My BIG FAT Greek Travelogue

I look at the date on my last blog entry blog and realize that I have been lazy. Well, not exactly, hubby and I were BUSY having a vacation. Normal people have busy lives and take a vacation for relaxing. But we never claimed to be normal and cannot pretend otherwise or if you don't believe me ask my mother-in-law about it. We have relaxing work days and take a vacation for some adventure and stress. After all, what is life if there are no hectic schedules to keep at least some days of the year?

PRETRAVEL

We got married a year back and decided its high time we have a honeymoon. We are not really honeymooney people since we don’t celebrate Valentines Day, walk hand in hand towards the sunset, (You get the picture!) If you ever see us doing that, chances are, hubby is explaining something about lunar tides or something like that. After all, his idea of a birthday gift was a skydiving coupon! Anyhoo, we settled on Greece, the weather was decent, (it ended up being very cold!), did not look too expensive (it WAS), looked like a fun, romantic place with so much to see. So Greece it was. I bought the tickets online; reserved a hotel (needed that for the visa interview, which is another post for another time.)

GRAND ARRIVAL IN GREECE

We got to Greece on 20th with 8 pieces of luggage. 4 huge suitcases, 2 medium ones, and two "personal items". After all, we were coming from India. No deal here can compare with the dollar-rupee conversion deal, I am telling ya!! We were pushing the envelope on all of them. We talked to people at the airport and since keeping the luggage at the airport came out to be very expensive, we decided to take all of it to the hotel. We were told that the metro was the cheapest option and like the cheapskates we were, lugged it all to the metro. Since the airport was the first stop, we got in put the stuff, settled ourselves comfortably on a nearly empty train.

After around 5 or 6 stops, people started coming in and we didn't realize that the place was getting filled up and we were taking up seats for 2 more people. Then this girl, she started a conversation with us which very nearly became a riot in the train. She told us she has a back and I wanted to say "What a surprise!! So do we!!!. Sure would be a sorry sight without the back". Then I realized she might not be in the mood for humor and we were taking up too much space in the train, and because she had a backache, (which is probably what she meant) she could not stand. We made some room for her and we thought the matter ended.

But the conversation spread further in a concentric radius and more and more people got involved and they all started yelling at each other in a loud voice. We had no idea who was on whose side; it was all Greek to us (pun intended!). It was very funny to us and we were laughing when all of this drama was going on. Finally we reached our destination and went to the hotel without losing any luggage or getting handled.

We went out to dinner in the night and discovered the thing that was going to annoy us for the rest of our time in Greece. SMOKING! Now, it is not my intention here to be holier than thou and brand all people who smoke as bad or anything. It is an addiction like anything else--food, tv, alcohol, gossip etc. BUT it was something that gave us a headache at the end of the day. They do not have restriction for smoking anywhere except the metro train. And restaurants were the worst, we were surrounded by a cancerous halo. I do not know if it is my imagination, but women seem to smoke more than men there.

ATHENS AT NIGHT
I have read in those books I used to read as a kid about rich kids going to Europe and the phrase "getting ready for Europe”. I had never understood what that meant until I went there. The women are SO FASHIONABLE!! Stiletto boots, tailored pantsuits, furcoats and here I was in jeans, a t-shirt all worn from travel and a pair of sneakers which has seen better days! And we didn't see any poor people. Everybody seemed to be affluent and well dressed. We did look like two poor country bumpkins on their honeymoon out to see Europe on a shoestring budget. After our long flight and exciting train ride, we slept like babies and woke up next morning to spend a day at Acropolis. Rest in Part II...

MBFGT-PART II

DEC 21-ACROPOLIS
Acropolis was great. It gave us a sense of awe looking at the theatre of Dionysius and the Parthenon and we were suitably impressed. We spent a lot of time in less visited places, nonetheless very beautiful. But alas, I had to deal with a big fear of mine the time I was in Greece. The fear of dogs! They were everywhere...When we were in India, my father-in-law was telling us about "vibes" we send out which makes animals afraid of us. If there is something like that, I am SURE I give out those vibes.

Here is a story. We were walking on the street and I was holding on TIGHT to hubby and it was pretty dark. This black huge furry dog comes out from the other side of the street, barks and advances menacingly (or so I think, but the point is still open to debate between us) towards ME. That thing actually crosses the road to come to me. And my brave knight in the woolen coat raises his hands and shouts something and hey presto that creature is wagging his/her tail. Talk about vibes!!! And well of course the result of the whole thing is dear hubby had a chance to give me a lecture on how to walk and talk and act when dogs are around (a lecture which sure didn’t stick!). I have this fear of dogs since I had been bitten by one and had to take 6 injections.

Anyway we walked all around enjoying the sights and sounds of Acropolis and came back by the flea market and went to various shops, didn't buy anything..oh no, we did get the fridge magnets. That is our standard purchase from anywhere. Came back to the hotel and went to sleep and evening and morning came and this was the second day.

DEC 22-CRUISE

Next morning we got up and half the morning we spent in planning. Hubbywanted to go to Santorini very badly (a beautiful island) but the problem was we did not have enough time. We wanted to go to Delphi as well and since we went there off season, we did not have flexibility in getting organized tours as well. We went to this place where they had a street full of travel agents and there we had a funny experience. We are obviously tourists and we go to this travel agency to get help with travel arrangements. We walk into this place where there are like 10 geeks er I mean greeks sitting in front of computers and they look up at us with frowning faces. My hubby explains that we need help with travel arrangements and they are openly hostile and look at us like we are crazy to ask for help with travel arrangements at a travel agency. Then one woman deigns to reply.."We don't do that here". I wanted to retort-What DO you do pray tell me, but I dint. It would have been just a waste of time. Finally after getting in and out of several ones, we finally found one where we found some tickets to Santorini.

