The time we tried to conquer Greece…

It was a different sort of Christmas this year...

These are the happenings between December 23rd and 31st. This is a long one...

Our trip to Greece, oh my, where to begin! I suppose I could begin with a phrase I found myself repeating a lot during this trip – Well, it’s all Greek to me – or I could explain the astonishment I felt in discovering a country that was less on time and worse with directions than Spain. The best place to probably begin though, as always, is at the beginning, but before I do that I’d like make an opening remark on the Greek alphabet. Ah, the Greek alphabet, an alphabet useful only in the Greek language and in mathematics. Unfortunately for me I know hardly anything about Greek language, so while I tried to navigate Greece by reading street signs or eating at a restaurant or really anything else, I only thought of mathematics. Not at all useful for navigation purposes nor ordering a salad. You should have heard us trying to sound out the names…once again, sounded like math. Even if by chance we did have a good command of the Greek alphabet it probably wouldn’t have gotten us very far. The language has no similarities to the languages we know, which are Latin based languages. Greek is Greek based and they are very proud of that. Ok, enough about the language. Let’s go to the beginning.

The first 24 hours.

Our first suspicions about the quality of Greece came when we arrived at the airport. We arrived about two and half hours early for the flight, came into the airport, checked the board and saw nothing about our flight anywhere. Other flights leaving at the same time had a check-in location but ours was nowhere. We asked at information and they directed us towards the counter it would be at but not for some time we found out. We sat with other travelers for an hour in front of the counter until slowly a large line developed. And if you have been an airport before or really any line outside of school, you will know that there are always the people that like to “creep” towards the front. As if they don’t recognize the unspoken order of those who arrived first are at the front. Well those creepers slyly formed another line and when the airline staff finally arrived and solidified the two lines with the rope (failing to mention which side would be for what) we inevitably had to choose and we chose poorly. The line that the creepers forced us into was the line with preprinted tickets and unfortunately for us we have no printer. End of the line. Two hours of waiting for the end of the line. No big deal though. We all fly out on the same plane anyway, right? We’re either waiting here or by the terminal so in the end its all waiting. Either way, the creepers annoy me.

We arrive in Greece and are feeling confident. We strut through the airport to the baggage claim and pick up our bag as it was the FIRST to come out. That never happens. Decide on how to get to our hostel (we decide on the train, since the busses were striking) and head out, cruising like we know what we are doing. We follow signs and arrive at the train station in the airport and are confronted for the first time with the issue of language barriers. We have become so accustomed to being in a foreign country and knowing the language that we fall into a false sense that any foreign country will speak the foreign language we know. Not the case. Its Greece and its Greek. We didn’t even prepare “do you speak English?” in Greek. We sheepishly walk up to the ticket counter…”Do you speak English?” what a slap in the face. I’m always so annoyed when people do that in Spain and now I’m the culprit. I’ve got to learn some Greek…

We buy our tickets, which seemed way over priced (first sign of a failing country), get a hand drawn map on a napkin because they were all out of the real maps (second sign) and head down to wait for the train. Our confidence is slowly fading because the map makes no sense and we are incredibly confused. The train comes, we get on and immediately notice graffiti everywhere. Not only on the outsides of the train but on the inside as well. On the seats. Fabric seats. Who graffitis fabric seats? We are quiet on the train and observe everyone and everything passing on the train. The train eventually stops and we get off to where we need to take another train somewhere. The big question, which train where? Apparently, we looked as confused as we felt because some nice Greek women came to the rescue and told us that the train in front of us that looked like it was from 1962 was the one we wanted. We thanked them and got on the train. This train..wow. It was impossible to tell the color of the train because it had so much graffiti on it. The inside of the train, there was no question, it was blue. A blue that can only be found in the 60’s. It was quite the sight. It was actually more than a sight. It was a feel too. Itchy. It was also a smell. Old. The seats were blue. The ceiling was blue. The floor was blue. The trim was blue. The door was…well, bright yellow. But everything else was blue. We made it to the next stop safely then followed the masses to what we hoped would be the bus stop the hostel directions explained would be right there. Nowhere to be found. We walked through the streets, covered in garbage due to another strike, and finally asked again for directions. More bad directions. Walked some more than asked again then finally found the place. “Welcome! Names please?” “oh, Leinen….well there has been a problem with your room. You can’t stay here.” Oh, really? What happened to it I ask. They tell us it has been destroyed by the last tenants. Oh. Probably didn’t want to stay there anyway. They put us up in a partner hostel and it was fine. The next task was to find out how to get bus tickets for the next day south to where we would be staying. The advice we got was just to go there early in the morning (we had considered going that evening to buy the tickets ahead of time). So we got to our rooms and called to Arlene to tell her we were in Athens and were to head south in the morning. She sounded nice on the phone and agreed she would pick us up at about 12:30 tomorrow afternoon in town she wrote down in the email, DAIMONIA. I capitalize the name of that town because it is spelled incorrectly. We in turn mispronounced it. So no one we speak to has any idea of where we are going. Even the strangers are concerned for us but reassure us that because they don’t know the town doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Ha…great. It’s about 11:30pm now and we haven’t eaten anything. We ask the guy at the front desk where a good place to eat is at. He tells us we could take a bus to the acropolis area. We tell him we are done with public transportation for the day and he tells us there is a nice chicken place a block away. We thank him then walk down to find the place. The streets we walk down seem depressing and hopeless. There is garbage everywhere. There are bums scattered with foreigners selling pirated goods everywhere. Everything is rundown and it doesn’t seem like we are living in 2010. We arrive at the take-away place and have our second run-in with the language. We resort to pointing at the pictures because everything is written in Greek. We get our food, pay and start to say “thank yo…Gracias…errr” and pretty much spit our tongues out searching for the words that don’t come. We leave the place with our tongues hanging confused out of our mouths. We’ve got to learn some Greek. We get back to the hostel and scarf down the food which was really bad and get out our travel book and learn thank you. Efharisto.

