athens maraton


Advertisement
Greece's flag
Europe » Greece
October 31st 2010
Published: November 16th 2010
Edit Blog Post

i have found some random notes i had planned to blog about. i think i´ll just go ahead and make some random writings.

me thinks i must be getting old! hmmm! the last time i blogged i forgot to mention the most important event of the morning. i FELL in the shower, after some floundering and cartwheeling about. i even thought i would regain my balance and then WHAM, DOWN i went. i even took out the pedestal for the sink. maybe i should consider buying one of those button thingies to call for help should this happen again????? i wish there was a button thingie to help with the memory loss, but i and you will just have to settle for some disjointed blogging!

that was the last morning in sarande, albania. that afternoon i headed to corfu, greece. it is an island just one-half hours fast ferry ride from albania. my first hydrofoil ride, cool.

in corfu, i began looking for a room in a residence (dhomatia) to rent since they are meant to be cheaper. sadly, they don´t exist in the town of corfu. they do exist on the island by the same name but i had to take a bus ride across said island. sadly, this kid told me there is a bus to pelekas beach every half hour. so i walked around town determined to find a cheap room. most people i questioned pointed me in a direction, any random direction i am convinced as i never found anything. fortunately, i did find a guy who said no way. but after a bit of chatting he offered to take me around to the hotels on his scooter. super friendly and helpful though i was unimpressed with the one cheap room. he figured it would be bad when we entered the neighborhood. OK, no dhomatia nor cheap hotel so i headed back to the bus station on the other side of town. i get there at 1607 and was told that the next bus is not till 1800. you have got to be shitting me. guess that helpful kid wasn´t very after all.

i hung around till 1800 then hopped to the other side of the isle. i got lucky and some dutch tourists and their taxi driver took a bit of pity on me and gave me a ride down the hill. i found a great room but decided to stay at the not so great, but cheaper, place that included breakfast and dinner. there is no chance for food here on this coast so i figured that to be a good idea. i also had a room overlooking the adriatic sea coast. it´ll do.

from corfu i took a ferry(after watching the local school kid parade which everyone was making a big deal about-it was nice but not nawlins), it was really a cruise ship though everything was closed for the season, to patras on the peloponnese peninsula. then it was a short bus ride to athens. where i asked a gal at the bus info place for help as i thought it to be tourist info. she said she couldn´t help with the info but she is heading to where i wish to go, or nearby, in 15 minutes if i should like to ride with her. of course i should like to ride with you mademoiselle(sc). thank you very much.

in athens i discovered that most hotels were full as the marathon was to be run tomorrow. that didn´t stop me from leaving one hotel to look for another as i know there must be better. with some misdirections from a taxi, i think, driver-i figured that out after, i circumnavigated the acropolis. i did end up back at the first hotel where the clerk informed me that there was no room. just pulling your leg she says. ha ha. i´m laughing with you luiza.

i did end up at the end of the marathon in this great ancient stadium. this was meant to be the 2500th anniversary of the original maraton run and was very motivating. it´s making me think i should go out and run one!

ps: i believe that i must have some greek features as people keep rocking up to me and asking questions. one old lady in a caravan yelled to me from the street where those behind her were honking for her to move along. so sorry, no greek. big smile.

aside: someone nearby stinks to high heaven and i hope it´s not me. my clothes have been machine laundered only once thus far. i actually find myself wishing someone would smoke so that i wouldn´t have to smell the offender(not really me-this time).

pps: i should also mention that in patras i dropped my phone. now i don´t have a timepiece as well as no camera. how the hell am i gonna wake up at 0300 to catch my plane??? no worries as my OCD kicks in. i know the keystrokes to get to alarm and am able to barely read the minutes. so i start setting the alarm to figure out what time it is set at. nevermind that the time rolled back saturday the 30th. i figured it out. lmao- at my cheapness as there was a $3 alarm at the nearest kiosk. oh yeah and the hotel did provide a wake up service that despite my doubts proved very accurate. this i know cause i borrowed their clock from the lounge so that i could get a restful nights sleep. and i did thank you very much.

it´s a sunny warm day so i´m outta here.

bon voyage!!

Advertisement



Tot: 0.15s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0252s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb