Istanbul

Our bus deposited us on the outskirts of Istanbul just after dawn. We were a bit overwhelmed by all the men swarming around and offering their taxi services but because we just wanted to get to the hotel with as little trouble as possible we opted for a taxi instead of trying to figure out which bus to take. The taxi ride ended up being a bit of trouble anyways. We didn't know which district our hotel was in so the driver was unsure exactly which direction to go. The scenery during the drive was some what new to us. Minarets belonging to the various mosques across the city poked up here and there like peppermint sticks. The highway was more open and free than those in Europe. The Turkish flag was proudly on display nearly everywhere you looked. At one point they were strung like Christmas garlands for half a mile across the highway. Once our taxi driver realized he didn't know where to go he stopped right in the middle of one of the small back streets, jumped out without turning the car off, and ran into a corner store for directions. He did this about five more times, sometimes holding up patient drivers behind us and another time finding a random stranger who more than happily called the hostel and asked for directions for us. Upon finally arriving we were able to check in early, but since someone was still asleep in our room we thought it would be kindest to just hang out in the awesome lobby area. The hostel was pretty cool and homey. The lobby was like a wooden dining area with a little section setup with tea, water, a sink and a fridge. There were all sorts of old concert or propaganda posters and newspaper clippings on the walls. One article was about Hitler in 1938 or so (just before WWII), stating that after some time in jail he was released early for good behavior and was heading out to the country where they were fairly certain he would live out the rest of his life in peace and quiet. We all know that plan fell through. I played cards for a bit (I set up a Freecell game right on the table and won, yay) then whipped out the old computer and putzed away with Chuck. There was a house cat that would strut around, just out of reach - a sleek, black, long-haired thing. Later in the day after finally moving into our room we discovered that she was not alone. She had four kittens in the basement that were just about one month old and so adorable it was painful. The basement was another hang-put area with giant pillows lining the walls and plenty of space for the kittens to romp and play. And they did plenty of that. When they got particularly rough you could hear the high pitched snarls as ears were pulled and skin was bitten. When they weren't attacking each other they went after Chuck's sandals that were laying in the middle of the room, or climbed all over my skirt hiding in the folds, or pawing at Robyn's computer screen as she was watching episodes of Bones. When they had played themselves out Mama-kitty would run into the room with a yowl and toss herself on the floor, offering her belly for feeding time. When Mama-kitty wasn't looking after her kittens she was begging and searching for food. She was incredibly skinny as it was, but seemed to be constantly eating. I guess having to feed four kids requires quite a lot of calories. Those cats were so entertaining for us during our time in Istanbul.

On the morning of the 16th we headed downstairs to check e-mail and have breakfast. The hotel breakfast, although not a satisfying American or English style feast, was healthy and filling. They had sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, wrinkly olives, a white feta-like cheese, and a bag of fresh Turkish bread (don't ask me how it's different than other bread, but it was good stuff). I attempted to shower after breakfast and was dismayed to find the water completely cold. I rinsed all the important bits, pouting the whole time and was sure to complain about the whole affair to Robyn and Chuck afterward. I hate cold showers. We took the tram to the Sultanhamet stop and headed towards the Blue Mosque. It's an incredible looking building with it's subdued bubbly shapes and numerous minarets. It's not actually blue from the outside, but I read that it gets it's name from some of the beautiful blue tiles inside the mosque. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to see inside just then. It was Friday and there was a service going on when we arrived, so we decided to head over to the Hagia Sophia in the meantime. It was getting overcast and a light rain was starting to fall as we left the courtyard of the Blue Mosque. We saw a few points of interest as we hurried through the drizzle: Kaiser Wilhelm II Fountain, Obelisk of Theodosius, and the Column of Constantine Porphyrogenetus. I took a look at the Hagia Sophia and decided it isn't quite as cool looking as the Blue Mosque. It used to be a church way back in the day and at some point was converted into a mosque which I think is why it doesn't quite have the typical mosque shape. The inside gives a good impression of how absolutely huge it was, but the grandeur was detracted from by the giant set of scaffolding that took up practically half the room. I was so disappointed! We've learned that if it's cool, it's got scaffolding. Besides the ugly scaffolding, the mosque is topped with faded mustard yellow ceilings, huge beautifully scripted Arabic emblems, and numerous gold mosaics. The mosaics - depicting Jesus, Mary and other Biblical characters - are actually left over from the mosque's original days as a church. They were plastered over during the conversion, and only recently uncovered and put on display. We heard that Obama visited the Hagia Sophia when he was in Istanbul and that he was taking pictures of all the cats he saw. This sounds like a false rumor to me so don't put too much stock into it, but I did try to get a picture of the cat that was sitting sleepy-eyed next to the minbar (the minbar is basically the Islamic version of a pulpit). When we were finished it was raining pretty hard outside, so we waited a few minutes before making our way back to the Blue Mosque. On the way Chuck and I got one of the roasted corn-on-the-cobs that are for sale all over the place. They must just let them sit out all day because ours tasted like rubbery, hard, and cold popcorn kernels. Rather disappointing. Robyn and I pulled on our make-shift head scarves and wrapped ourselves up as best we could while waiting in line at the "Visitor's Entrance" to the Blue Mosque. We slipped off our shoes and placed them into little plastic bags before entering. The carpet was deliciously lush on our feet and I had to wonder whether having nice carpets led to the tradition of removing shoes, or removing the shoes led people to make nice-feeling carpets. Which came first - the chicken or the egg? The space inside the mosque is completely open. There were no rows of chairs or pews because worship is done on the knees. The decoration consisted mainly of beautiful tiles that lined the walls, archways, and dome of the mosque. From the ceiling hung a giant network of lights suspended by hundreds of straight wires. It was very different from a church, but still felt like a place of worship. I found the fact that they had a woman's section interesting. I think that if you're a woman coming to worship you have to be in that area, whereas men get to use the other 90% of the space. After the Blue Mosque we decided lunch would be good. On the way down the road Chuck haggled an umbrella-seller down to 5 TL from 15 TL. I recon it was still a rip-off, but whatever. We ate at a decent little touristy place - nothing really special. Being in Turkey we were interested in Turkish Delight and we had seen a good looking shop on the way to the restaurant. We went back there for dessert and met who I assume was the shop owner: Mr. Delicious as he called himself with a big playful smile. He was rather flirtatious and as soon as he realized that Chuck and I were a couple he left me alone, but continued his flirting with Robyn. He tried to insist that she pay him in kisses. She handled him very well with a smile and numerous "No"s. I've read that in many parts of the world, men see white women as being loose and easy. Whenever a guy was being very friendly with us we had to keep that in mind and try not to be too friendly back - that might be taken as a sign of interest! Luckily no one actually ever really harassed us or anything. The Turkish Delight was some of the best stuff I have ever had! There's a story about where Turkish Delight came from and I will tell it to you now. The Sultan back in...the 1600's or so was sick and tired of breaking his teeth on hard candies. Finally fed up, he threw down his old-school Jolly Rancher's. "Enough," he roared, moustache quivering. "No more hard candies! Bring me something soft and delicious! NOW!" The Sultan's aid worked tirelessly in the candy shop with the Turkish elves mixing corn starch and sugar and rose water to create a soft, sweet candy. When he had perfected his recipe he cut the soft candy into bite-size squares and rolled them in powdered sugar. He fearfully presented the new treat to the Sultan, praying the man would find it to his liking. With a hard look in his eye the Sultan picked one up and bit down. The aid winced, but there was no need. The Sultan proclaimed, with a flourish of his bejeweled hand, that this new delight was the best thing since sliced bread, despite the fact that I don't think they had sliced bread at that point. Mr. Delicious' Turkish Delight ware just as good, if not better than those original Turkish Delights the Sultan had. He had all kinds of flavors: rose, orange, strawberry, apple and coconut, banana and coconut, chocolate, pistachio, etc. Man, Turkish Delight is so good. But now I'll never be able to fully enjoy the boxed Turkish Delight we get at Christmas because I'll be thinking about how good the fresh stuff is in Istanbul. After stocking up with an evenings worth of the candies we headed back to the hostel for the night.