Early morning to get to the bus station. We call a taxi and get to the station ok. Buy our tickets without too much trouble and find our bus. The station has the same feel as everything else we’ve seen. Old, rundown and failing. All the signs on the windows are handwritten and everything is dirty. The busses aren’t too bad and we’re happy to be situated and going the right direction on the bus and to sleep for a bit. We wake up after an hour or so to a guy snoring that has everyone annoyed and sending glares towards him. It was the kind of snore that sounds like they are dying or choking or breathing their last painful breath. Sleep time over. We felt especially bad for the woman sitting next to him. We look out the window at a rising sun and we are impressed with the countryside. We also begin noticing it is really difficult to know where we are. We don’t know where we are or how far we’ve gone. We stop for a while in what we find out to be Sparta and its not much like what you would imagine. I go inside and find a map and ask a woman how far it would be to DAIMONIA after repeating it a few times and changing the pronunciation she finally gets it and says ohh DEMONIA with a completely different pronunciation. That could have been helpful to know. We still have 2.5 hours. We get back on the bus and I find myself staring at people wondering if they would have been a Spartan warrior. I don’t think many of them would be now. We take off from the Sparta station and see some amazing things. A huge snow covered mountain range, an incredible gorge, and fields upon fields of olive groves. As the time grew nearer until when we thought we were supposed to arrive, we kept our noses pressed against the glass and our eyes peeled for a sign of any kind that would tell us where we were. We had to do this because the bus driver would not give us any indication of where we were or what stop was coming up

~Blake

We started making frequent stops in small towns and some of them had small signs written in Greek. We were able to match some of them up to the places on the map and we luckily found ourselves getting off at the right stop. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a problem since Arlene was waving the bus down and immediately asked the driver if we were on the bus. Anyway she found us. The woman sort of looked Greek but maybe Mexican, we later found out she was half Indian, half German. She grew up in Germany then lived in Indonesia where she went to high school and college at American institutions. So, her English was pretty good. We never did find out how she ended up in Greece, but that doesn’t matter I suppose. We got in the car and then she called her 2 kids and one of their friends to get in. As we all packed in the car with the extremely smelly kids who had been playing in the red dirt outside we tried not to think about how uncomfortable it was but how excited we were to have arrived and meet the people we would be living with for the next two weeks. Well we were supposed to be coming to stay with her in exchange for our help talking with the kids in English and keeping them occupied for 4 hours each day, right? Well we of course found out really fast that one of the kids knew the basic colors, numbers…and that’s about it. The other knew absolutely none. This was going to be an adventure we already knew. So we got back to the house about 3:00pm on Christmas eve. She showed us the guesthouse we would be staying in which was definitely beautiful, although not very cozy, we were expecting it to be a little warmer. Before we settled in too much she thought we should get to know the dogs. So, we got the two of them on leashes, I am not sure they have ever been on one… and she led us up a rocky path that went around some farmland (olives) and then back to the ocean in front of their house. It was a pretty area, but we couldn’t enjoy a second of it because the dogs were out of control. They pulled as hard as they could the entire way. Blake could hardly hang on so you could imagine what I looked like. Blake’s dog actually ripped out of the collar and took off. Blake ran after it down the road out of sight. Arlene kept telling me how WONDERFUL of a dog it was, because she knew it would come back. 10 minutes later Blake comes back, exhausted, with the dog. Arlene says, “look, you see! What a great dog to come to you!” He about fainted, but didn’t say anything. He later told me that he was in a dead sprint after that dog and happened to catch it when it was stopped for a second to sniff the ground. I had already imagined that was what happened. When we got back we unpacked and showered then went to really meet the family. The boys were uninterested, and her husband said hello and we didn’t see him again until dinner late that night. She said he is ashamed that he can’t speak with you so he is just going to stay away. And, she did begin to talk like we should feel sorry for her because he is so distant. We didn’t really know what to say and we just kind of brushed it off and forgot about the awkwardness we felt.

