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today was an easy day. after staying up late with fotis, his brother, and friends we got home and went straight to bed almost. i woke up at 5 in the morning with a splitting headache, as i always do when i have something to drink, and downed my usual 6 to 8 glasses of water (or until i almost burst) and went back to bed. woke up fine.
we got up, got dressed, quickly stuffed the rest of our stuff in our bags and were out the door. a quick stop at the pastry shop and then we went walking into the city center. by the time we had gotten to the other side of the cemetery and were nearing the avenue we needed to be on it was 8:05 and i freaked cause the woman had told us to be there for 8:30 (i'm so very german in this regard,i have to arrive early to be on time.) so we stepped it up. let me tell you how much of a workout it is lugging a 50-80 lbs pack and wheeling another bag behind you .... poor johnny must think i'm nuts. ha ha.
so we're doing our morning power-walk with all this luggage and get there and no one is there.... the shop isn't even open ... oh great. we wait for the cop who is signaling traffic to finally stop the cars an let us cross, and then go over to the shop to find no bus in sight and no other travelers. ack!
we waited a few minutes, rounded the corner, came back, and when i looked at the shop again there were some women going into it who i caught before they rolled down the grating again (european shops have like metal garage doors that roll down over the windows and doors and all at night) i yelled "bus! bus! were is it?!" and she replied "there, (pointing) 8:45!" phew. that made me feel better. so we put our crap down and brooke out the pastries for breakfast. hame and cheese bun thingies. johnny got half way through his and wanted water so he had to re-cross the busy avenue and wait for the cop two more times to stop traffic to get over to the little newsstand across the way for water. (no porn in this one, ha ha) as he was coming back across i saw the bus parked half a block up the street waiting to pull up over by us. the bus driver was standing outside talking to someone and i didn't think anything of it.
at 9:00 (not 8:45) the bus pulls up and we put our stuff below. when we get on the bus there is another person already there, a greek, and he continues to chat with the bus driver when he gets on. omg, i thought we were going to have a peaceful ride - but noooooooo. the driver and this guy babbled to each other very loudly for the 30-40 minutes it took to drive across the city to piraeus to pick up more people from another stop. at that stop i got off, bought the tickets for the bus quickly and hopped back on to find another person, a greek, on. this little fat, bald man, the driver, and the other person talked VERY loudly in my ear the entire 3 HOURS to patras. omg, every time i was just about to nod off the fat bald guy would scream something to the bus driver who was only sitting two rows in front of him! (we were in the first row and the other guy was in the other first row) i kept giving him the evil eye and would stare at the bus driver in the mirror but it did no good, they kept babbling.
at some point we stopped at the canal of corinth, similar to the panama canal but without the locks. we were allowed to get off the bus and walk around for photos and such for 15 minutes. as a woman who was sitting at the very back of the bus walked out she says "enjoying the conversation?" and smiled knowingly cause she could hear everything from the back of the bus. lol. the funny thing is that fotis had said the night before that greek people talked very loudly to each other and made a joke out of it - he was definitely right! another funny thing he did was when johnny told him what he was going to study a university, kinesiology, johnny was getting ready to explain himself and fotis goes, "i know what this word means, it is greek word." lol. then he started talking about all the words we use that are greek words, ha ha. :o) i told him that it was odd that i could literally "translate" the greek letters into english ones and the words made sense - then i picked up a magazine and translated ϕΕΣΤΙνΑΛ into FESTIVAL and said "look - that's cool, but i don't understand" his reply made me giggle - he says " festival, is greek word, you stole it from greek!" ha ha ha ha. it totally reminded me of the movie MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING cause every chance the father gets he wants to tell someone how some word or another is a greek word and all you need to know is greek. he does this all throughout the movie and after fotis did it that time, when we were at dinner with fotis and his friend, georgina, she started to do the same thing, then when we went back to the apartment her fiance, nick, started to do it too! i couldn't help but giggle.
but i digress, :op, so we got off the bus and walked over to a foot bridge that crossed the canal. wow, a long way down. johnny looked for more post cards and i took a few pictures then we took pics of each other got some stamps, and then ran back to the bus cause it was time to leave. as we sat down in our seats they had already started to talk again and after a few minutes i walked back to the back of the bus to try and get some peace and quiet, but to no avail. :o(
i passed in and out of consciousness depending on how tired i was versus how loud they were and a few more hours later we arrived at the ferry terminal in patras. i tried to get a signal on my laptop but no such luck and we sat for a few minutes writing more post cards, addressing them, and then finding a post box. we checked in to the ferry people, got our boarding cards, and then walked across the port to the superfast ferry. wow, big ship! it was the biggest ship i had ever been on and as we walked on i was excited!