It sounded like a hare-brained scheme to the lady who was helping us, she tried her level best to not let us go there, but we were obstinate. My heart was sinking in my boots by the time evening came around and we got to the port. But I valiantly supported my husband in this decision. It got really cold and a wind was blowing and there was a possibility the ferry wont depart. But we finally made it. Once we got in, we got cabins and 15 minutes later, we were down at the cabin. That was the best decision we made. We could hardly feel any rocking of the boat. Outside we could see the lights and Athens passing by. It was all very beautiful and romantic. We just lay on our bunks flat on our stomach, not talking, but just watching. It was one of those memories which would last us a lifetime. Evening and night 22nd over.

MBFGT PART III

DEC 23-SANTORINI
Saturday morning, we were supposed to reach at 9:45am, but the ferry was late and and we reached at 11:15am. We were disappointed bcos our ferry was back at 3:30 and we had very few hours in Santorini. It was really beautiful and we had NO clue how we would see the place. As soon as we got out of the ferry, we saw that all businesses were closed. We stood there and then got into this Taxi which took us on a long winding road up to the top. We got out and decided that we will first have some food before deciding how to see Santorini in 3 hours. We went to this adorable cafe. It was sooo cute, the way they decorated...the food was pretty good too. After that, we got out and wandered around.

That is when hubby got a brilliant idea. He is a great one for ideas, my very own King Julian-champion of champions! (Refer to King Julian of Madagascar). We decided to hire a car and driver to take us around. That is when we found Babis, our wonderful Santorini driver. He took us around all the great places in Santorini. It was really awesome, cos we could spend as much time as we wanted to without having to wait for anyone. He also talked about the place and explained us stuff. We went to these cool places in the comfort
of the car. On the way SH wanted to get out of the car and take a picture. It was like on top of a cliff and the wind was so strong, it nearly blew him off. Of course we hadn't felt anything while we were in the car. We got a scare and were careful after that. He took us to the highest point in Santorini where there was a monastery and we climbed up to the top and we got a MAGNIFICENT view. By about 3pm we were down at the dock and waiting for the ferry to take us back to Athens.

It was not a great trip back; we had no cabins and again had to sit with the smokers. There was a "non-smoking" section which made as much sense as a "non-peeing" section in pools (Courtesy-an ad on TV). But for some reason I was not affected as much that day as ach was (Maybe he was sitting downwind) and he had a bad headache by the end of the 8-hr ferry. Once we reached the port, we caught the train back (no riots this time-we had only backpacks :))) to Athens where our hotel was.

DEC 24-DELPHI
Next day, our 1-year anniversary- we went on an organized tour to Delphi and I think this would be about the last time we take conducted tours. Trip time to Delphi and back 3.5 hrs. Time "alotted" at the Delphi ruins and the museum 1.5hrs. Total trip time 10 hours. You do the math. We were disgusted at the end of the day. One good thing that came out of it is that we met some fellow Indians on the tour and we decided to go to a Greek restaurant where there was dinner and traditional folk dancing. We had a really good time with each other, cracking jokes, discussing places we visited and getting to know each other in the process. There were 8 of us in all and we enjoyed it.

Delphi ruins were great too, seeing Mt Parnassus and the theatre and stadium. We had a long hike up there. Our guide told us stories about the Oracles that were supposed to live up on the temple in the mountain. They would feast on stuff that would make them "high" and then say this couple would ask, “What would our baby be?” Boy not girl, the oracle would reply. Then when the couple has a girl, they would come back and ask, the oracle replies “That’s what I said Boy not, Girl.”

We came back from Delphi and in the evening went for the dinner with our new friends. That was our last night in Greece. We came out a little earlier as we had to leave quite early in the morning. We did a hasty packing and went to sleep. Got up early morning (we could hardly open our eyes!), took a cab and went to the airport for our trip home.

MBFGT PART IV

FLIGHTS BACK
Greece to Paris was a quick flight and the food was the WORST airline food we had ever eaten. Between us we have put some 150,000 airline miles, but we had never experienced anything so bad. You could kill a person with the bread they gave! Then we reached Paris. Our bags were checked all the way to US and we got out of our flight and walked to where our transfer gate was and there was a long line-in fact several lines to go through security and as Murphy’s rule goes our line was the longest.
When we got a little closer we realized what was happening. Our line was the parent line and there were offshoots joining from every side. There was a French official there and we asked what is going on. He said these "offshoots" are people who have immediate flights. We looked at our card and we were WAY past our boarding time. We told him that and he asked us to wait. And wait we did until we saw him letting people BEHIND us who had LATER flights get into the other line. That is when we saw red. It took me a while to gain control of myself.

Thankfully there was another lady a little ahead who had some sense. When she saw our boarding pass, she let us in through the staff line. They had us open all our hand luggage. Either they have no faith in their security system inside the airport or they thought we were one of those incredibly stupid people who accept packages from strangers at this day and time or they have no faith in the greek security system. But hubby has another explanation. He says that the reaction of a security person to diffident people is very similar to a stray dog. You walk on the road, you have no food to attract the dog, so don't look at it; just walk confidently--basically NO EYE CONTACT. Well he broke the rule himself and looked at someone. So even though we had not even the allowed 3 oz stuff, everything was inspected. Sigh. Then we got to the terminal and there was a bus to take us. That bus ride was long. It was so long that it caused one of our fellow passengers to comment "Are we driving to Michigan?” We found it so funny. Then we were off to Michigan.

THE END