I got on the bus bound for Madrid at 8 this morning. I got to sleep for a couple more hours and I was hoping that the movie they would play on the bus wouldn't be dubbed (as I've realized all they play in Spain are American films...just with Spanish accents. Martin Lawrence sounds ridiculous). Anyway, as fate would have it, they played an American film in English with subtitles (A FIRST!). It was corny and I had never heard of it but nonetheless pleased.
Got into the bus station around 1 and with the trusty directions Laura had written for me and my worn map of the metro, I began my journey to the airport.
I started on the grey line and got off at Avenida de America and from there had to transfer to the burnt orange line (4) going to Mar de Cristal and I told myself earlier that I wouldn't mess up line 7 with 4 (7 is orange and 4 is that damn burnt orange color) but I did anyway. I had to backtrack through the 7th circle of hell, which is the underworld, that is the Metro system and finally got on. I got off Mar de Cristal only to not follow the blatantly obvious arrows everywhere telling me which train would take me to the airport. As Heather says from time to time...you could be sent to the beach and if asked for sand you'd come back empty-handed (well, she says that to Andres; but I feel you too buddy).
So I eventrually make it down there and I'm on the train now and I notice I need a "supplementary fare" ticket to the airport (oh, yeah...Laura mentioned a 2 euro fee...but I only bought the ticket for the ride). Instead of being intelligent and waiting until I got to Terminal 1, I got off at the futbol stadium exit and then ended up using my metro travel pas up and had to buy a new one to get back into the metro and then buy the airport fair. Yeesh, I even shock myself sometimes in how I'm such a tonta (silly girl).
I got myself situated. Checked in and the lady at Lufthansa proceeded to talk to me in English but I just spoke to her in Spanish and ya esta. I've come a long way since September. Alex: 1. Spain: 0. Finally got on the plane at 5 and headed for Frankfort and as soon as I got on I passed out. I woke up around 5:30 to the smell of delicious food and the stewardess (is that politically correct?) asked if I wanted food and I looked at her and dead-serious asked if it was free and she just laughed at me. So naturally, I obliged. I was just in shock because on most flights I've been on while in Europe charge you if you want water. Lufthansa is the shit! I got hot meal and cup of coffee for only a 3 hour flight. Apparently first-class gets a 4 course meal; thats ridiculous.
Greece is upon the horizon!
How do you spot an American? They have Vera Bradley bags; and a lot of them. I think in groups they coordinate which printed bag they'll have so there are no repeats.
A German version of Shape magazine is 2.80 euros. The original in English is 10 euros.
I can't even attempt to try and pull the little German I know out of my my ace; everyone speaks English here. Do I hve a sign on my forehead that says "foreigner"? Before I asked for a kaffee, I got, "hello, how can I help you?" Pretty sweet.
We Americans and Brits aren't arrogant or lazy...were just misunderstood. Everyone in Europe must know multiple languages in order to advance, we do not.
I'm so claustrophobic on this effing flight to Athens. A large German woman to my left is definitely in my personal space and shes so close that I can fill out her sudoku puzzle. The plane people keep hitting me with the carts and the jerk in front slams his chair so hard it hits me in the face and now he is acting like he is having seizures and I can say the same about the guy behind me too. Eek! In other news...one hour left until Greece! Oh, and tortellini for dinner with a chocolate bar for dessert. Can't wait for that bikini!
So as soon as I got off the plane and picked up my bag I saw Laura and Jackie. We went to the kiosk and picked up our bus tickets and got on the X96 (which why pay because no one even validated the damn 3.20 euro tickets). After an hour of being I'm sure obnoxious doing Bon Qui Qui impressions we get dropped off by the port. There was a cutre taxi driver waiting and asks us where we need to go and then he tells us 12 euros. I quickly accept like a tonta (Jackie and Laura wanted to kill me) and he drives us there in a circle just for kicks and we get there 5 minutes later. Only to discover our hostel was in plain sight of where the stop was. Eff.
We get in, not awesome at all but its a place to crash for 2 hours. We get up and shower and don't really sleep because Jackie had crazy nasal issues.
We get up at 5:30 and walk to Pireaus in 10 minutes and pick up our tickets for Mykonos and get aboard the ship at 7:00 and after a coffee and muffin to help the Dramamine go down better we passed out for the better part of the 4.5 hours trip.
We were greeted by a man with a sign that read "Kymata" and he was super chatty, we will call him Tito. He was quickly pointing out landmarks and sights important and lost on us. I was trying to take it all in. It was completely mesmerizing and gorgeous. the homes were all white and the windows mostly some type of blue.
We finally had arrived and when we got out of the van before us stood the town of Mykonos below us and to our left were the windmills. We dropped off our luggage and began exploring the old town. It had narrow streets, scattered tiny churches big enough for only the Orthodox priest and was so windy! Little Venice was right on the water and had good spots for the sunsets and if you walked along the edge a bit more you arrived to the old port that had some cute restaurants looking down onto the water. We stopped by an "authentic" Greek restaurant for fried zucchini, rice stuffed grape leaves for lunch and had yogurt with walnuts and honey for dessert (yum!).
