July 18

We woke up from a decent night’s sleep on the floor of our room on the ferry at about 7:30 am to the captain’s announcement that we were pulling into port. We quickly packed up all our stuff and basically walked right off the ship onto the street in Patras, Greece. We asked for directions about how to get out of the port area and started walking. My guide book that I brought along informed us that the train station should be 500 yards to the right of the port, so we started walking down the street. We walked for nearly a mile before we decided that we should probably turn around. We then asked directions again at a restaurant and the only guy that spoke English there was able to direct us back. Once we got to the train station, we were pretty disappointed to see that it was directly across the road from where we got off the ship. It was literally about fifty yards away from the ship and we had to walk right passed it to get out. I guess the cobwebs hadn’t quite cleared for the day yet.

Ben went to the grocery store while we waited for our train. He came back with a feast consisting of a loaf of bread, a half kilo of ham, and four bananas. It was the cheapest groceries have been since we’ve been over here, so we were pretty optimistic about the prices in Greece.

We then boarded our train toward Athens. Our train tickets said our seats were located in the third coach. When the train pulled up (late as usual) we noticed that there were only two coaches. We soon found out that our seat numbers didn’t mean anything and that it was actually first come first serve. I ended up getting a seat right next to the window. It was nice to have a great view of the countryside, but the air conditioner couldn’t compete with the Mediterranean sun beat down on my side of the train. I was sweating the entire way. However, it was hard to notice because I was so entrenched in the beautiful landscape of southern Greece. Nearly the entire trip I could see mountains on one side of the train and the sea on the other. The water was an amazing blue and the mountains were an equally gorgeous green. The five hour trip seemed like nothing. I actually fell asleep with an hour and a half left in the journey when it started to get more urban. Once we got to Athens, it was all urban. We were really disappointed with the city itself. It is probably the most dirty and run down city we have seen so far. We haven’t been able to explore the entirety yet, but what we have seen thus far has not impressed. On top of that, the people were supposed to be pretty nice here, but we haven’t experienced much kindness from the locals either.

This would be an understatement for the guy in charge of the hostel. The trip to the hostel was quite a chore since the Greeks not only speak a different language, but also use a different alphabet. We couldn’t really ask for directions because we didn’t even know what we were looking for. All we were basing our search on was a mental image of Google maps and an artistic drawing I made to resemble a Greek road name. Eventually we came to a road on our way back to our starting point that resembled what I had drawn. We started walking and were just going to walk to the Best Western to ask for directions when we happened to stumble upon our hostel. I’m not sure how this continues to happen, but we are always thankful.

Unfortunately, our hostel was not all we had hoped. First of all, it took a minute or two to get buzzed in. Once we made it up to the fifth floor where the hostel was, there was nobody working in there. There was one guest sitting in the reception area. He told us that the guy working had to go get something and that he said he would be back in ten minutes or so. I guess he was left in charge of buzzing people in while the guy was gone. He showed us how to buzz people in and we took over his responsibility. The ten minutes turned into about an hour. Once he finally got in, he was too busy with other things to talk to us. Once this older Japanese guy finally gave us some attention, he told us that we had book the following two nights and had had no room for us today. On top of that, he told us that he would be charging us for the other night that we didn’t want. We calmly tried to explain to him his error, but he kept telling us to settle down. We hadn’t even raised our voices at that point at all, but we were about to if the situation didn’t get any better soon. He kept telling us that he would do us a favor and let us sleep on the floor in the reception area for 10.00 Euro for the first night and then give us our bed for the following night while still charging us for a third night. We were going to have nothing to do with that, but then he ignored us and started talking to another guest. He told us to relax again, even though he hadn’t seen us upset yet, and then he started dealing with other guests. I kid you not, he ended up telling the next three groups the same thing he told us. He said there were no rooms available and that he would have to charge them for another night for whatever reason. He kept telling everybody that he was doing them a favor by letting them stay or by knocking off a Euro from the price. He had everything written down in a book on the desk and had nothing computerized. Once the place had calmed down a little, Ben asked him if he could double check again with the computer to make sure he had us down for the right dates. He said he would call his guy that dealt with the computer in ten minutes. So we thanked him and he reminded us how big of a favor he was pulling for us. After a couple hours had passed, he somehow disappeared and still hadn’t made his call. We found another Japanese guy that worked there and told him our complaint. He told us that the other guy was crazy, that he couldn’t read or write, and that he had never went to school. We found this quite interesting. He then went on to quote us 8.00 Euros to sleep on the floor and said he would find the other guy. Eventually they had both disappeared so we decided to go for a walk to cool off (in the most figurative sense since it was about 100° F outside). We sat on a park bench for a while before heading back to see if he had called yet. When we got back, he accused us of searching for another place to stay since we had taken our bags with us. We assured him that we had just gone to get a bite to eat. He could see that we were beginning to get angry, so he sweetened the deal for us. He said that we could sleep in the reception area for the night and have a bed the following night and he would only charge us for two nights. He made sure to tell us that this was something he doesn’t normally do. Shortly after this, two guys from LA that had been staying there for a few nights tried to reserve their room for another night. He told them that they didn’t reserve it in time. Then, without leaving his desk or answering the phone, he told us that his computer guy called and said he had made a mistake and our room was reserved for tonight. We ended up getting the beds of the two LA guys while they ended up sleeping out in the reception area. I’m not sure how it all worked out in the end, but we paid the guy for two nights and we are now laying in bed ready to shut it down for the night. It’s about 10:00 pm local time, which is an hour ahead from Italian time, so we are basically going to bed at 9:00 pm again. Hopefully tomorrow with result in better feedback from Athens. We plan on seeing the Acropolis which is supposedly only a few hundred yards from where we are staying.
A funny tidbit from this story: the two LA guys informed us that the names of the two Japanese guys were Mr. Miyagi (the nicer guy) and Elvis (the reception guy). I found it quite hysterical when the reception guy disappeared for an hour or so and one of the guys from LA shouted “Elvis has left the building!”