We came down for breakfast and internets in the morning again. This would become our ritual. In the afternoon we trammed to Sultanhamet again. I managed to lead us to what's known as the Milion Column. It's the starting point for the road that leads from Istanbul to Rome. Of course, this was put there hundreds and hundreds of years ago when Rome was all up in everyone's business, but the road actually still does go all the way to Rome today. I thought that was pretty cool. Next we went down into the Yerebatan Saray – a giant cistern. It was the city's water supply back in the 6th century AD and held 2 million gallons of water! Now-a-days you can go into the cistern and walk around all the tall marble columns in the dark. They've built a walkway around the place so you're not stepping in the 3 feet of crystal clear water that's still there. In the water swim large catfish, sucking at the surface occasionally like scaled little vacuums. It's a kind of surreal experience that I really enjoyed. Oh, at near the back are two huge 4 x 4 x 4 foot blocks of stone carved into the likeness of Medussa. One was placed sideways and the other completely upside down and no one knows why. They're pretty sure it was intentional, but they just haven't figured out the significance. Chuck played with the camera quite a bit, trying to get the shutter speed down so we could catch more light and a better picture. Once he got it figured out he took a 3-D picture. It's a bit tricky to make the image "pop out," but with practice you can see a 3-D image of one of rows of marble columns in the cistern. Here's a couple guides on viewing 3-D, or stereo photos for those who really want to try it out: How to view stereoscopic digital photographs (about halfway down the page they have a nice guide) and Guide to 3D Photography (near the bottom is the section on the Viewing the Photos). Good luck! Back above ground we walked along Divan Yolan - the road that leads to Rome - towards the Grand Bazaar. The bazaar sort of reminded me of a small fortress, surrounded by protective brick walls. Inside is a labyrinth of shops. Most of the shops were selling jewelry, scarves, rugs, lamps (the lamps were awesome), chess sets, hookahs and teas. While walking around we had a lot of shop owners trying to get us in their shops by saying "Hello! Where are you from?" or telling us how fine their goods were. Sometimes the small smile and polite "No thanks" we gave them weren't enough to get them to leave us alone and they would follow us for a few moments. I was never sure what the best option was: saying "No thanks" or ignoring them completely. Robyn and I had a lot of people trying to get our attention by commenting on our piercings. I don't think they have many locals with facial piercings... Robyn got herself a really lovely scarf and managed to talk the vendor from 60 TL down to 45 TL. I managed to accidentally talk a guy down from 55 TL to 20 TL on a tea set that I didn't actually want. I didn't end up buying it because I wasn't actually trying to buy it - I just wanted to know the price on the thing! He seemed rather upset that I wasn't going to be buying it in the end and I felt a bit guilty. We left the Grand Bazaar to check out the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. The walk there was impressive in and of itself. The shops don't stop at the edge of bazaars - they are everywhere. And people too. The streets were crowded with tons of people. It was an incredible experience to walk through the sea of bodies, along narrow, old streets, seeing the occasional street food vendor or maybe a man dragging behind him a cart laden with nuts. By the time we reached the Egyptian Spice Bazaar the sea of bodies had turned into a narrow, raging channel. We were being squished by people on all sides and there were a few moments were I was swept along for a few feet in the wrong direction completely against my will. We had to squeeze our bodies through this writhing crowd into the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, but somehow we made it unharmed. The spice bazaar is very cool because of... well, the spices. They look so fun piled into tall mounds, just waiting for someone to come take a scoop. Although this bazaar had the same sorts of shops as the Grand Bazaar, it also had the spice vendors and Turkish Delight/candy vendors. We didn't really look around while we were there because it was so ridiculously crowded, but we vowed to come back and explore another day. We decided to walk back to the hotel rather than tram. We got to walk across the bridge that spans the river separating the two halves of the city. The bridge is jammed end to end with men fishing. I can't imagine they really catch anything too exciting, but it's apparently a very popular thing to do. We stopped into a hookah cafe near our hotel to unwind. In Turkey they call it narghile. We opted for melon flavored tobacco and enjoyed our smokes with plenty of cay (tea). They love cay in Turkey. They drink it all the time. In the bazaar you'll see people running around with little trays of cay for all the shop keepers, and we were offered cay a few times in return for going and checking out their store. As we were paying for our narghile and cay we heard a number of loud bangs and voices coming down the street. As the group of rowdy men passed us we heard more bangs, even louder, and saw smoke in the air. We decided to stay put for a few minutes more before going back to the hotel. I'm not sure what they were all about, but maybe it was something to do with football? Or soccer, in American. I know the rest of the world can get pretty worked up about their football. We never did find out though! After the long day we were happy to relax at the hostel for the rest of the night.



We were lazy on the 18th. We pretty much stayed in and played with the kittens all day. They seem to really like my blue skirt. Well, it's Robyn's blue skirt but she let me borrow it. They would crawl on it, play together on it, climb under it and get lost in the folds, and if I was lucky they would fall asleep on it. Eventually they were comfortable enough with us that they would fall asleep on our laps or shoulders. It was so cute! We managed to get out for some awesome baklava and a few groceries. Have I mentioned the bathroom? Yeah, total change of subject, but I should mention it. So you don't flush your toilet paper at the hostel. I might have mentioned this requirement somewhere in Greece, but they seemed serious about it in Istanbul. So you wipe and all, but you toss the disgusting paper in the garbage can rather than just dropping it in the toilet. Ugh, it was gross, but I got used to it.



The next day we went to see Topkapi Palace. It's exactly what it sounds like: an old palace complex. It consisted of a large courtyard surrounded by a wall of buildings that would have housed much of the staff and kitchens. At the far end was the entrance into the area where the royalty spent most of their time. It was like a smaller version of the front courtyard. There was an open, green area surrounded by a wall of various buildings. Jutting into the courtyard were a few small buildings, one of which was the royal library. The treasury rooms were the most interesting for me. The Ottoman empire was hella rich! There were numerous emeralds, a couple of which were as large as a small jewelry box. They had one of the worlds largest diamonds, which looked to be as big as a lime, surrounded by a ring of smaller diamonds. There were pitchers and jewelry boxes carved out of clear quartz crystal, jewel and gold-encrusted swords and daggers, a throne completely covered in a sheet of gold studded with rubies and emeralds. There were three rooms of these treasures, and nearly every display was dripping with gold or gem stones. Another room was dimly lit and showed off the various outfits the Sultans wore. The clothing looked like something that would better fit an alien, with long sleeves and waists large enough to fit a 400 pound man. I tried to look at some of the old artwork for an idea of how they were worn. It seems as though the sleeves are entirely bunched up, but I'm not sure about the waist. Either the Sultans were very fat (which is entirely possible) or they had a bunched, bulky waist as well. I wish they had put on a clothing demonstration for us! Exploring the religious artifacts room I was a walking stick which was claimed to have belonged to Moses. There were bits of beard and teeth that they claimed belonged to Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Chuck and I paid extra to go into the Harem section. Robyn waited patiently for us. This area was covered in the beautiful tiles that are so traditionally Turkish. It seemed that every wall swirled with the delicate blues and greens of the flowering geometric patterns. There were a few rooms that had large chandeliers and sweeping archways, and another section showed the gold-leafed bathing rooms of the many women who had lived there. The whole Harem wasn't as impressive as I had hoped, but it was definitely pretty. After finishing up with Topkapi Palace we found a place to eat lunch and then hit up Mr. Delicious' Turkish Delight store again. Oh man is his stuff good.



We decided to walk to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar on the 20th, instead of paying the 1.50 TL (or about $0.75) for the tram. Robyn had read about the fresh fish sandwiches that are sold along the river and she was determined to try one. We once again passed all the men with their fishing poles as we crossed the bridge. Some were even pulling small fish up as we walked by. A busy stall just on the other side of the bridge was where we ended up getting the sandwiches. Their grill was sizzling away with 20 little fish fillets and people were buying them up right and left. The sandwich was simple: lettuce, tomato, and the fish on a thick bread roll. Robyn and Chuck each got one and I just had a few bites. I'm not a huge fish person, as much as I might like to be, what with it supposedly being so good for you. I admit, it was pretty good and Robyn and Chuck seemed to think they were rather awesome. My lunch ended up being a pizza roll-up, for lack of the actual term. It was a thin, oval shaped pizza that they roll up for you when you order. I think it's a fabulous idea, and it was really tasty. The Egyptian Spice Bazaar wasn't quite as crowded on this trip, which we were very grateful for. One of the many insistent vendors managed to convince us to buy some of his Turkish Delight. We got about seven pieces for 2TL - a good deal in my opinion! It wasn't as fresh and tasty as Mr. Delicious, but he had a plain flavorless one that I really liked. It tasted just like the center of a jelly bean - the chewy middle that's left behind after you suck all the flavored shell off. Good stuff. I managed to get a scarf for 20 TL (originally 45 TL). I'm thinking now that it was probably worth less than that though. It isn't very good quality at all, but I bought it from a shop that was "recommended by Obama." Haha! I guess Obama supposedly went in their little scarf shop and shook some hands. They had a sign about it and everything. We wandered through the busy, bazaar-like backstreets trying to find our way to the Grand Bazaar. Chuck decided along that way that he wanted to get some Turkish Delight for his parents. Once we finally found the bazaar and wandered around a bit we came to the conclusion that they didn't really have any good Turkish Delight stores. Back tot eh Egyptian Spice Bazaar we went! I grabbed a set of prayer beads for half the asked price on the way out... Go me. Once again, we were bombarded by offers and invitations from the various shops at the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. We randomly picked one and got a box of the sweet treats. He was even able to vacuum seal it for us which was awesome. He asked where we were from and when we told him we were American he genuinely seemed to not believe us. He thought we must be Australian or something because we were too shy to be American. I'm not sure how the American tourists usually behave, but he seems to think we're all... not shy. Would that mean we're loud and boisterous? Or rude? I don't know. He was surprised once we finally convinced him of our nationality. We had a good conversation with him about the world and relations between countries, etc. I've found that a lot of people are curious what we think of Obama. They'll ask if we think he is doing good or if we like him. A lot of them think he is good for the world. They'll frequently mention Bush too, and how glad they are that he's no longer in office. For the most part we tend to agree with whatever the persons views are - or at least try not to completely disagree, even if we do. It gets so complicated talking about the pros and cons of our president with people who live so far away from the country! Same goes for talking politics about their government. Another thing the Turkish Delight vendor told us was that the only problem in the Middle East is Israel. Iran and Iraq were fine with him, but that Israel was the problem. I was a bit shocked at the forthright statement, but I can see his point. His sentiment was that all the wars in the Middle East are no good - who can disagree with that? It's all in the details... that's where people start running into problems. It was interesting to hear his views on it all though. So, Turkish Delights in hand, we headed back to the hotel. We, once again, stopped at the narghile cafe to unwind. After our first round of cay we decided to try some of the other drinks on the menu. I got an oralet. I think it was literally hot Tang. I hate Tang, but since it was warmed up and in a cafe in Istanbul it actually tasted kind of good. Chuck got sahlep. Sahlep is amazing! It's a warm, creamy, sweet drink with cinnamon and nutmeg swirled in. We were guessing what it must be made of, figuring that it was milk based. When we looked it up online later we were surprised to find that it's not a dairy product at all. It's made from the root of an orchid! I would never have guessed that one. It's one of the tastiest things we've run across overseas so far. And it's supposed to be good for sore throats.



