My Many Adventures, Mishaps, and Musings: " “I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world”-Socrates

Me in Mykonos!

So, after I spent a lovely day in Frankfurt I headed off to Athens. My friend and I were booked for a cruise that left early the next morning, and she was flying direct from a competition in the Netherlands, so I was going to spend the night in a hotel, and she would meet me there when she got in. I talked to the hotel ahead of time to figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel and it all seemed easy and I was not worried in the slightest.

I should have known that me not worrying is always a bad sign. When my flight got in and I got my bag, I just walked right out without going through passport control or customs or security or anything, which seemed a bit strange, but I was not complaining. I tried to get a taxi to take me to the hotel but the driver said the hotel was so close that it would not be worth his time to take me, and since I was fairly certain he was drunk, I hopped on the bus that the hotel receptionist had told me to take. It was not the right bus. Hardly anybody spoke English, and finally through the help of a nice man who kind of spoke English, I was told to get off and cross the street, and then just walk straight, and I’d get to the hotel. Once I crossed the street though, I learned it did not continue like the man had said, but rather cut off in a very sketchy ally. It was very late and I was really scared. I tried not to cry, but I was pretty terrified. I managed to hail a taxi, but the driver quickly got lost, spoke no English, and drove like a maniac. I just prayed and held on tight for what felt like an eternity, thinking all the while “I should have stayed in Germany!”.

Once he dropped me at the hotel (after overcharging me and throwing my bag to the curb) I slept just a bit until Rachel came. She and I got a few hours of sleep before heading over to our port for the cruise. We noticed a couple of things very quickly:

-Athens is dirty. It has become very run down and disgusting, which is sad considering how much history is there

- Greece has lots of animals running around. While we were in the queue to board the ship, we saw several homeless dogs running around. They were surprisingly clean and very friendly, but it was very strange

- Our boat had a lot of Americans, especially the type of Americans that make you understand why the rest of the world has such a negative view of Americans. Fanny packs and sandals-with-socks galore! There were also lots of American school groups onboard- one from Wisconsin (made evident by their sweatpants/shorts/t-shirts with the word “Wisconsin” emblazed brightly) and a few others. And I thought my high school was cool when we went to a Broadway show! The kids were kind of annoying, and made me really glad to be out of high school, but we managed to avoid them for most of the trip.

The reviews I’d read online made me a little unsure of what to expect from the ship, but I was pleasantly surprised. The ship was small, especially compared to the two Royal Caribbean ships I had been on, but it was very nicely decorated, modern, and did not feel too crowded. There was not much of a pool, but that was not a problem since it was till a bit too chilly for swimming. Our room was really nice, and our window afforded us some great views (well worth the bit of extra money you had to pay for a room with a window). My only complaint was that you felt the ship rocking quite a bit, which I had not experienced on the other cruises I had been on. Those prone to motion sickness might not have enjoyed the ship so much!

Rachel, my wonderful travel companion, and I have both had some experiences in which we are “creeper magnets” (attractors of creepy people) and while we were hoping to get away from this on our holiday we were not so lucky. A very nice crew member showed us to our room when we first arrived, and then we wound up seeing him again at dinner, so he came over to our table. We were trying to eat quickly, but he seemed very eager to have a conversation with us, but it was extremely awkward. We laughed it off once he left, but then that night, at about 11:30, he came to our room! Rachel (by far the sweeter of us two) tried to make it less awkward by asking about breakfast, but it was very strange, and annoying since we had to be up at about 5:30 am. We had another awkward encounter the next day, and then that night he came to our room AGAIN at 11:30! This time I answered the door, not too happy to be disturbed when I was just about to get under the covers. It was very awkward, and since I lack Rachel’s charm, I was perhaps a bit snippy. At this point we were pretty uncomfortable with the situation, so the next day we went to the reception desk and explained about our frequent visitor. The receptionist seemed pretty freaked out and promised to take care of it, but said that if he should come by again, to call the desk “IMMEDIATLEY!” Fortunately he did not come by again, and we managed to avoid him for the rest of the cruise, but that night when we were about to go to sleep, Rachel found a black hair on her pillow not belonging to either of us. We fell asleep laughing and teasing each other that he was our new stalker.

But back to the fun stuff. After we left Athens we spent a few hours at sea before getting to Mykonos. We walked around the city as the sunset along the beach. It was simply beautiful! We were one of the first cruises of the season so it was not too over run with tourists, and people were not sick of Americans just yet. I bought a beautiful painting (where I got ripped off for the first time, but more on that later. It wasn’t a huge deal, though) and we had a really nice night.