Caitlin

A Christmas Celebration

Arlene did mention that it would be a casual “German Christmas.” We didn’t really ever understood what this meant, but to say the least, I was a bit overdressed. Also I think we had a bigger appetite than we thought. She asked us if we liked sausage when we arrived. We said of course, imagining what most of you would imagine, well, something really delicious. Well, when we sat down to eat she brought out… hot dogs. Hot dogs and potato salad and a shrimp noodle salad thing. I thought I was going to be sick before I ate the food. But, I was really hungry, so I tried to imagine I was eating Grandma’s honey ham, mashed potatoes, and homemade bread, and Ann’s famous cheesy potatoes from the Christmases I remember. It just wasn’t the same. But we didn’t let it get us down. We were in a really good mood that night and had a wonderful time. They had some other family from Patra visit and they were a blast. We got each of the boys a yo-yo and we each had one. Blake was teaching them all kinds of tricks, he’s like a professional yo-yo’er if you didn’t know that trait about him. We also shared a bag of M&M’s that was sent to us from home, and those were a big hit. We gave them a little ornament to show our appreciation for letting us stay. They didn’t do gifts so they were quite surprised by all of that. Blake got me an awesome poncho that I ended up wearing every day we were there because it was so cold, and I got him a sweet leather fanny pack with bright colored stitching patterns all over it. I’m sure both of our gifts came straight from Morocco. We discovered a nice hot German wine drink that we like, that was definitely the highlight of the meal. Oh, and did I mention while all this was happening, there was a hedgehog roaming about on the floor? His name was Sparky, they just found him outside and decided to keep him inside… Anyway, the kids absolutely wore us out with the yo-yos that night. We went up to our guesthouse, and up the loft by means of a foot wide slightly angled ladder. It was a bit scary, especially when we would have to go back down in the middle of the night to use the restroom. I never got used to that ladder.

On Christmas Day, we went for a drive with the family to visit a historical site called Monevasia. This was an island except with one road built to it, which is where it gets its name. One passage or something close. We had a great time walking through shops in the village built into the cliffs and walking around the old Byzantine monastery. It was a nice day.

The Turning Point

We’ve decided that it would take far too long to explain all that is involved in this next section. So we just left our notes. Feel free to contact us for more details.

Not much to do on Sunday (first miscommunication)/mention the exhaustion from the boys/working in the garden (bad tools, clearing area as if for a garden, but in reality for the dogs to poop in, not being prepared for garden work, being talked to like we know nothing, not having our concerns listened to (ex. Stinging hands, bad allergies, perhaps a better way to do this), breakfast discomfort, walking the dogs, mosquitoes at night, conversations of her personal problems, the food. The relativity of time (what seemed like a week was just 3 days, blinded by beauty of our terrible situation, the loss of beauty…can’t begin to retell all of the small comments that drove us to a point of feeling trapped. Blamed for everything. Never apologized to. To the village (which supposedly had everything, but really had nothing) , the bad café. FEELINGS OF PURE NEGATIVITY (no harmony). Watched Ratatouille and knew we had to go.

The Discussion

We diplomatically brought up that the time we had spent here was not working for us and that we would like to leave a week early. We knew it wouldn’t go well and it didn’t. We said what we had to say and did it with intentions of leaving on good terms.

The next day, we got kicked out.

We came down for breakfast, thinking we had 3 days left of work, fixed our cereal and instant coffee then as we finished and awaited the days orders (we never had our work planned in advance) Arlene shouts from the other room, “Why are you just sitting there?” Well, from that point she basically kicked us out. Fine with us! Unfortunately she wouldn’t let us use the internet to book a hostel. So off to bus station with nowhere to go, a better feeling than the thought of staying in that place any longer…

A new life. Trying to salvage our trip to Greece

We ended up going to an internet café a half mile up the road from the bus station and booking a place to stay in Athens right near the Acropolis. The 6.5 hours ride back to Athens wasn’t as stressful on the way there because we knew where we were going. When we arrived that night we decided to take a taxi because we didn’t want to try to navigate the ancient metro system again. The driver didn’t speak a lick on English nor could he hardly read the English letters or numbers, so it was really fun trying to tell him where we needed to go. When we found our narrow street and the taxi driver about took off a parked car’s mirror…apparently not a big deal…happens all the time, we just looked at each other and got out. When we found the backpackers hostel It was great except when we walked to our room it wasn’t what we thought we were paying for but a studio full of beds and a strange man. We decided it would be worth the extra money to not have any more adventures that day, so we got our own room. We spent the next 4 hours on the internet and phone trying to contact someone at the airport/airline/website we bought the tickets from to change our flight. What a nightmare. We were furious with the entire ordeal of getting transferred and never finding anyone to talk to that could change our flight. We ended up just taking the hour long bus trek to the airport (eacg way) the next morning to change the flight which took 10 minutes to actually change. Why we couldn’t have done that over the phone still boggles my mind. We still have a letter to write to lastminute.com…