I finally got a warm shower on the 21st. It was my first one since arriving in Istanbul. Waiting until noon usually means cold showers, and being the lazy butt that I am, that's what I had been doing. But that morning, I made an effort to get up a bit earlier and was rewarded with a warm shower! I don't think I've mentioned the calls to prayer yet. How could I have forgotten that?? So in Islam they have five calls to prayer each day. In Istanbul (and probably all the other Middle Eastern countries, I'm sure) the call to prayer is heard all over the city. Every mosque has at least one tall minaret with speakers mounted at the top. When it's time for prayer the speakers blast the wavering devotions across the city for everyone to hear. It's impossible to miss the call to prayer! One is at sunrise, another at high noon, afternoon, sunset, and a few hours after sunset when the sky has darkened completely. As you might imagine, the sunrise prayer is a bit... uh, difficult to get used to. Chuck would ask me each morning after we had gotten up if I had heard the sunrise call to prayer, a sour look on his face. I always heard it, and popped my handy ear plugs in for a few hours of extra sleep. It would be wonderful to be able to go to bed early and use that as your alarm clock though! I thought it was all kinda cool, actually. So different from anything I've been around. Robyn had plans to go to a Turkish Hammam for the full treatment and would be gone all afternoon. I would have loved to go, but the price was steep and I was sick. Robyn told us about it when she got back in the evening though.

Today I wanted to try the Turkish Hamam. Sarah and Chuck didn't want to come, so I headed off on my own to find the Cagaloglu Hamam. This hamam was built in 1741 as a present to the city from Sultan Mehmet I. They made public bathing houses because there was always a water shortage, and it provided (and still provides) a place for socialization. I entered the hamam and was greeted by the cashier. I told him what I wanted, paid him, and he led me towards the ladies section. I then was given a little room with a bed and was told to undress and wrap the Turkish bath towel around myself. I came out, naked, and not sure what to do next. A lady ran up, handed me a pair of wooden clogs that are impossible to walk in, and took me to the hararet (the hot room). It was a beautiful marble room with water spickets every couple of feet. In the middle, underneath a large domed roof with star shapes cut out, was a octangular marble slab. I sat down on the marble floor near a spicket and sweated profusely for about 20 minutes. Then my washer/massuse came in and motioned for me to come and lie on the big, heated marble slab in the middle of the room. She squeezed her self next to me and put a big loofah on her hand and scrubbed me down really well. I had big chunks of dead skin everywhere...it was great! Then she dumped huge amounts of warm water on me, and lotioned me down. She massaged and rubbed it in really well. Then, more massive amounts of water. Now imagine the old shaving kits for men that come with soap in a dish and the horse hair brush to slather the soap on their face. This is what happened to me next, but the soap dish and brush were about 20 X bigger. She lathered and foamed my whole body for about 10 minutes...then more warm water splashed all over me. Mind you, the whole time she is washing and massaging me she is talking loudly and animatedly with the other attendants. When she wasn't talking she was singing to me. She then sat me up (moving around on that slippery marble slab was VERY difficult; she held my elbow anytime I had to roll over or sit up) and shampooed my hair. She ran a comb very roughly through it and informed me I was finished, and very clean. The whole experience reminded me of being 4 and being washed by a parent. She wasn't gentle with me, and I just had to submit completely to her whims! Then she took me to the towel room, wrapped me into a towel herself, and towel dried my hair. I went back to my room with a bed and blow dried my hair. I thanked her profusely (tipped her, of course) and went on my way....squeeky clean! On my way out I saw thank you notes written by Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, and Cameron Diaz. I got washed in the same hamam as them!!! It was a GREAT experience!!

So while Robyn was getting the full treatment Chuck and I went to mail his Turkish Delights off to his parents. It was a bit confusing. We kept bouncing back and forth between windows trying to figure out what to do. Someone finally pointed us outside and mentioned the name of a store where we could get a padded envelope. We came back with everything packed up and she had us write the address on one side and our return address on the other. I certainly didn't remember the address of the hostel, so we made something up. It's not as though we'd be able to try again even if it was sent back. After that was finished we explored the street that the post office was on. It was lined with modern, glass-front shops and there were sharply dressed people hurrying to and fro. We walked for a bit and decided to eat at a restaurant that had a woman sitting in the front window rolling out tortilla-like breads. It was decent food and lack luster service. I was a bit disappointed, but Chuck liked it. We stopped into a candy shop and found something called Pişmaniye. It's like little balls of cotton candy made of halva flour and sugar. It was very interesting and not at all bad. The rest of the day was spent bonding with kittens and playing on computers.

The 22nd was leaving day. We were all sad to leave Istanbul I think. I know I really liked the place - it's one of my favorite stops so far. I'd really like to go back one day and explore more of the country. It sounds like there's a lot more to see in Turkey than Istanbul. We hung around at the hostel until 1:00 PM and then trammed our way to the airport. They have a pretty decent tram system there. We were scanned and checked before even going into the airport rather than after checking in and getting our tickets. We ended up checking our luggage instead of taking it as carry on. The flight staff seemed to think that was the best idea. Our flight would take us to Athens where we would wait for a bit and catch the next flight to Cairo. We took Aegean Airlines and were pleasantly surprised! Our one hour flight included a warm, tasty meal, and if you wanted alcohol for your complimentary drink there was no extra charge. Man, airlines in the US suck. Both flights went well and before we knew it we had landed in Cairo!

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Travel Map

I've plotted all the places we've been so far on a nifty map from tripadvisor.com. Kinda cool! I'll try to keep it updated.

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Thessaloniki

We arrived in Thessaloniki on the 12th after a nice and uneventful bus ride. The bus terminal was pretty big and confusing, but we had some help from the friendly lady who sold local bus tickets and she sent us off in the general direction of the "center of town." With a bit of confusion and luck we ended up getting off at the right stop and found our hidden hotel without too much hassle. Not too long after checking in Chuck felt the urge to explore a bit. We had read that Thessaloniki is a young, hip town due to the big university that makes it's home there, so we decided it might be worth checking out. Robyn opted to stay behind and Chuck and I started our trip down the main street. It ended up being quite a bit further than we had thought and took nearly 45 minutes. The city itself was not beautiful, although there were three or four interesting and old looking buildings along the road. The university was... sad. It reminded me of what I imagined an old, run down, soviet campus would look like. Granted, we didn't walk around the whole campus so I only saw a few buildings, but it wasn't very interesting architecture. And it wasn't very well kept. For example, one of the main squares we passed through had a rusting green statue in the center and tufts of grass breaking through cracks in the cement. And the fence attached to one of the side entrances to the campus was covered in left over scraps of old posters. People taped them up and when the event was over just ripped them down, leaving bits of paper and tape behind. It was very active though - students were all over the place. On the walk back we stopped into a grocery store for food and that was the extent of our night.

We woke up at our leisure on the 13th. Some time during the afternoon Robyn headed out on her own to explore the city a bit. I don't think she was any more impressed with it than we had been. She did manage to find a little discount grocery store while she was out. We went out for dinner that night. It had turned cold over the course of the day and we were all shivering and laughing at our light clothing. We walked through an area of restaurants where we had to practically fight off the waiters who were following us and offering all kinds of deals. One guy went so far as to jokingly offer sex with dinner! Another shouted "I love you!" at us as we rounded the corner. Man, they're crazy for business sometimes! We ended up sitting at a place that wasn't pimping themselves like Dixie whores and had a nice meal. Unfortunately, the seating area was not walled in so we were still subjected to the occasional chilly gust, but otherwise it was nice. We finally got some Greek food that wasn't a gyro. The crab salad was tasty, but had way too much mayo for me. Robyn got a delicious cold eggplant salad and we all shared a grilled hot pepper that was not really hot. Europe doesn't really get the whole spicy
thing - when it says "hot" or "spicy" it isn't. But it was tasty enough, as peppers go. And our main meal was a platter of hamburger patties drenched in a blue-cheese-like sauce. It was good stuff, if not a bit strong in flavor. We shivered our way back to the hotel and tucked ourselves into bed.

