Greece!

So, I've been meaning to write about my recent trip to Warsaw, Poland, but never got to it.  I wanted to get the photos in order first, which haven't exactly done.  Will write about that soon.

At the moment I'm sitting in the internet cafe / bar of the hotel I'm staying at in the port town of Piraeus, Greece.  This is the port that has all the ferries going to the various Greek islands, which is why I'm here.  Tomorrow I'm off to the beautiful island of Santorini to see one of my oldest bestest friends Tom Mannsfeldt get married!  Looks like some of us are growing up! 

So, 2 interesting things have happened so far.  For one I never got that classic travel neuroses that I typically get, especially when traveling alone.  "Will I get there, how do I get there, when, where, aaaahh!!"  No, I just figured everything will work out. 

And it did, but not without a bump in the road.  From the Athens airport there are two train lines leaving from that station - one is the metro, one is the regional line.  I think I was supposed to get on the metro but I got on the other one.  So once that train got to the end of the line, I asked someone if they knew how to get to Piraeus.  Luckily I was sort of in the right direction.  Unfortunately I had to wait an extra hour to get that train that then took another 30 minutes to get me to Piraeus.

But really, there's no hurry to get to Piraeus.  Strange vibe.  A bit of a sketchy place, but then again maybe I'm just so used to Germany, where everything is clean, organised, and all the surfaces are level.  Everything here is a bit run down and dirty, and I didn't do so much as read an Wikipedia article about where I'm going.  So I'm really travelling blind over here.  But I just trusted that everything would work out, and with a little patience and time, it did.

I got the feeling that I reached the first rung in Greek cuisine - the fast food joint.  Souvlaki pita and a beer.  But how refreshing that was!   I then gave up my one seat at a bigger table to a bunch of soldiers on their way home for a 10 day break before they really get to work on Cyprus.  I know this because I asked them if I could join.  So we sat around a bit and I asked a few questions.  We couldn't talk about too much because their English was pretty basic, but it was better than wandering around a strange place alone.

After that I ended up chatting with 2 greek girls at the adjacent table after the soldiers left, as the one sounded American by the sound of her accent.  turns out she's half american and had been here since she was 5.    it was nice to not feel so stranded and alone in a moderately uninteresting and sketchy place. 

My room in the hotel Delfini is ok.  Very basic but in relatively good condition.  It doesn't feel sketchy, despite where the hotel is, and despite there being a condom machine right outside my room.  Maybe they should be renting rooms by the hour?  At least there aren't plastic sheets, Vegas style...

I haven't taken any photos yet.  But the overall impression is that Greece is first and foremost very warm and pleasant.  I don't know if I'd wanna be here in the heat of the summer, but mid-September is great - warm in the evening, around 26-28 degrees.  Maybe a bit too warm to sleep, but well, I suppose I'll find out about that tonight.

Tomorrow morning I'm waking up at 6am to get a 7am ferry to Santorini.  Should show up there around 3pm so got a long ride ahead of me.  Got my notepad, pen, iPod with a few movies, a copy of the Economist, and a special edition of "Stern" magazine, discussing German history... an opportunity to improve my reading skills in german.

It's all good.  I'm happy I didn't have to spend this evening alone up until now.  Too much time to think is not always a good thing.  That's the good thing about traveling - you feel more inclined to strike up chats with strangers.

Anyhow, that's it for now, hope to post more as the trip goes on, or a couple posts at the end with some photos, admittedly crap photos that will be taken with my mobile phone.