Blake

After all the travel changes were squared away we could finally start to enjoy Athens we went on a walking tour that the hostel provided for 5 euro. It was an awesome tour. We didn’t actually go into any of the sights, but there was really no need to. Everything seemed to be right in front of us. The guide was an archeologist, so he was just loaded with info. About the most interesting facts of every corner of Athens and its history. He told us all kinds of things that you won’t find in the books, like a handful out of the hundreds of techniques the Ancient Athenians used to build the Acropolis so it would withstand earthquakes and not fall for thousands of years….which seemed to have worked. One cool thing too is there is no mortar holding anything together! Everything is free standing and locked into place by the shape it is built. This was intentional because if there had been mortar, when an earthquake happened the entire thing would move as one and it would crumble. Each piece in the entire little city was free to move just a little and then fall right back into place. The reason the Acropolis and inside, the well known Parthenon doesn’t look like it’s in perfect condition is because humans tried to destroy it. Many times. And it was once blown up by the same people who were just trying to store all of the town’s gun powder inside of it. It has been renovated a couple of times, but that was the last big disaster and still stands the same way with only about a quarter of the columns standing. Also, some people decided to go steal all of the marble statues that once stood on the Pediments, and they now are in a Museum in LONDON. We took a short hike up to a high point near the Acropolis and the guide pointed out a rock that many famous people in history spoke to the people of Athens on. Interestingly enough Saint Paul spoke to the people there…in Greece where they worshiped Zeus and Athena and hundreds of others…and he spoke about the god he knew of that they already worshipped; their “unknown god”... I guess he knew how to work with his words. Apparently no one listened however, for they had heard thousands of theories of the unknown god. When we got to the parliament on the tour, we got to see the changing of the guards. That was an interesting spectacle. They did sort of a trotting walk thing like a horse, but in slow motion. They also wore shoes with giant pom-poms on them. The guide said that at one point, no one was allowed to carry any sort of weapon, or they would be sent to prison, but they were always being attacked, and with no way to defend themselves, they decided to put blades on the tips of their shoes and conceal them with a big pom-pom. No way would anyone find that suspicious right? Must have worked because it became a big part of their history. Those pom-pom shoes were all over souvenir shops.

After the tour we wanted to go to the flea market. We were walking through for quite a while when we realized that every single shop was just pirated goods or souvenirs that were all the same and way too high priced. We did find some really cool shops where people were making and painting pottery the ancient Greek way. Too bad we had no money and no way to get something like that home. We ended up finding a music store that sold Mandolins and Bouzoukis. We spent some time playing and decided to sleep on whether or not we could afford to buy a bouzouki. They at 55 for a really simple one and went up into the thousands of euros for the little instruments. A Greek bouzouki has a small body and arm length neck. It has 3 sets of 2 strings and makes a very big bright sound. It could sound like a snake charmer or it could make an Irish jig to give you an idea of the music it makes. There are also Irish bouzoukis that are a little bigger and have 2 more strings.

Well that night we decided we need to get something out of this trip, so we went back to look at them again. We didn’t want the really cheap one so we left one more time to think on the one that one a little more. We found a really incredible stone and bead store. I was in heaven. I wanted to buy so many strings of the coolest stones I have ever seen. I wish we had more money on that trip. We ended up buying three strings of my favorite rocks that I found there. One was some wickedly cut moonstone, one was dark brown topaz, and the other was this stone pink and yellow rhodochrosite. I didn’t know what they were when I picked them out but the man that worked there explained to me what they were and where they all came from. He asked if he could smoke a cigarette and had us sit down because he was just glad to have company I think. We chatted for a while, and he ended up giving me a pretty good deal on my gems for I have no idea what reason, I think he could tell how much I loved them. I have to find another source like that.

I also really wanted some authentic Greek sandals. I don’t know why I have always wanted a pair, and they had to be from Greece. Well I was finding that those too were way overpriced, that is until I found this little store hidden away. I went down some stairs and found a sandal shop. And they were way more affordable. I must have tried on 10 pair of only 2 different styles because every single shoe fit different. Bless Blake, he is very patient. He says he doesn’t mind, but even I was frustrated. Anyway I found two matching Greek sandals that made a pair, fit perfect, and are pretty awesome. Since I got some cool things, we had to go get the bouzouki . We got one that we love and Blake played it until we went to bed that night.

The next morning, very early, we were on our way back to Madrid. It was New years eve.

Caitlin