We did our pack-and-check-out routine on the 14th and made our way to the bus station to try and get tickets to Istanbul. We had a bit of trouble finding the place because it was so much smaller than we expected. It was more of a bus stop than a bus terminal. And it turned out we couldn't pre-buy the tickets either - we had to get them on the bus. Our bus didn't leave until close to midnight, so we had a long day ahead of us. I dreaded having to lug my heavy backpack around, so I hoped we could stick to fairly stationary forms of entertainment. We walked back to a big square that looked out over the water and gt in an argument with Robyn. She was hoping to leave her stuff with us somewhere so she could do a bit of shopping, and we didn't want to do that. A little battle of the wills I suppose. Instead, Chuck and I sat on the opposite side of the square from her and we all did nothing. There was a young guy sitting on a bench next to ours listening to his iPod and splitting sun flower seeds for a herd of pigeons that had collected at his feet. After some time he got up and gave us a hand-full of seeds, took his seat and continued his sunflower de-seeding. Said nothing. Just gave us seeds and continued as though we didn't exist. I think he had noticed us watching the birds and was just a nice guy. When his girlfriend finally came and found him he gave us the rest of the seeds he had and they left together. So we had a grand time cracking open seeds and seeing how close the birds would come. Meanwhile, Robyn was busy being converted by two Christian missionaries. I looked over at her at one point to see her gesturing towards us and one of the guys gave us a cheerful wave. I waved back with a smile of my own. Afterward she told us that they were pretty nice. The three of us went to McDonald's after an hour or so, where we were sad to realize that they had no internet. We ate and walked further down the street, back towards the college where Chuck had seen an internet shop. It was the kind of place that "gamers" would hang out. They had some specials that we wanted - 4 hours for €5 - but you had to be a member to qualify. I asked how to become a member and if it cost anything. It was free! And all we had to do was give them our names! So we each became members and got our own little card to use whenever we go back. Which will likely be never. The staff there was really nice and got us all set up and we internetted for 4 hours. Well, Chuck and I did a whole 4 hours. Robyn walked around the city for a bit, did some internetting, and read for a good hour. It was a good way to blow 4 hours. We walked back to the bus station after our time was up, stopping at the discount grocery on the way as well as a bakery. The woman behind the counter seemed a bit cold at first but warmed up when Chuck expertly pronounced the name of the chocolate cake that I wanted. Her eyebrows went up and she seemed to sort of actually look at us for the first time. Chuck is very good at reading the Greek! The little ice cream filled canolli-like treat Chuck got was amazing, and my chocolate cake was pretty good too. After a few more hours it was finally time to go. The bus was the sweetest thing we've been on. It was a double-decker and built into the back of each seat was a little TV. They only showed two movies though, over and over: The Mummy III and National Treasure II. We were served tea at the beginning of the trip and I was lucky enough to end up with a dead fly in mine. But all in all, a cool bus.

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Delphi

The bus ride to Delphi from Athens was pretty short - about 3 hours I think. The scenery gradually rolled into dusty green hills which eventually loomed into mountains as we arrived in the town of Delphi. It's an absolutely lovely town! Very quaint and small, built right into the hills. It's definitely a town that uses tourism as a main source of income, but that didn't detract from it's charm. I can imagine it wouldn't be as nice if it were crawling with tourists in high summer, but being the middle of October perhaps there weren't so many people. The view from the balcony of our hotel was great. We looked right down into the valley where there was a flat lake edged round by a decent-sized town. The air had a dusty quality, making the distant view a bit hazy. It was still quite hot and the sun was - as it had proven to be so far in Greece - very intense. Our hotel itself was a really cool place. They seemed to have just gathered up any knick-knacks that caught their fancy and shoved them onto every bureau, table, and counter top they had. There were vases filled with fake flowers, some dotted with splashes of glitter. The walls were hung with Greek replica masks as well as Venetian masks and other 3-D art. They seemed to like candles and had quite a few ones candles scattered about. The reception guy was really friendly and the room was pretty nice. As you can tell, we were quite pleased with the whole area. Oh, don't let me forget about the delicious gummy candies they had at the front desk. Practically every time we left the room we made sure to grab one. After some relaxing and enjoying of our room we decided food was in order. We set out with different goals in mind: Robyn wanted a salad while Chuck and I wanted cheap gyros. It seemed that we weren't going to be finding any place that offered both, so we ended up splitting up. Chuck and I went to a cute "mom and pop" place where we were told to sit and wait after we had ordered our gyros. It's funny how they do that over here - it sounds like it might be rude, but it doesn't actually feel that way. It's more like your Mom telling you to sit and wait for the delicious cookies that are about to come out of the oven, baked with love. While waiting we saw some sort of camera crew strolling down the street, focused on some made-up woman and a jovial looking older man. They passed by and we wondered what they were filming. To our luck, one of the camera-guys came into the restaurant sucking down the last bits of a frappe. We heard him speak English and Chuck asked what they were filming. It was some show called Authentic Food and they were doing a segment on Greece. I've never heard of it, but still, very cool. Through further conversation we discovered that he had gone to Full Sail (a technical school) in Orlando! Gosh, what a small world! That was the only excitement of the night though. We wished him luck, got our food, and met back up with Robyn. The rest of the night was spent in the hotel room.

The hotel breakfast on the 11th was pretty good. Cheese and bread and pastries and cereal. Today was our day to go see the ruins at Delphi, so we packed down the food and got ready for the day. Half of the ruins are really close to the town, while the other half are a few kilometers away. We opted to explore only the closer ones. The ruins are apparently home to a ton of stray cats. They casually hang out on the concrete benches and skulk through the bushes just at the edge of all the human activity. Some were scared of people and ran away if you even look at them, but others were very sweet. One orange teenage-kitty gave us snuggles for a few minutes before we went into the site. It was just our luck that the altar area was closed during our visit due to "technical reasons," whatever those would be at a 2000+ year old ruin. On the bright side, this meant that we got to go in for free. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? Robyn spent her time lingering among a tour group, listening to the history of the ruins while Chuck dashed ahead of us to be the first to the top. This left me somewhere in between, wandering alone through the somewhat suffocating crowd of tourists wondering what all the different bits of stone and foundation were. I met Chuck somewhere near the top on his way back down ad he told me it was all roped off up ahead. I went up anyways and got as good a shot of the altar pillars as I could, but there was really nothing else to see. So I met Chuck back at the entrance where we watched cats until Robyn found us. We wanted to go to the museum but decided against it when we saw the price. Robyn, with her student discount, checked out the museum on her own and Chuck and I wandered back into town. We found a small, delicious looking restaurant that had both gyros and greek salads on the menu. If only we had found it the night before! Not being hungry right then we made note of the place and headed back to the hotel. We had plans to go out later and walk around some more, maybe check out where all the staircases that were scattered aroud the city lead. But once we were back in the cool of the hotel the laziness set in. Chuck and I managed to make it back out for gyros from the place we found earlier and they ended up being to die for. Some of the best gyros we'd had in Greece. That was about the extent of our night. Not a particularly thrilling day, but we got done what we came to Delphi to do.



After breakfast, packing, and checking out we headed down tot he bus stop to wait for the 10:00 bus to Thessaloniki. The ticket office didn't open until five minutes before the bus was due to arrive, but that was okay since the bus was late anyways. Robyn asked him if they had student rates. He asked if she was a student in Greece, and she replied that she was not, showing him her US student ID. He got a bit indignant and basically told her with unnecessary rudeness that one needed to be a Greek student for a discount. I didn't understand what his problem was - that's all he needed to say. "We only have discounts for Greek student." But he was a snotty butt head about it and I ended up stewing for the next 15 minutes over it. But got over it I did, and by then we were on our way to Thessaloniki!

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Athens

After a lot of waiting around for trains and buses, we made it to one of the main train stations in Athens. Our hotel was only a 20 minute walk away and we found it pretty easily. I went in and smiled and said hello to the gray haired old man behind the desk. He glanced at me, then looked past me to Chuck who had walked in just behind me. He smiled at Chuck and said "How can I help you. sir?" What??? Seriously?? I didn't think we were supposed to run into this until we were in the Middle East or something. But here I was, being overlooked because I'm a woman. Although I was shocked, I found that I wasn't actually offended. I found his ignoring me in preference for Chuck to be amusing more than anything else. Especially when he had us pay and I whipped out my credit card. And I chuckled to myself when he set the receipt in front of Chuck for the signature and I scooted in to sign it instead. Chuck was getting a kick out of it all too, making jokes as we went to the elevator that we should be walking 6 feet behind him and stuff. Although I found it all amusing, I can imagine how annoying it would be if being ignored in favor of a man was an everyday part of my life. If I grew up in that environment I might not mind so much, but if I up and moved somewhere like that I would get really annoyed really quickly. And he was the only person to really treat us that way as well, so it must not be a widespread behavior in Athens. Might be that he was just an older man stuck in his ways. Anyways! Upstairs in our room we were in another state of shock at our tiny, bare, utilitarian room. But, to Robyn's delight it at least had a bathtub. We settled in, tried to get the very bad internet to work, and eventually got hungry. Chuck and I went out and ate at a place called Goody's - apparently one of Greece's own fast food chains. While out I counted three transvestites that passed us in the streets. One was dressed very nicely and might have been taken for a woman if you weren't paying close attention, while another was in a shiny black mini skirt, fishnet stockings, high heels and a tube top. I didn't realize Athens was such a hotspot for cross-dressers! There might have been a special event going on that night though, who knows.