Then we went to Passos Doble for drinks a little later and after being there for 5 minutes a man came sauntering in. He had a crazy salt-and-pepper Bozo the clown set of locks, Canadian tuxedo with an unidentified woman sketched on the back of his jeans jacket , a Corona in one hand and a lily in the other. He looked crazy but harmless, like the Mad Hatter. He had music on but was singing along to Moby "we are all made of stars" beign played in the bar throwing around the top of a water bottle cap. He started chatting Jackie up and she started psycho-analyzing him. He said his favorite number was 5 and pointed out the number of buds on his flower and then called her a closed flower and said that he was an open flower. His name was Captain Markos (with a K...important). May I also tell you that we were "living in his world"...clearly.
Laura was begining to feel a little sick so we left and Jackie and I went out for groceries in the town. Damn! Hefty prices. We walked out with meager resources for 24 euros...ugh. The town was slowly coming alive at this time though, there were many people out. Quite the contrast from the ghost town we had witnessed earlier before.
Jackie and I went out for dinner 3 doors down from the bar we went to earlier and ate at this little place called Suisse. It was fairly priced compared to other places. I got the caprese sandwich and the friendly woman chatted us up. She was so sweet and we had the best seat in the place. this little enclave with a seashell chandelier and land of pillows. Jackie noticed these kids from lunch we had met earlier and they told us to come out since it was their last night on the island...they made a compelling argument so we agreed.
We went back to check on Laura and she got it together to get out: we also thought we could squeeze free drinks out of these guys . Well we went to the bar from earlier and who should walk in there but Markos. except he was zigzagging more than earlier and began conducting in the middle of the bar. He left after lighting his cigarette with a tea light and we knew it wouldn't get more exciting there so we left shortly after him. We went to another bar down the road and a woman approached us saying, "you are not wearing flip flops". Claro mujer. As soon as we found out a Corona and Bud Light was 10 euros....we dipped. We went to a bar with live music but sat out in the freezing cold because it was so loud and all of a sudden Markos stumbled in. He had a glass of water and was rocking out to the music in his head. He held good conversation in English for being so belligerent and lit a cigarette with his already lit cigarette and sucked down the first on so he could smoke the second. Jackie said, "you should smoke less hash and drink more water". He replied, "I'm just going to get more". Then when asked the age old question, "What is life Markos?". "Well, life is about having a good time". Can't argue that. And with that he was off into the night and we called it an early one too. No, we never found those kids.
The next day we went into town and rented a car. "You have license?" "Yes." "Know how to drive good?" "Yes." "Okay, fill up how you see it and see you in 24 hours." And with that we relied on the poorly directed map in the glove, our keen sense of directions and signs in Greek and Jackie trying to decode it from her sorority days.
We took off looking for the first beach we could find. We drove all around the island (not big...did it in a few hours). the towns were few and scattered and I needed to be slapped because I couldn't believe we were actually there). The Greek club music filled our car and hearts. We ended in the town of Ornos and found our first beach with life (and I mean 4 people laying out). Aside from cutre workers building stuff by us we were feeling pretty desolate. It was a cute town, but super small. We quickly made it back to see the sunset by the windmills. This couple sitting in front of us had white gloves on and it was truly bizarre. The sunset was gorgeous after that we returned the car and I swear each time we saw that woman she was always stuffing her face with some food.
We returned to our place and got showered and ready to go out to eat. Naturally we went to Suisse for some food on the cheap, great service and even better atmosphere. Had a delish Greek salad and caprese crepe and finished off with a dessert sampler of baklava, lemon cake and some chocolate thing. We went back to our room and spent the night in. Mykonos was too expensive at night. The next morning we woke up at 9:30 to start packing because Tito was melting us at 10:30 to pick our bags up. He knocked at 10:00 (early?) and we were not anywhere near done. "Uh. I don't know if you realized but there is a time change." We did know...but we can't get it together! He came back and we threw our stuff in his van. With a few hours remaining we just walked the town and got to see the Palm Sunday procession, bought some homemade jewelry from an old woman who was quite the hustler. We walked out to the old port and it was packed with people and who but who should show up...Markos! His crazy-ass was staggering down the road conducting music and enjoying himself. I had hoped we'd get to see him one more time. After recording him for a bit we stopped and kicked these 2 girls out of their photo shoot with the pink pelican and got around the corner we stopped for a nice lunch at a quiet restaurant that had a peek of the ocean in the distance. It was time to meet Tito to collect our bags at the old port and we got there, said our goodbyes then lounged at the top of the sun. We left to get a drink only to come back and see our tanning sport had been taken by 2 girls. I wanted to be up there too so we plopped ourselves in our original spots and not to be rude we started talking and they ended up being these 2 really sweet Loyola students studying at New Castle and were on Spring Break named Danielle and Michelle.
Then we met a girl working in Murcia. After waiting an hour for our late boat the Flying Cat 4 finally arrived. We got on and instantly we were sick. We literally were flying and it was the grossest 45 minutes of my life. Once we got on land again we said our goodbyes and looked for our sign. Jackie turned and said, "Man, Hamlin Hotel sounds really cool!" (Hamlin is her last name). Uh, thats us...
Made me laugh out loud!
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