had a very urban view without much scenery, but it was cheap, quindi non m’importa. After a brief regrouping, we went downstairs to see what we could see. It had been decided that we would just get something to eat and not try to see anything that night and we would come back to Athens in the morning of our last night, get a hotel and see the sights before we left to return to Italy. As I will explain, some things stood in the way of that plan. We went downstairs to ask the man at the desk what we should do in Athens and if we could book the hotel for our last night in Greece. No vacancies for Sunday night. There would be time to figure it out. We went out to eat at a slightly touristy restaurant. Everything is cheaper in Greece so we went a bit nuts with ordering food. I took pictures of all of it. Our menu is as follows: red wine, Greek salad, artichokes in a Greeky sauce, gyro pitas (each of us had one), roasted feta cheese, and stuffed grape leaves. The total was about €10 each and our stomachs were content with us. We set an alarm for 6:00AM and went off to bed.

I woke up to light pouring through our windows. ‘This does not seem like 6:00AM to me’ I thought. It was 7:something. We packed our things and went down for a continental breakfast. Cereal, yogurt (a famous Danielle line: “What is this? Oh. It’s yogurt…Oh my God. GREEK YOGURT!”) The breakfast was nothing special but it wasn’t terrible. We returned our keys and made our way for the station to get to the port for the next boat for Mykonos. After a 20something minute metro ride, we were at the port. We went to buy tickets for the next boat. We had missed the first boat, figuring that the islands would have tons of boats to and fro throughout the day. We figured incorrectly and the next boat was not until 6:30 that evening. What else could we do? Well why not use today for Athens and then decide if we like Mykonos enough to stay there for an extra night or find another place in Athens for the night before our flight? We locked up our bags at the station and headed for the Acropolis. We had perfect weather. We hiked up to pay for tickets to the Acropolis. “Is there a student discount?” we asked. “Yes.” So we showed our Urbino student cards to the woman at the booth and she nodded. “It’s free.” We saved €12 each for pretending to be EU students. We started the hike up the top, stopping to see the auditorium and the theater along with marble ruins. We were led by a stray dog who seemed to live at the Acropolis. I named him Tsiziki. The first building we came upon as the temple of Nike at the top of the hill. It never really settled with me how old these ruins were. Older than the Colosseum! We sat and rested in front of another temple under the ancient sun and the blue sky. Athens was all around. It’s really a huge city that goes on for pretty much as far as the eye can see. The buildings glistened through the smog and haze. But I have pictures so I’m going to stop describing this. We walked through the old town, which is just tourism now and little shops that sell Greek things like statues and postcards and cups. After a good long while looking over the city and at all of the ancient marble, we decided to go get a drink at a little café. The Greeks, unlike the Italians, understand that their country has a warm climate and that wearing less clothing is a good way to deal with the heat. Not only is that true, but they drink coffee with ice! Imagine that! We relaxed and drank our espresso and cappuccino freddos and played Scopa. After our coffee break we found a posh looking place to have lunch with prices that didn’t look too unreasonable. I ordered a Greek meatball dish with rice. It was terrific. I love food. It was getting to be afternoon so we made our way to the port to catch our boat. We got lost in the sketchy looking part of the port but eventually got to the deck of our huge ferry. More Scopa and coffee and relaxation. The sun set over the Aegean behind us as we cruised along like Odysseus. We arrived at Mykonos at 11:00PM, after four-and-a-half hours on the boat and almost missing our stop. George from the Hotel Argo was there to meet us. We got into his van and he took us to our home for the next four nights. Our room was absolutely beautiful. It was an apartment style room with a kitchen, a room with two single beds and a master bedroom with a queen. We went to bed to wake up early for breakfast and a day of lying under the Aegean sun.

As spectacular as the hotel and the island had seemed the night before, we couldn’t seem much of anything then because it was dark. With the background of the bright blue clear sky, the uniform white washed cube buildings with blue shudders were stunning. Looking back on it, I feel like I spent three days in a post card photo shoot. We went down to the pool for our breakfast. Now, this was a breakfast! Again Greek yogurt, but also pound cakes, toast, fried eggs, good coffee, juice, cheese filled filo dough pastries and chocolate filled brioches. It was hard to stop even after reaching full bodily capacity. We managed to stop only with the prospect of spending the day at the beach. After lathering up in sun screen (I was able to get a small bottle of sunscreen although the security people in Italy were less than attentive and didn’t ask or check about liquids at all) we walked to the closest beach, Platy Gialos. As we walked in front of the rows of empty sun beds, we were accosted by a man speaking broken English who asked us to sit down and take some beds. We were an easy sale and agreed to pay the €5 each for the beds. He gave us a €15 coupon to the restaurant where he worked in return for our business. The rest of the morning and afternoon were absolutely uneventful, as planned. We got in the frigid water a few times and lied out in the sun until the sun was starting to get low. After we felt we had gotten our money’s worth at the beach we went to the pool at the hotel. The water was much more reasonable there, but still cool. A few more hours passed and we decided that breakfast was finally becoming old news enough to get some dinner. After showers and dressing, we made our way back to the beach to decide which restaurant we would go to. We landed on the one where we already had bought a discount, which had prices comparable to the other restaurants after the discount was included. The food was only decent. We went back to the room after a quick game of Scopa.