The 8th was our day to see all the sights of Athens. We headed towards Monastiraki Square first. The walk there was pretty cool. We passed by stores of all kinds, filled to the brim with jewelry, or kitchen supplies, or bags of dried beans and spices, pet shops, clothing stores, etc. There were people all over the place - people who looked like they actually lived in Athens and were out doing some shopping for the day. once we reached the square the area became more touristy and shops turned into souvenir shops. The gimmick being sold in Athens were these squishy balls that were soft enough to collapse into a "splat" when you threw them on the ground, but slowly pulled themselves back together into their round shape after a few moments. I'm not sure I explained that well, but it's the best I can do. So there were guys sitting on street corners all over Athens trying to sell these. We got kebabs for lunch at a place called Thanassis. We had read about it online and was suggested as a good kebab place. It was one of those restaurants where they pimped their food though - you know, they see you just walking by and immediately try to steer you to their tables and offer you deals and say how good their food is. A tourist trap sort of place. The kebabs were alright, but not even in the top 5 best kebabs I've ever had. So, meh. After lunch Robyn guided us down a shopping street, following a walking guide she had printed online. We stopped to share a coconut stick which I liked, but Robyn thought tasted like candle wax. Robyn was like a moth to the flame with the shoe stores we were passing by, and Chuck and I were drawn to a Lego store we saw. I had no idea the Lego kits were so expensive! They had a Taj Mahal for €300 and the Death Star was €550!!! Holy crap!! Who buys that for their kid, just the have them never actually complete it and eat half the pieces??? On the other hand, I wouldn't mind putting together a Lego Taj Mahal... At the end of the shopping street we came to another square that was cross the street from the Parliament building. Robyn read us some interesting facts about the square that I have since forgotten... I think Hitler might have set up camp in the area and there were some protests in the square perhaps? I'm not a very good student, huh. We headed underground into the Metro station to see the artifacts that were uncovered when the Metro was being built. There were various grave sites, an ancient clay aqueduct pipe, bowls and vases, etc. That's some old stuff there: 2500 years old or so. We emerged from the station right in front of the Parliament building. They, like many other countries, have stylized guards marching in front of the building. I have to say, Greece has some of the funnest looking Parliamentary guards. Their outfit consisted of something that looked like a short beige dress over white stockings. They had on a red beret-ish hat with a long black tassel to reached their waist. The best part was the shoes, though. They were like clogs with a big black poof-ball on the toe. Awesome outfit. The way the marched was very unique as well. When the two guards met in the middle they did a little synchronized... dance thing - that's the best way I can describe it - and slowly marched back out to their posts again. We headed through the National Gardens on our way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We got a few pictures with what was left of the ruins and then headed towards the Acropolis. I got yelled at for posing for a goofy picture with a nude male statue. She shouted from her chair "Excuse me! Excuse me! No posing!" I figured she just didn't want me pointing to his privates (come on, who doesn't feel the need for at least one lewd photo with naked Greek statues??), but when I tried to just stand with a smile she continued to have a problem with it. So... Ok then. We moved on. We passed by the Theatre of Dionysus and up to the top of the plateau to the most famous of temples. We passed by the Temple of Athena Nike, went through the Propylea, saw the Erectheion, and walked all around the Parthenon. Like so many of the coolest sights, the Parthenon was surrounded by scaffolding. So friggin disappointing! We did our best to get some good shots, but the scaffolding is just so unattractive. At some point while walking around in the incredible dry heat of Athens-in-September (I can't imagine it in July) I got my first ever nose bleed! It wasn't a big one, but it was my first. How exciting. At some point while walking around in the dry heat I decided I'd better suck it up and put on sun screen, lest I end up a lobster at the end of the day. I hate having to put on sunscreen. The Acropolis - like the rest of Athens - is home to quite a few stray dogs. They're so sad and lethargic that you can't help but want to give them a cuddle. The dirt keeps you from actually touching them, although Chuck had me pour some water into his cupped hands and gave one a little drink. After getting our fill of the busy Acropolis we headed down the hill and came to the Ancient Agora, which was like downtown back in the day. One of the best preserved Greek temples can be found here along with the ruins of old shops, homes, statues, etc. Our walk through the Ancient Agora was short and we were soon on the way back to the hotel, passing by numerous tourist souvenir shops and cafes as we went. The day wasn't over yet though! After a few hours rest we were back on our feet looking for a gyro dinner. We went to the tourist-geared restaurant area and after passing by four-or-so places we found one offering a reasonable €2 gyro. We took a seat and ordered three of the gyros. The waiter gave us one of those "shucky darn" looks and informed us that they had just run out of the €2 size pitas. No to worry though! They still had the large ones! We prodded him for a price. €4. We exchanged glances with each other and decided we would go elsewhere. When we got up the waiter told us that they might have some of the €2 ones left and that he would check. We told him not to bother and walked off. Such a blatant attempt to hustle us! No thanks! We ended up at a place called Savvas (we'd read about it online - it's one of the more popular tourist gyro shops, but they had the best price we could find). The gyros ended up being pretty decent and the french fries were awesome. Robyn and I ordered a glass of Ouzo and kept secretly refilling it with a little bottle she had bought earlier in the day. Subtley scoping the area to make sure there were no waiters around, we would hide the glass under the table and top it off. The never-ending Ouzo. I don't think the waiters would have cared if they had seen us though. After dinner we took a stroll in the dark to the Ancient Agroa again and found that it is home to a whole family of stray cats. We played with the cats and listened to some traditional-sounding Greek music being played and sung by a random trio that had stopped near us. After our fill of music and kitties we stopped off for a quick baklava and went back to the hotel for bed. Long day!



The 9th was a boring day. The most exciting part for Chuck and me was going out to a no-name place for gyros. We read online that small no-name diners usually have the best gyros, and it turned out to be true. That was the best gyro we had in Athens, in my opinion. Chuck and I wandered back to hotel stopping for Baklava and cookies and looking in pet shops along the way. Oh, we also stepped into a meat market. There were three warehouse-sized rooms; two filled with beef, chicken, lamb and pork, and the other room was filled with fish and anything that lived in the water. It was incredible! Everything was laid out so neatly and cleanly. It wasn't just a mess of meat thrown on display. The stands were small, some seeming to hold the products of just one lamb or cow. And the fish was so fresh! They had large carcasses - maybe 1 foot in diameter - of what I assume was tuna. When someone wanted tune steaks they would slice a piece off. Robyn went off on her own to do some shopping. She came back a few hours later with a few new fun articles of clothing to find us being lazy in the hotel. Dinner was boring, blah blah. All in all, a very laid-back day!

The next morning we did our pack-and-check-out routine. I had previously looked up how to get us to the bus station that leaves for Delphi and we all trudged down to the metro. It wasn't until after we bought our tickets that we discovered that the line we needed to take was out-of-order that day. Just our luck! The metro information man was less than helpful with his vague indication of some bus stop and mumbled bus numbers. We wandered back upstairs, into the bright sunshine and peered around for possible bus pick-ups. We finally found a steady stream of buses to the east and tried asking the driver of one how to get where we wanted to go. He rattled off a few bus numbers, but we were still quite confused. Eventually we resorted to taxis. It took about four tires, but we finally found a driver who knew where we wanted to go. Phew! We ended up at the bus station only €5 poorer (a great price in our opinion) and a great sense of relief. We got our tickets to Delphi and proceeded to wait around. Chuck went exploring a bit a found a gyro shop nearby. We all agreed he should grab us three kebabs for the road. When he still wasn't back 20 minutes later I started feeling worried. I got up and tried to figure out which direction he went and where his gyro shop was. I didn't find him. It was getting closer to leaving time and he still wasn't back. I was getting even more worried. He had probably only been gone 30 or 40 minutes, but it wasn't like him to still be gone when the bus was leaving in 10 minutes. I anxiously looked up at every person who came through the doorway, but none of them were Chuck. I don't know why I got so worried, but I couldn't seem to help it. Robyn could see me trying not to freak out so she went looking for him in my place. I sat there trying to keep my mind blank and control my breathing. I felt so silly. I just knew he was going to be walking through the station at any second. I had stopped looking up at each passer-by at this point. I was just trying keep myself calm. Of course, he came striding up and sat dawn next to me, giving me a big hug. Robyn had found him and told him I was losing it and he came back to reassure me. Man, I felt stupid! But I was soooo relieved to see he was alright!! I really really dislike that feeling... I can't imagine having kids!! I would be freaking out at everything apparently. Robyn, who had stayed at the gryo shop to pay for the order (it had just taken the place forever to get the food ready apparently - that's what took Chuck so long), showed up a few minutes later and we all hopped on the bus just as it was about to leave. So everything turned out fine in the end, despite my overactive imagination! And thanks to Robyn. My mind wasn't functioning well enough to be rational while my heart was in a giant knot. And I have to admit - the kebabs ended up being pretty darn good.