we got to the entrance and the welcome desk had mirrored escalator leading up. everyone was wearing bell-hop uniforms and when we got to reception it was really nice! it looked like a nice hotel inside and when we checked in they told us where our rooms were (we had couchettes, or bunks) so we went up the two flights of stairs and found the couchette room. our boarding cards (thick paper) also had a mag-stripe on them which was our room key, how cool. we walked in, found our berths, and we had a locker associated with our ticket as well so we claimed those too. we needed change to get the lock out the locker so i had to run over the ship and ask about 4 different people for change. wow - it had a lounge and bar next to reception, a buffet area, another main bar and lounge, a casino, an internet room, a gift shop, tons of rooms, a sit-down restaurant, and arcade, another non-smoking lounge, and all the decks! it was funny cause johnny was over it - he had cruised before - and i was the one all excited about everything, just as he was when we took off from nola!
i got back with change, we put our stuff up, and then we walked the ship together looking at all the stuff. he was surprised it was so nice, we were both expecting something very spartan and what we got was great! what's even better was that because our eurail passes were valid for both italy and greece, we got our room for free, all i had to pay was 7 euros for each of us! how awesome! :o)
we hung out on deck for a little while, waiting to leave. soon they were dropping the ropes and taking up the anchor and we were off! the wind on deck was amazingly strong and as we tried to take pictures we could hardly keep our clothes on! ha ha ha. we got pictures of everything we could and then when they announced the buffet would be open only for another half hour we went down for food.
not bad - i had turkey cutlets and gravy with a salad and bread, johnny had salmon and spaghetti with red sauce and a salad. we sat next to a window and watched the water go by as we powered through, leaving patras behind in the hazy air.
more wandering around, and then we went to get the computer so johnny could update stuff and get on the internet. we had to buy a wifi pass from the bar to use the internet :o( i hate when that happens, but at least we had internet available....
as he played on the computer i wandered around a bit more, took some pictures, and then laid down for a nap for a little while. later, i got up and wandered down to sit with johnny for a while longer and while wer were sitting there we started to come up to the land again. we were landing at iguomenitsa, another greek city about 4 or 5 hours from where we started. i got lots of great pictures of the place as we pulled up and when i started looking at all the cars, trucks, and campers lined up to get onboard i noticed there were tons of old vintage cars.
i took as many photos as i could of all these classic models of luxury cars like audi, bmw, jaguar, porsche, renault, etc. some were more expensive than others, but almost all were vintage. there must have been a car show or something in the area for that many cool cars to be there.
after taking what was probably close to 200 or more photos, i went back down to the lounge and we chatted some more then later went to get a bite to eat. we both had salmon this time, but prepared in a better way, salad, fries, and melon for dessert. i told johnny he was now english cause he was eating fish and chips. ha ha.
for the rest of the night we pretty much just watched characters go by as we downloaded our pictures from our cameras. at one point a danish truck driver, peter, who drives between denmark and greece every week, started to talk to us and told us about all the refugees in the outskirts of the greek cities, where to the best places to go on holiday were, and then complained about the cost of alcohol in "girly bars" and the prices of prostitutes along the way. ha ha ha ha, omg. he had a few more drinks, chatted a bit more, and then wandered off into the rest of the lounge as we sat and giggled about what he had said.
two platinum blond girls who looked eastern european passed by me at one point as i was wandering around and i could have sworn they propositioned me, to which i just smiled and played like i was dumb. even funnier, was when i got back to johnny and told him what i thought had just happened and he said "oh, by those two girls that just passed by??" he knew just which ones without me telling him! lol.
after my shower i ran back down to the lounge, johnny went to bed, and i sat trying to find a hostel in rome cause the one i had tried to make reservations at only had availability for two of the four nights we needed. :o( poo. it looked like a really cool hostel too. instead, we are looking into one close to the train station that costs a bit, but should be nice and is in a convenient location. i put in the email request for rooms at about 1 AM, so we'll see how all this pans out. we arrive in ancona at 11:30 AM and then take a 4.5 hour train to rome. wow - this trip has turned into a transportation kaleidoscope! planes, trains, automobiles, ferries, feet, and who knows, maybe even bikes by the end! :o)
my night ended with me packing up my crap, quickly taking out my contacts, and piling into my bunk.
*phew*
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Debbie
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Cruise
Josh, do you think you might be ready to take a cruise now?