Greece: Oy veh!

Written July 29th

Wow has it been an exciting turn of events. Last night was the first in 5 that I had actually slept in a bed, and it was glorious. After sleeping in the train station in Ancona, Italy and getting kicked off the floor, we made our way to the ferry docks to buy tickets to Patras, Greece. The 21 hour ferry wasnt so bad, even though we only had deck tickets and had to sleep on benches. I got a nice 5 minute swim in at the pool on the ferry before feeling uncomfortable enough to get out and continue to be gawked at by the creepy Greek men. The ferry ride was beautiful and I finished the book A Movable feast by Hemingway in almost a day. Traveling with someone who likes to read has gotten in me in the mood to do the same, and I have already finished two books now and started on a third, On the Road. It also helps that he has about 4 english books in his bag, so I can just swap one out when Im done with the last.

After ariving in Patras, we hopped a train to Corinth (on the way to Athens)- or so we thought. And so the train said. Only it was not going to Corinth. It was headed towards Kalamata, the opposite way that we needed to go. We only found this out until we were just about at Kalamata, and the Train conductor told us to get off of the train and catch a bus before even reaching Kalamata. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, Greece with another couple that was lost on the way to Athens, and all we could seem to do was get more lost. The other couple from Romania somehow caught all of us a ride to an even smaller town to catch a different bus straight to Athens. The man who drove us was increadibly nice and happened to live in Chicago for a little while, so his english was good enough to get by. Get by with tourists that is-- in the middle of Greece. We arrived at a corner in the middle of a greek highway, holding a store with wine and cooked pig. They also sold bus tickets. Brandon and I were told that our Eurail passes would work on the buses too, so we didnt buy tickets. It turns out that our Eurail passes didnt work, and we had to spent 15 euros each on bus tickets- about 6 euros cheaper than what the couple payed at the store. It seems that the market enjoyed giving the "special price for travelers who dont speak greek" quite often, as we also got ripped off on a slab of meat.

It was 9:30pm by the time we arrived in athens, and we had no other choice to stay the night. The Romanian couple was also quite nice, and just as lost as us, so we decided to look for a cheap room together and split the cost. Anything to avoid getting ripped off again, we ignored the taxis and caught the bus to the train station. We were all on a budget, so we searched for the sketchy looking hotels, with no fancy lights and no fancy signs, and succeeded with a hostel room for 50 euros. It even incuded breakfast (if you can call it that for an egg and a few pieces of bread).

After finding out that the ferry tickets to crete are about 35 euros each way, i think that Im just going to stay on the mainland until I have to be in Zurich by the 8th, and then head to Crete after that. Who knows what will happen, though. Clearly the unpredictablility is unpredictable.