Barf Bags – Greg and Mandy's Travels

We’ve liked Athens, perhaps a little more than we thought we would. Yes, it’s busy, but not overwhelming, well everything except the traffic that is. Despite the high unemployment, we’ve found the people in general very friendly and smiling – in contrast to some other countries around them. We’ve felt very welcome, and people generally have been very patient with us. The Big Mac index is AU$9.90, so it’s not a cheap country, as the government is trying to claw its way out of a black hole with high taxes, but the cafe culture is far more like we are used to (maybe that’s because we learned it from the Greeks and Italians in the first place).

I took Brendan and Rachel on the Metro this morning to meet Vasilis for the free walking tour, stopping on the way to show them the ceremonial changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. “Bit like Monty Python’s Silly Walks” commented Brendan. Yep, I think he’s right, but of course its a very prestigious post to be appointed to in Greece, so I wouldn’t dare laugh at them. Especially as they are rumoured to have knives concealed in their shoe pompoms.

Vasilis was pleased to see them. In typical Greek fashion everybody else was late, so at the appointed start time only 2 of the 13 booked for the tour had arrived, but I guess he’s used to it.

I headed back, and we sorted out the apartment while the tour was in progress, then we carried or dragged the bags for all four of us up the road, down the stairs into the subway, on to the first train we could find enough space on, back up the stairs to the street, and finally across the square to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where we were meeting the kids at the end of their tour. Flaked out for a while after the exertion.

For a Greek tour they were on time, and we headed back down into the subway, changed lines, and finally ended up at the metro station closeish to the country bus terminal servicing our ferry port. The bus departed on time, and an hour and a bit later we arrived at the port of Rafina to await our ferry to Mykonos.

Brendan and Rachel headed off to find lunch of Greek Souvlakis – a wrap with french fries, onions, tzatziki sauce, and your choice of meat – a wrap that would come back to haunt Brendan later.

Apart from one period where the seas got rough and they summoned the whole crew into the aisles armed with jokes and barf bags (Plan A and Plan B), the passage was fairly uneventful, though the second assistant to the engineer who was armed with a torch and a walkie talkie (obviously engineers don’t get jokes) was run off his feet dealing with the consequences of the souvlakis.

They reduced speed to reduce the consequences, and after dropping people at a couple of ports on the way, we finally arrived at Mykonos to find our patient driver still waiting in the dark.

After check in, we walked down the road in the dark to a pizza restaurant and discussed the meaning of life over dinner.