Ferry to Chios

---

With the flight cancellation and delays, I was 2 days off schedule. Fortunately, the ferry to Chios was at 4pm, so I could sleep in and recover from the crazy two days of travel. I didn't do much in Athens, we took it slow on Friday morning. Christina's car needed repair, so we took her car to the Suzuki garage and left it there. Funny thing is, the day I arrived in Greece is the day the electric company union decided to go on strike, because all quotes were on the computer the garage could not give us a quote for the repairs. So we left the car there.

Actually, taking the elevator up to Christina's apartment was not an option, the electric company would turn off and on the power without notice and the last thing I wanted was to get stuck in the elevator. So I had to take 5 flight of stairs up to the apartment. It was a good thing they lost my luggage at the airport, I was in no condition to lug my suitcase up on the night of my arrival. Before leaving, we learned that the Garbage company was going on strike too. Fortunately, the temperature would not exacerbate the situation as it only gets up to a high of about 20 degrees celsius in the Spring time.

After a nice lunch of kebabs on one of the terraces at Monasteriki, we were off to Piraus to catch our ferry. We took one of the Blue Star ferries and it was one of the newer ferries, only in service during the last few months or so. I had pictured a regular boat with seats, but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the inside had a bar, a dinning area, lounges. Depending on what class you were. We did not get to see the inside of the first class area. The ride took about 5 hours, which is good because it was a fast boat. Other boats would have taken longer. It was quite fast actually, as I slept part of the way, due to fatigue caused by jetlag and probably my body getting off the adrenaline from the craziness of the past 2 days.

We arrived on Chios at night, so not much to do other than take a nice shower and go to bed. We stayed at Christina's uncle's house close to the downtown area, a newly built house with all the amenities of a modern Greek home. I didn't taking any pictures, but it was a really nice house with hardwood staircase and floors. Christina's uncle is a Canadian Greek who comes back to Chios during the summer, thus last summer, he built the house himself with material from Greece and Canada. The water the is partly heated by solar power, thus it is energy sufficient and ecological.

We had to go out and buy bottled water as the water in Chios is not drinkable. The water is mixed with sea water. Something that occurred when the Greek government drilled the main water source to increase the water supply and went too low. The drinking water source reached sea water and was contaminated. If you spoke to Christina, she'd share with you all her knowledge of Greece and it's caprices while adding some of her own comment's which are usually quite colorful. I'll share them at a later day.

---

Photos

Piraeus Port - Ferry to Chios
Christina trying to capture the ferry behind me, but it was too fast.

Ferry to Chios
Sunset from the ferry

Piraeus Port - Ferry to Chios
There's the Blue Star Ferry behind Christina

Ferry to Chios
That would be me. It was cold on the deck!!

Comments

[mai]

mmm... kebabs!!!
Yummy Kebabs!!!!