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Selianitika

Our ferry left Corfu for Patras 45 minutes late. The ride was pretty nice since we got to walk around and there were tables to sit at. If only we could travel by ferry everywhere. Since we left late, we were worried about missing our bus. Once it was time to disembark we started getting agitated about this. We rushed out of the port area and asked a lazy police officer which way to the buses. We hurried in the direction he pointed and finally arrived at the station to be told that the bus just left. Gah! We haggled with a taxi-driver who agreed to take us to our hotel which was in Selianitika for €35. That was an interesting trip! You know how people will say "Geeze, he drives like he's on a race track," and that normally means he drives really fast. Well this guy literally drove like he was on a race track. He ignored lane lines, including the yellow line that divides the road into it's opposite directions. When he accelerated we were all pushed back into our seats and he threw his car around the winding curves of the road. After 10 minutes in the car I was holding onto Chuck's hand for dear life! It was kinda fun in retrospect though. And he got us there safe and sound, surprisingly. Chuck and I were hungry so we went out and found the only restaurant that was still open and ordered souvlaki pitas. The owner was a tall man who looked like he could be a Texan in my opinion. He had one of those mustaches whose ends fall in a straight line along the edge of the mouth to meet with a tuft of beard on the chin. He was really friendly too. When we accidentally gave him €4 for our food instead of the €4.50 it actually cost he told us "It's ok, you can give it to me another time." We did pay him right then, but he was willing to let us walk away without paying the total! How nice.

We woke up in time for some breakfast downstairs which was, eh, okay. By 11:00 we were at the bus station waiting for the bus to Aegio. We waited almost an hour before it showed up. We tried to buy tickets from the driver but he spoke no English and eventually just waved us through to have a seat. He stopped at a roadside kiosk two minutes down the road and motioned for some money from us. He then hopped off the bus and actually bought us three tickets! I felt rather sheepish and guilty that he stopped to buy our tickets for us, but we didn't know that you couldn't buy them on the bus. Some places you can, some places you can't. We were very grateful that he was nice about it though. From Aegio we found the main bus station and caught the bus to Diakopto, our final stop. The plan was to take a scenic train ride up to Kalavryta and back. Since the train didn't leave for another hour or so we found lunch while we waited. It was pretty good - like a bacon, ham, cheese, and french fry pannini. The train ride was indeed beautiful, but not worth €19 a person. There was a distinct Splash Mountain (you know, the Disney World ride) feel to it. The mountains were massive red and tan rocks covered with pointy pine trees and scrubby brush. Below the rickety tracks was a lovely river that ran in little waterfalls over tiny cliffs and bubbled through piles of rocks. The river had me captivated the whole ride up - it looked so clear and inviting. I wanted to go play in it. At the top, in Kalavryta we got off the train for a 10 minute break. The ride back was still scenic, but I chose to read my book instead: Dan Brown's Deception Point. I thought his characters were rather flat and boring (although they had potential). The story itself was exciting, but felt like just a Hollywood script in book form. Entertaining but nothing great. Just in case you wee interested. Back at Diakopto we caught a train to Selianitika instead of going by bus. Did I mention how the train stations around here are different than most of the rest of Europe? Usually they have stern warnings about walking across the tracks and they build underground tunnels or overpasses to get across them. In Diakopto and Selianitika they don't care about that. The only way to get across the tracks is to just walk over them. I suppose they figure most people are smart enough to be able to cross the tracks without being hit all on their own. When we get off at Selianitika (which really has no actual station) we find goats on the train tracks. Their just grazing away and when they see us they stare at us with their goat eyes. For some reason goat stares are... creepy. At first I was all "Oh goats! Cool!" I figured since they were tethered I could just jump out of range if they got feisty. But as I approached them at they stared their goat-stare at me I chickened out. Creepy goats. Back at the hotel we were hungry so went to the place Chuck and I had gotten souvlakis the night before for dinner. Robyn ordered a Greek drink called Ouzo. It is an anise flavored liquor, and is pretty strong - about 40% alcohol. It's a neat drink though. If you go to the store and buy a bottle it's clear. Once you pour it into a glass of ice it turns cloudy. I looked this up and it turns out that there's a little chemical reaction that occurs call spontaneous emulsification. It occurs in many anise-flavored drinks and when the alcohol hits water it turns cloudy! Like a magic trick!



On the 6th we had breakfast at the hotel again, and I discovered the joys of Greek yogurt and honey. I'd never thought of this before and only tried it because I saw someone else do it. It's very good! I don't know how it would taste if you used non-Greek yogurt (whatever that's called). Greek yogurt has a thickness to it that blends well with the silkiness of the honey. So that was a nice discovery. Robyn ended up going to the beach (Selianitika is right on the coast) while Chuck and I hung around the hotel a bit longer. Our room looked right out across the water and the sun shone brightly on our balcony in the early morning, so I sat out there for a bit, enjoying the heat. We eventually got up and headed out for a walk. We found Robyn lying on the beach reading her book and stopped to harass her and skip stones for a bit. Chuck is pretty good at it - some of his skipped 7 or 8 times. I can only get little stones to skip twice. If I try to throw any harder for more skips, it ends up plopping into the water with no skips. We walked some more and eventually ended up back at the hotel. At some point we went and got some lunch. While sitting there looking out at the water (pretty much all the restaurants are on the water), I saw a blobby mass bobbing along. It turned out to be a big jellyfish, about one foot across. After we ate I checked on him again and found he had floated right up to the shore and was just brushing up against the rocks there, quite dead as far as I could tell. He looked like a dark pink brain covered in a thick layer of goo with a bunch of purple-y tassels hanging underneath him. Lovely. That was about the extent of our day - very laid back. I enjoy days like that.



On the 7th we ate our breakfast (yogurt and honey for me), packed, and checked out. We headed to the bus stop to catch the bus to Aegio, and this time we were sure to buy tickets beforehand at a corner shop. In Aegio we walked to the train station, which was quite run-down, and bought our tickets to Athens. Then we waited for 4 hours. When our train finally arrived it took us 10 minutes down the road to Diakopto where we were supposed to catch a bus. We could have walked that 10 minutes in our 4 hours of waiting! It all seemed a bit ridiculous, but whatever. From Diakopto we took a bus to Aegio and from there a train to Athens.

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Benitses

The small town of Benitses is on the island of Corfu which lies on the north-west side of Greece. It's a quaint, but fairly touristy little fishing village with pebbly stretches of beach on one side and modest green mountains on the other. This was where we were headed. First we had to figure out how to get there from Corfu though. From the ferry terminal we walked aimlessly, looking for the bus station. I stopped into a BP gas station (yes, they have BPs) and asked the attendant who pointed me back in the direction we had just come from. We walked a bit and came to an intersection that we had seen a bus turn down so Chuck actually flagged down a motorcyclist and asked directions. I was surprised that he actually stopped and pulled over to the side of the road to help us. With a smile no less. If it had been me being waved down, I'm ashamed to admit I probably would have averted my eyes and kept going. He pointed us up the street and finally we came to the bus station! We caught the next bus out of town and landed in Benitses. Standing on the side of the road with our backpacks in place, we were once again at a loss as to which way to go. We started off to the right and as we passed a scooter rental shop we must have looked really lost because the owner asked us where we were headed. He Pointed us in the right direction (which was the way we were headed) and soon enough we found the place, got checked in, and settled into our little room. It was a cozy place with a tiny balcony looking up towards the mountains. Across from us was the skeleton of an unfinished concrete building and to our right was a giant wild grape vine dripping with deep purple grapes. The bathroom was small and the shower consisted of a square porcelain platform and a faucet. You can run the faucet trough the hand-held shower handle or through the tap as though you're filling a bathtub - I don't understand this because it would very quickly flood the bathroom, which might not be such a problem now that I think about it because there is a drain in the middle of the floor right next to the toilet. There's no shower curtain so either you're supposed to be very good at aiming the shower head only at the wall behind you, or you're supposed to just go wild and spray down the whole bathroom. I found I didn't have to worry about this too much because the shower never got warm enough for me to even want to take a shower. I flipped my head upside down over the shower "square! and washed my hair that way, then just did a quick wash-down of the other important parts before jumping out and shivering. Bleh. I hate cold showers! Enough about that though, let's get to dinner. We sit down in the outdoor-seating area of Tony & Alex and I look over to see a teenaged, orange and white striped kitten slink lazily from one of the other chairs. She did a little yawn and stretch, her adorable paws kneading against the ground. I squealed and pointed her out to Robyn and Chuck and to our delight she came right over to us with a meow. I couldn't resist picking her up. She was more than happy to be in my lap. We passed her around cooing over her non-stop. I knew having a stray cat sitting at the dinner table with us was a bit...well, dirty, and I could just picture my parents ordering us to put her down, but I didn't really care. She was soooo cute. We did put her on the ground during dinner, although she stayed and begged for our food. The waiter suggested we take her with us because she begs for food from everyone and is annoying in their opinion. I would have loved to take her but...we're traveling. It would be seriously annoying. I even thought of sending her home to Mom or Dad, but I figured they probably wouldn't really appreciate the souvenir all that much.



