Last night, in the middle of packing/ hanging up my clothes to dry since the dryers in the Cite don’t really dry your clothes as much as they just warm them up, I thought it would be prudent to figure out directions from ports, to hostels, to airports, to train stations, etc. While trying to figure out the second leg of our journey, airport to ferry, I realized we had made an uh oh.
Our plane was supposed to land 20 minutes before the last non-overnight ferry was scheduled to leave the port and it was going to take us about an hour to get from the airport to the seaport, unless the plane was really early, or the ferry really late, we weren’t going to make it. This was a direct contrast to the cracked out, unrealistic, fly by the seat of my pants vision in my head of the ferries leaving for Santorini every 5 minutes and the seaport being conveniently located right next door to where our plane was landing. Why neither of us thought about checking this out beforehand, I don’t know.
I also forgot to mention that I didn’t make this discovery until approx. 2:30 AM and stayed up until about 4 trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do.
Sometimes I realize that despite practically guaranteeing ulcers and heart attacks, being type A does have its advantages.
So the next morning, Brian and I meet each other at 9:15 AM in the lobby
“So I think we’ve already got a snag in the plans”
“yea?”
and then I tell him my findings to which he just laughs and replies
“well so much for getting off on the right foot.”
When we get to the airport, we try and get put on stand by for the only flight that afternoon from Athens to Santorini. No dice. The waiting list is closed because it already has 8 people on it for a plane that only holds 40 people.
This means it looks like the launching sequence for plan B, the overnight ferry, will commence. Good thing it’s the off-season and our hotel is only 12 euros a night. However, I am not totally sure if we have to kiss that goodbye cause the site says you need to cancel your reservation 48 hours in advance. We didn’t even make our reservation until under 24 hours until we were planning on being there, thus making canceling 48 hours beforehand impossible. But I digress.
After passing through customs, we see the duty free shop. Never hurts to look right? There is nothing cheap in Geneva. Anywhere. Its an expensive city, but unlike other expensive cities I’ve been to, like London or New York which have bargains such as pound pints and one dollar giant slices of pizza respectively, there are no deals to be had in Geneva. I don’t even think there is a word for bargain.
We land in Athens and our first mission is to figure out how the hell to get to the ferries. This is not made any easier by the Greek alphabet or language. It might as well be Mandarin Chinese. Actually, scratch that, I would probably recognize at least the characters for my favorite dishes.
The stewardess said something to us as we got off the plane, which I assumed to be along the lines of ‘thanks for flying with us’ but if she had told me to go do dirty things to myself, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference but still would make a stupid smile, wave, and said thank-you.
As were wandering around the airport, which thankfully had English translations of the signs, one of the workers must have overheard us and dropped the 411. We had to take the X96 bus that left from terminal 5. She told us to ask one of the travel agencies in the airport what the ferry schedule is, but if we buy from them, it’s going to be way more expensive than if we bought our tickets at the port. She was such a little nugget of knowledge. In less than 2 minutes she told us what could have taken us all day to figure out.
Then we saunter up to said travel agency window.
“How can I help you?”
“Are there any ferries left to Santorini today”
“Two, both leave at 8 PM one will arrive at the island at 3:30 am and the other at 7:30 am. I recommend the 7:30 because the time is more convenient.”
“Yea that seems like a much better idea”
“Would you like to book your tickets then?”
“Uhhhh no. Thanks. Bye!”
Then I did one of those walks, half runs, away from the counter. Information is free right?
Since the boat left at 8, we had a little less than four hours to kill until we left. On the way through the airport we spotted a place to get a haircut, And by a place to get a haircut, I mean a salon. Brian had badly needed a haircut for about two weeks and I could use one as well. This wasn’t salon along the lines of little old ladies in curlers, but rather, Europeans with cracked out dye jobs and haircuts that outside of this continent would get out mocked, beat up, or both.
Both of us with three bags apiece looking like we spent last night in the sewers walk into said salon and get that international look that basically says ‘are you serious right now?’
Me: “How much for a haircut.”
Attendant with Dragon Ball Z hair: “30 Euros”
Brian: “Lets do it!”
I was kind of surprised at his enthusiasm, seeing as how that comes out to about $45. I just figured he really really wanted a hair cut. Wrong. I came to find out later that he though the lady had said thirteen euros.
Brian goes first, and I don’t see him until I get my hair washed. He has gotten basically a buzz cut with a little extra left in the front. So my fears of ending up like euro trash are relieved for the time being.
Then it’s my turn in the chair.
Barber (stylist): “How do you make your hair?”
Me: “I want a hair cut that isn’t too European, something that I can also wear in America”
Blank Stare
Me: “Ok so I part it to the left, short on the sides, and have this part up a little”
I later come to realize that this last part was a fatal error.
Barber (stylist): “Yes. Now I do.”