I woke up to find that my stomach had turned a dark reddish purple tint that would more likely be exemplified as a lip color than a stomach color as a result of sitting in the sun for an entire day. I used sunscreen but apparently not enough. We decided it would be a good idea to go to town in the afternoon. But first, we’d try another beach. We went to talk to Thinasis, the owner of the hotel and the most perfect example of a unibrow that I have ever seen. This thing was a real single unit, like a huge caterpillar sprawled out between his forehead and eyes. Thinasis and his staff at the Hotel Argo really made our stay perfect. We asked him about other beaches other than the one we had gone to the day before and he told us where to go and which beaches were good and which were expensive, etc. He noticed Angela’s burnt foot and gave her some of his own special sunburn cream from Germany. I felt like we were the only people staying at the hotel. We walked for a while along the beach up a rocky hill with a small beaten path passed several hotels and an enclosure of roosters and peacocks to another totally uninhabited beach. Well, we thought it was uninhabited, but as we turned to the right we saw a completely naked, uniformly tanned (head to toe without the usual pale exceptions) older man perched on a rock like he was a piece of the scenery. We stayed anyway and lied on the rocky beach for a few hours. After another brief stay at the pool and some showers, we made our way to town by way of the bus. Mykonos town is a serious a winding alleyways. Everything is typical Greek isle white washed, resembling carved Styrofoam. We got another Greek cappuccino freddo and walked around. The girls looked at jewelry while I rolled my eyes and tried to seem manly (Mykonos is the gay Greek isle). We walked to several different restaurants looking at the menu to see which seemed the best. We landed on one with a view of the notorious Mykonosian windmills and of the quickly approaching sunset. I had a traditional Greek beef stew. Soon after dinner, we got back to the bus stop to head back to Platy Gialos where our hotel was. While we waited, two little girls in the back of a parked car played peek-a-boo with us. With these two girls and the two little boys of the lesbian couple at the hotel, Greece proved to have no shortage of cute little kids. We got back to the hotel and asked our new Greek friend, Thinasis if there would be a ship out of Mykonos on Monday morning that would allow us to catch our plane. There would be, and he booked it for us, took our credit card info and paid for the tickets and had his driver pick up the tickets at the port so they would be ready for us. We asked about booking another night at the Argo. He would let us know the next day. The heat from the day had made my stomach much sorer. I slept well until I tried to move and felt my skin resisting.

The next day we decided to do almost the same thing as the day before; the morning at the beach and the afternoon/evening in town. Breakfast was delicious once again. We went back to the Platy Gialos beach like the first day. We went to the same beds as the first day and spent a good four hours under the sun again. I stayed under the umbrella with my shirt on to prevent any further purpling of my belly. More poolside shenanigans with the two little kids of the lesbian couple as was the case the day before. This little blond boy with glasses was explaining to me that the foot prints on the poolside were actually dinosaur tracks and that we had to be very still or they’d get us. I didn’t buy it for a second. After the pool we packed our bags and went to town. It was evening now. We decided to take it easy on the food and only got some gyros and flakey honey pastries. The girls perused the jewelry again and I toyed with buying a speedo as a joke. I didn’t. At the end of the night, I tried ouzo while we waited for the bus. It was not too bad but after a few sips, the flavor really sticks with you and you can’t taste anything but licorice. We got back and paid our outstanding bill for the hotel. Keep in mind that this was probably the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in. After four nights, the bill for each of us was €111. Breakfast alone was worth probably one quarter of the price. Thinasis said that the driver would be ready to take us to the port at 6:45 the next morning.

We woke up on time, by some strange miracle and got dressed and out the door. Once on the boat, we all tried to get a bit of rest. Only Danielle was successful. We were back at the port by noon, we had to wait for the bus at 1:00. The next day was travel. We were traveling from 6:45 until 1:00 in the morning the next day. The train ride home was much more comfortable. Danielle almost broke my cell phone but didn’t. Other than that, all’s well that ends well and I am back in Urbino now so all is well.

Since we got back, I went to Pesaro again, the next day. Obviously three days on the beach in Greece was not enough and I needed one more. I’ve forgotten what clouds look like by now. All we’ve had is clear blue skies and heat. My stomach is still a bit pink but I was very careful at the beach in Pesaro to not get too much sun on it or the other burns on my feet. The next day, Wednesday, one of the 600 Spanish had a birthday party in the afternoon. Most of Erasmus was there, drinking Sangria and beer and eating hamburgers and sausage. A combination of the scorching sun and plentiful sweet tasting, deceptively alcoholic beverage was somewhat destructive to the demeanor of the group and the tranquil gathering deteriorated into a water fight, as was somewhat expected. I hid inside and avoided any direct soakings, only getting hugged by dripping wet people a few times. At night, after an accidental nap, we all went to the piazza and had few bottles of digestives. Emma and I got ice cream after we failed to find hot chocolate and she and I and Taylor, Annie and Síne all walked back to the collegi. I woke up this morning at around 9:00 being superheated by the sun pouring into my room and got to work on schoolwork, committed to the goal of finishing my essays for Intercultural Management Competence. Almost done now. When I’m done with this, which is pretty much now, I’ll get back to work on the essays. This blog is a form of procrastination but I feel like I should update my family about what’s been going on.

Allora, quindi, dunque, communque… I should get back to writing my other essays and then post this blog, call my parents, maybe go up to the fort. Non lo so ancora che cosa il giorno tiene.

I miss everyone at home and I can’t wait to be there again and see what’s different and what’s the same. I’ll be back soon, but until then I will continue to allow you all to live vicariously through my blog posts and my pictures, which I remind you, are on Facebook.
Love all of you and see you soon,
David
PS. I didn't proof read this post so it's probably full of spelling errors.

*PSYCH! It was good. GOTCHA!