We woke up on the 2nd to a slightly overcast sky. We had a breakfast that was pretty good and shared all our jam and honey with the many bees that were buzzing about. One even landed on my finger to eat the jam off of the toast that was in my hand! I'm like the bee whisperer. I gave myself a haircut back at the room after we ate. It's been getting scrappy and the ends were severely split. It's not a great haircut, but it's even enough and my hair is feeling much healthier. Robyn really wanted to rent scooters to drive around the island on so we went down to a rental place (there are lots of them) and worked out a deal for one scooter and one 4-wheeler for €30 for the day. I decided the 4-wheeler would be better for me because I've never ridden any sort of motorized 2-wheel contraptions before, and as you'll see later on, that was a good choice. When the dealer found out which hotel we were staying at he asked us cheerfully if we knew the two American brothers who were also staying there. They had apparently rented scooters the day before. Nope, we don't know them! I rode out of there on my kickin 4-wheeler, Chuck on the seat behind me and Robyn hot on my heels. We were given practically zero gas in our tanks so first order of business was a fill up. Gas stations here are not self-service so we had a fella pump our gas for us and off we went, this time with Chuck driving and me on the back. We just followed the coastline, which was pretty but would have been really amazing if it had been a sunny day. We stopped for a few photo-ops and at one stop I found some wild blackberries growing on the side of the road. I managed to drop one while I was eating and we found it later, squished into a purple mass between me and Chuck. Chuck had to throw his shirt out at the end of the day... I felt bad. It started to sprinkle in the early afternoon which feel like little needles driving into your skin when you're cruising down the road at 40 kmh. As it started to come down harder we came upon a little fishing town complete with gnarly fishermen with unkempt hair wearing rubber overalls, who glare at you from their well-used boats as they untangled a massive pile of fishing net. We stopped here for lunch at what ended up being a pretty nice place while the rain came down. The food was good and waitress was nice and by the time we were finished the rain was too. It was exceptional timing. Back on our 4-wheeler and scooter we headed down to the southern part of the island. We were trying to make our way to a lighthouse that we saw on the map, but couldn't figure out how to get there. We ended up on a dirt road in some field and decided to give each others vehicles a try. Robyn didn't much like the 4-wheeler. Chuck tried the scooter but said it was too different. I didn't like the scooter because I ran myself into a ditch. I don't think I'm meant for scooters. I was trying to turn around on this dirt road and was pretty much walking the bike. I gave it a bit of a rev to help with my forward momentum and boom! Into the ditch! I ended up with a pretty bruise where the handle dug into my thigh too. We even got the whole thing on video, lucky me. Two videos actually. Needless to say, no scooters for me! We reverted back to the original set-up - Chuck and me on the 4-wheeler and Robyn on her scooter - and headed down to Kavos, then back up to Benitses by 5:00 or so. After it got dark the sky let loose and it poured for the rest of the night.



Unfortunately, the 3rd was worse than the 2nd in terms of weather. It rained all day long. We only managed to get out to the restaurant across the street called Big Bite. I've noticed that the island of Corfu seems to cater to British tastes because all of the restaurants have English names, and most of them seem British-inspired. Big Bite for example, had on their menu a full English breakfast. They also had a little kitty on their patio, but she wasn't as friendly as the one from the other restaurant. The waitress had a Scottish accent so we talked with her for a bit. She was from just south of Glasgow and was working in Corfu where her Mom likes to vacation a lot. When she found out we were leaving the next day she asked us if we knew the two American boys from California who were staying at our hotel, because they were leaving tomorrow too. We all laughed and figured it was the same brothers the scooter rental guy had mentioned. We joked about how we should find them and ask how they liked their scooters, how they liked Big Bite and if they wanted to catch a ride with us to the airport tomorrow for their flight back to California. They'd possibly think we wee stalking them, unless they too had been hearing about "the two girls and a guys who rented scooters and ate at Big Bite." We never did end up seeing them though. The rest f the day was spent inside listening to the rain. Corfu knows how to have a storm - there were frequent cracks of thunder that had me jumping in surprise. I love storms like that. The power even went out for a few minutes at one point.

We went back to Big Bite in the morning for their English breakfast. Oh man, was it good to have a real breakfast again! I tell you, these Europeans have wimpy breakfasts... We got hash browns, eggs, grilled tomato, sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, fried toast and jam, and tea and it was delicious!! The sun was shining today. Just our luck, seeing as we were leaving. We hung around the hotel until about 1:00 and then caught the bus into town. I took pictures along the way to try and capture the island when it's nice out. Back in the main town of Corfu where the ferries leave from we tried to find where to buy tickets. As we were walking around it started to, once again, get overcast and drizzly. We walked all the way down to the ferries and were told to go back up the road to the Minoan Lines office. From there we were told to go even further to some other office. So after about 45 minutes of waling around we finally had our tickets in hand and went to wait for our ferry. The ferry ended up being abut 45 minutes late, which had us on edge about catching the bus to our hotel that night. Even if the ferry had left on time we would be cutting it short. But there's nothing we could do about that. So we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

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Sarande

The bus ride from Tirane to Sarande, Albania was really unpleasant. It was decent enough at first, but then the AC started blowing stale, room-temperature air and the bus suddenly got really stuffy. I was also on the side of the bus that got full sunlight, heating me up even more. We had 8 hours of this and by the time we got to Sarande I had been feeling a bit nauseous for a while. I think we all had. I was so relieved to get off that bus. Most of the bus ride scenery was similar to what we had already seen. I'm not sure I mentioned before the amount of trash that is littered around the country. It just seems that people throw piles of it out their car windows or something. There were frequent heaps of garbage sitting along the roadside along the whole trip. Most of the countryside of Albania wasn't very pretty either - brown and monotonous. Even the mountains don't really help to beautify the place. There was one section we drove through that struck as being quite pretty though. It was right through the very twisty mountain roads outside of Sarande. The landscape became more green and three-dimensional. There were scars of red-clay colored rock that looked almost like they had been scraped out of the earth. That part of Albania is pretty. Back to our bus trip though - once it was over it was an easy walk to the hostel. As we came up on the last street we had to go down a man in a red and white striped shirt and a bald head called out to us: "Do you need any help? Where are you going?" We were inclined to ignore him and keep going, but after another shouted "Where are you looking for?" Robyn told him we were going to a hostel. He got up and told us he had a hostel and he'll show us, etc. Chuck was extremely hesitant and was only convinced by the fact that I saw a sign for our hostel plastered on the wall of the building he was going in. The guy, seeing our hesitation said "Trust me. It's ok, man. Anything you need, you let me know." We followed him into an apartment building that looked as though it was still under construction but had fallen into disrepair. There was another sign on the door he led us to saying that it was our hostel, so we went in. As it turned out, it was our hostel and the guy was just really nice and helpful. The hostel was really more like a two-bedroom apartment, each bedroom having two bunk beds in them. He got us settled in with lots of "It's alright, man"s, gave us each a piece of spicy spearmint gum, and went back to his seat on the corner. We headed out for food and saw him there in his red and white shirt. We asked where some good, cheap Albanian food was. He led us to a restaurant across the street. We sat right on the edge of the beach as he ordered dinner for us. At first I was a little annoyed, but then I realized it was pretty cool to have an Albanian guy ordering you food he deems Albanian, so I went with it. We ended up getting a killer Greek salad and some delicious stuffed peppers. I love Albanian food. After dinner we headed over to the ferry terminal he had pointed out to try and get tickets for the next morning. As we climbed up the steps from the beach to the main street we hear someone shouting. We look up and see him there in his red and white striped shirt, standing on the second floor balcony of the building in front of us. He motions to the left and tells us the terminal is right down the road. We're looking at each other and laughing at the situation as we pass by. He seems to show up everywhere we go... He didn't seem threatening or stalker-ish. He just seemed really helpful and like he wanted to make sure we found everything we needed just fine. We decided to call him Mr. Paperclip because he reminded us of the little annoying paperclip that pops up in Microsoft Office to ask if you need help every 10 seconds. The ferry terminal was already closed and as we turned around to head back to the hostel, there was Mr. Paperclip heading our way. He walked back to his corner with us, commiserating on the closed ferry terminal and reassuring us that we could get tickets in the morning. We left him at the corner at his favorite sitting spot. We grabbed our computers and went to internet for a while at a local internet cafe. I showered before bed which was interesting. I tell you, showers just get better and better as the trip moves forward... The shower was a small, dirty bathtub with no shower curtain or anything. The shower nozzle was one of hand-held kinds with no place to secure it onto the wall. I couldn't figure out how one was supposed to shower so I just made it up as I went along. I waited for a while for the water to get hot, but the best I could get was warm water. I knelt in the bath on my knees and washed myself that way. I tried my best to point the shower head towards the wall so that I didn't get water all over the floor, but I didn't do a very good job. Oh well. I miss steaming hot showers with sliding glass shower doors and 15 square feet of standing room. I'm literally lucky if I get 6 square feet. After shower I crawled into bed, did some reading and we were all off to sleep.



