Greetings from Greece! Man, it's good to be on land after a 21 hour ferry from Ancona, Italy to Patras, Greece, where we are staying for the night and then heading over to Athens tomorrow. We were originally going to go to Olympia tomorrow, but apparently there is yet another STRIKE here in Greece (that's the reason we didn't get to come here last week) but according to the train station employee who yelled at me (maybe Greece people just yell?), the strike will only last tomorrow and then we can go "anywhere in Greece" after that. We'll see about that.
As soon as we got off the ferry today we went hostel shopping since our books didn't provide us with any maps. The first one we found was for 20 euro a night, but we were told we could find some for 10. So the guy there told us where to go for the 10 euro/night hostel that he also worked at, and we walked 800m. there to the "Patras Hostel." When we got there, we were greeting at the front driveway by a dead pigeon. That should have told us enough, but we decided to check the inside of the building anyway. We thought the door was locked so I circled the building and almost stepped on a dead sparrow in the grass too. I realized there were probably like 3 cats living on the property, so I let that go. After struggling with the door, we headed up and found Rm. 6. Man! There were 2 little rickety bunkbeds for little kids there, a balcony that looked like the doors never closed all the way, and the bathrooms, well, at least there were some. Anna flat-out said Hell no, Aisha also said she'd stay anywhere else but there, and Trisha and I were a bit indifferent. So we wandered around a bit more, had lunch, and then finally found a decent place for 15 euro/night. Finally!
Since then we have walked around, seen the St. Andrew's Greek Orthodox church, saw the shrine where they keep St. Andrew's head, Trisha got poo-ed on by the literally hundreds of sparrows circling the church, took pictures by the lighthouse/restaurant by the water, had some drinks, and then walked around looking for a restaurant for dinner. According to the locals, Carnival here in Patras is second best to Rio in the world, but please note that so far every single city we have gone to claim that their Carnival is the best after Rio, blablabla. But after walking around here, I must say that Patras definitely takes their Carnival seriously. There are lights, paper mache people, dozens of stores with crazy hats and boas and masks, etc. Unfortunately, we won't be here for Carnival cuz we have a schedule to keep, but maybe we'll stop over on the way to Corfu on Thursday night.
The ferry ride over here was interesting I guess. We originally thought we were going to get a room, etc., and even got excited cuz there was a pool and several bars on board. When we got to the ticket office, we realized that it was free to get on the ship because of our Eurail pass (not including the port fee of 16 euro) but that if we actually wanted a room, it was 70 euro/person. HA! We quickly said no to that. So our tickets actually read "DECK" as in our rooms were the actual deck. That basically means we can wander around the entire ferry, but when it comes time to sleep in a bed or change or shower, we don't have a place to do it! Wow... And to top that all off, the pool and jacuuzi were both drained! We ended up spending the time watching the free movies (I watched "Dukes of Hazzard" and felt like I lost braincells), played Gin Rummy, read my third book of the trip "The Secret Life of Bees," and slept as much as I possibly could on the dining room cushions.
I think every day we miss a little bit of the US more and more. Greece is a totally different place and none of us know a word. We get a lot of stares, mostly from the older guys and especially on the ferry we were on, but supposedly it's normal. We'll probably be eating a lot of gyros the next few days, but I'm excited cuz everything in Greece is a whole hell of a lot cheaper than Italy!!!
Tomorrow we're a little nervous about this "strike" that no one seems to want to explain to us, but we will head to Athens, then back through Patras, maybe Olympia, to Corfu, stay at the infamous Pink Palace, then back to Italy our last city there, Venice.
I miss you guys and hope all is well in LA! Man oh man I can't wait to be back in LA weather too!!! It's super cloudy over here...
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