I’m making small talk while he get to work, the usual routine- blah blah im in Geneva for the semester blah blah we are going to Santorini blah blah Im from DC.
Then after realizing this conversation was totally one sided, I throw him a low ball “Do you have any suggestions for things I should visit in Athens?”
Barber (stylist): Blank Stare
I realize he had little to no clue what I had been rambling on about and I then decide to shut up. As he is moving along doing the haircut thing, I realize where he is going with this and I have two choices; make him stop or embrace it. Out of curiosity I choose the later.
He finishes cutting, at some points literally hacking away, my hair. Then he gets out this… not a gel and not really anything I have seen before. For lack of a better word, heavy product. By product, I mean goop that goes into your hair white and dries like cement. Maybe it was Elmer’s Glue.
When the styling was done and the plaster in my hair almost set, he asks me “Do you like?”
I look in the mirror and have to try HARD to keep myself from laughing. It was almost too late, my little shit eating grin had already started to emerge so I just play like I’m really into my new haircut and enthusiastically nod my head yes, say how cool it is, and just grin away like the Cheshire cat.
I look like an asshole.
As Brian described it “no two pieces of hair look like they are going in the same direction”
As I would describe it “The hair cut of my dreams!”
He holds the mirror behind my head so I can see what it looks like back there, and I have a mini fashion mullet going on. Oh no. I will play your little how much goop can we throw in my hair game, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
I point to the back of my neck and make the snip-snip motion with my fingers.
“But you have curly back here.”
Indeed, I do have ‘curly’ back there. My hair is naturally straight in the front and wavy in the back or “business in the front, party in the back” if you will. With good reason, I do my best to fight nature on this one.
“Yes I know, but I would like it short in the back please.”
He makes a face like his creation is now ruined. Suck it up. I’m going to be the one who has to walk around like this unless I get it fixed here and now.
So when I get out of the chair, I essentially look like one of the kids you see on the subways in Europe/ in tektonic videos. The saving grace though, is that the haircut is along the lines of my regular haircut so when I wash it and get all the shit out/wear it the way I usually do, I won’t look half as absurd.
I hope.
Fresh from the beauty salon, then we take the hour-long bus from the airport to the seaport. I sat across from a Greco-Roman land monster in a tube top who breathed like a donkey in heat. I was gonna ask her what she was doing later but she had a ring on her finger. Why are the good ones always taken?
We bum around the port for about two hours, get dinner, find our ferry and what not. We get on the boat and are lead into this room with rows of movie theater seats. No seriously. They had cup holder armrests. This is where we will be sleeping for the night.
Granted I have fallen asleep at just about every movie I have seen in theaters in the past 5 years, including, but not limited to, The Passion of the Christ. But movie theater seats are not really where I would like to spend a night. Add in choppy waves, a ceiling made out of tin that shakes and clatters along with the boat’s engine, and it makes for about the best place to sleep this side of the homeless pet incinerator.I’m on the ferry as I write this, been awake since 6:30 AM local time. Our ferry is now 40 minutes late and I still can’t see land, granted it is foggy. Hopefully the shuttle from the hotel will still be waiting for us but I am not counting on it. But if everything went according to plan, then what would I write about?
Update: Its currently 1:48 PM local time, now 7 hours late and I have been on this boat for about 18 hours. Our ferry is sitting off the island because the sea is too choppy for us to dock. At this rate, my dreams of riding mopeds, laying on pristine beaches, and going cliff jumping into clear blue waters is getting close to never reaching fruitation.
If they have a t-shirt that reads ‘I went to Santorini and all I saw was the inside of the ferry’ I’m getting it.
UPDATE: We have officially reached the 24-hour mark on the ferry. The last time we moved was appox. 10 hours ago. I wish I were on the S.S. Minnow, they at least reached land. The man over the loud speaker said that, at the earliest, we will reach Santorini at 10 PM. That will have given us at least a full 26 hours aboard this vessel. And I thought all my dreams had come true when I got my haircut. Oh no Greece, you just got so many aces up your sleeves and just keep getting better and better.
Today’s highlights include:
- Having a chocolate muffin and a bag of oregano flavored chips for lunch.
- Our South Park marathon on the computer.
- Taking my shoes off for the first time in about 28 hours and being able to stun small children and kill wildlife with the stench.
Overheard on the Ferry:
Do you think we can mix our brandy with orange juice? – Random Girl to friends
You have friends on shore?! Have them call a boat. I have sailed for many many years and know that a small boat can make it out in these waters. Or even, have them call a helicopter. Even for 100 Euros an hour, you will have very lots of people wanting to pay to get off this ferry. I will even pay for you tickets. Just drink two more vodkas, call them, and then come find me. – Man desperate to get off the ferry to us, not realizing there is no landing pad on board or ladder to get down to a rescue boat.
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