Our host had breakfast ready for us in the morning. Plain, untoasted bread with yogurt-butter (yogurt mixed with butter if you didn't guess), locally collected honey, a runny cherry "jam," orange juice (juices in Europe are not nearly as sweet as in America), and a traditional Albanian tea. I saw the tea boiling away on the stove before I knew what it was and thought it looked fun. He had plopped a bouquet of dried herbs into a pot of water, the ends of the plants sticking out over the edge as it boiled away. The tea was very good too. It was nice to have some tea again. We thanked him and gave him a tip for all his help along with our payment for the rooms and headed off to the ferry terminal. It was open this time, but we were still unable to buy tickets just yet. We did, however, get the time that the ferry was leaving. We tried to go to the internet cafe again and when that was closed we ended up sitting under a big pine tree near the beach. The tree was constantly dropping little pill-shaped bean-looking things. They made a fairly steady pitter-patter as they fell around us. One even popped me on the head! After a time we noticed that people who were walking by would stop and pick up a few of these things before moving on. Being the curious and bored people we are we picked one up and cracked it open (it took a few tries - they're tough little suckers). Inside was what looked like a pine nut. We were under a pine tree... These things looked like pine nuts. I can only assume that is exactly what they were. An older man with an empty chip bag came by and started collecting them so we decided to help. Whenever we put a handful in his baggie he put his hand to his heart and sort of nodded his head at us. When we grew bored of that, and hungry again we looked for a place to eat. As we passes by the first one on our right a young man asked us if we wanted some coffee and food. It was a strange request because he seemed to be just a customer, sitting with his friends enjoying late-morning drinks. I wasn't sure if he meant for us to join his specifically, although that would have been hard because he was at a 4-person table with 4 people already seated. Robyn shrugged and said "Sure," so we grabbed a table on the patio. He came over to talk to us after a few minutes. He introduced himself as Al and asked where we were from. "America" we told him. "Wisconsin??" he asked with an enthusiastic smile. Wisconsin?? Where did he get Wisconsin from? Do they have a lot of Wisconsin-ers passing through Albania? We corrected him and told him we were from Florida. We had a nice but short conversation with him and he went back to his table. I noticed that his English was very good and I regretted not asking him where and how he learned it. Oh well. Our meal was nice and cheap again. We love the inexpensive Albanian food! We left, saying goodbye to our new friend "Al" and spent some time at the now-open internet shop. Then we were off to the ferry and on our way to Greece!

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Tirane

Our trip to Tirane, Albania was interesting. First we took a bus to Bar, Montenegro, then caught a bus to Ulcinj, Montenegro and from there another bus to Shkodër, Albania across the border. The bus looked like it would have been considered pretty nice in the 70's with it's faded velvet-like red seats and curtains. In fact, we thought it was pretty nice when we got on. It turned out that the air-conditioner was broken so we got to swelter in the bus for a few hours. When we stopped at the border for 30 minutes it was nice to have the doors open and a slight breeze in the air. I don't know why they had our passports for so long but we eventually got them back and were on our way again. The last stop in Shkodër was not at a bus station. This left us a bit confused as to what to do next and how to get to Tirane. Two Irish girls who had been on the previous bus with us found a van with a wooden sign propped on the dashboard that said "Tirane." They were told it would be €3 a person so we all jumped in. After we were off and driving is when the thought hit us that this was all a little weird. We were on an unmarked, 8-person van with a wooden sign for Tirane on the dash. They did have some official looking stickers on the front window with "2009" written on them along with some other official looking stuff, so that made me feel better. I thought that rationally it would be silly of him to try and kidnap or rob five foreigners all at once. Not impossible to do so, but quite unlikely. Albania is certainly a different sort of place than what we've been used to. First thing we noticed is that their driving is not as strict and rule-bound as... the UK for example. They are constantly passing each other and they honk quite a bit, not to be rude or as a way to insult someone's intelligence, but as if to say "I'm over here so don't run into me, okay?" The road would frequently change from asphalt to pebbles in the numerous construction zones. Every once in a while we would stop to pick up a random person waving us down from the side of the road. They'd just squeeze in where they could and then hop out not much further up the road. We saw a few people with roosters in cages or tethered to a pole. I assume they were for sale for someone's dinner. Other chickens were running free in fields along with emaciated cows, their noses in the browning grass, chewing away. I saw one man wearing traditional clothes (something like this) herding four cows across the busy road. There were scruffy dogs dogs, a burning field, horse drawn carts, hunks of meats hanging from porches, etc. And we saw a bus that had both a Ford and a Mercedes logo on it. I didn't know Ford made Mercedes! Or...Mercedes made Fords? Yeah. Fun ride. We were dropped off in the main square of Tirane, somehow managing to communicate the spot to the driver who spoke zero English. While walking to our hostel we noticed that the city has an abundance of guards in uniform protecting various buildings or intersections. And speaking of intersections, those were fun. It was kind of like Rome where people just drive around you if you're in their way. The honking was even worse in the city than it had been on the drive. As soon as a light turned green people 10 cars down the line of waiting traffic would begin to honk. It was crazy! The city was smoggy and not really pretty at all, but it ended up growing on us. Our hostel was a very cool place, right int he heart of the city. It felt like a big log cabin complete with a garden and outdoor kitchen. Very cool place with nice owners. We got directions to the food part of town and found a nice little restaurant. The food was amazing and hella cheap! We instantly fell in love with Albanian food that night.



On the morning of the 29th Chuck ran to the store and picked up ingredients for sausage and cheese omelets. The stove in the outdoor kitchen was basically just a campfire burner stove with only one setting: really hot. It was very rustic. He still managed to make some killer omelets. After breakfast we hung around our dorm room reading and doing whatever. We met our dorm-mates: two brothers from New Zealand. One had been living in London for a while though and they were meeting up to travel around for two weeks. One of them ended up being into programming and computers and he and Chuck found a lot to talk about. They seemed really cool. And I love their accents!! After they left we met the cleaning lady. She spoke not a word of English and we spoke not a word of Albanian. But she was more than happy to talk with us, smile on her face and lots of sign language. I'm not sure what she was saying, but we think she was telling us she has a 27 year old son and a young daughter. Or maybe a young granddaughter. We tried to look things up in the google translator to figure out how to respond, but we couldn't pronounce the Albanian words - thy were just too foreign for us. Another thing that had us confused was the head-nodding for yes and no. I finally remembered that some cultures have opposite nods than we do - "yes" is a side-to-side shake of the head and "no" an up-and-down nod. Albania, as it turns out, is one of those places. That helped clear a bit of the conversation up! She was very nice though, whatever she was saying. Robyn eventually got sick of doing nothing. She went out to see the city on her own while Chuck and I finished up what we were doing and got ready to go ourselves. I figured we wouldn't be seeing Robyn for the rest of the day, but we ran into her just down the road. We headed toward the main square where we had been dropped off the day before. We found a tourist information center and asked where we could catch the bus to Sarande, which is where we were going the next day. She very kindly did her best to explain, although we were left a bit confused. We figured we'd figure it out. We walked back across the city to a big park we saw on the map. On the way we saw a thin attractive girl with long black hair, black high heels, short black shorts and a corset top walk out of a shop in front of us. It was really funny to see every mans head turn and watch her as she passed by restaurants on her way down the street. Guys were even poking their friends and nodding in her direction. It was hilarious at the same time that it was disturbing. They didn't really seem to feel the need to bother being discreet about their oggling. But I also figure that she was wearing what she was wearing to turn some heads. Once we got to the park both Robyn and Chuck decided it was too ugly to actually walk through. The poor park had half its trees cut down and everything was a brown color instead of nice and green. We walked through a bit of it though - I wanted to feel like we had come all that way for something. We saw a man wearing a gun holster with a skinny-barreled gun resting in it. That kind of freaked me out and I turned to Robyn and Chuck with wide eyes. We nervously chuckled and said things like "Only in Albania, right?" As we passed him we saw he was standing by a little toy target and realized his gun was a toy... I felt like an idiot. He was just trying to sell target-shooting games to little kids. We went for an early dinner/late lunch at the same place we ate at the previous night - it was that good. It didn't disappoint the second time around either. We stayed in the rest of the evening. I stayed up late and read a new book before going to sleep.



We woke up way too early to pack our stuff up and make the long walk to the bus station. When we get lost (let's face it, getting lost is a given) we bravely ask a random woman walking down the street. She doesn't know but asks two other people for us and between the three of them we get directions. How nice of her to ask other people on our behalf! We were grateful. We made it to our bus with 10 minutes to spare - perfect timing if you ask me. Once again, our bus driver doesn't speak any English so hand signals are used instead. Hand signals work surprisingly well for basic things like "get on the bus" and "pay money now." Off we went to Sarande, Albania.

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