The Backstory

If you had asked me on Tuesday morning how I was planning to spend my 12-day vacation, my answer would have been something like:

“I’m going to meet my friend (let’s call him Brian) in Athens, but we’ll spend most of our time on the island of Crete. I also have a co-worker who is going to be Crete with his wife, so we will try to meet up with them while we are there.”

From there the plans were still rather vague. Brian and I both our flights booked, but hadn’t made reservations for any hotel rooms in Athens or on Crete. And I also had a few more days than Brian and I hadn’t made up my mind what to do with them.

Then the call came. I had just sat down on Tuesday night and opened my computer to research hotels in Athens when Brian called. As it turned out, he would not be able to make the trip.* There had been a tragic accident at a natural gas facility that his company owns and he would have to stay at the office to help deal with the aftermath. Obviously this was not what I was hoping to hear from him, but alas, I could understand the issue. I would just re-arrange slightly the itinerary (what little itinerary there was) so I could maximize the time I would spend with my co-worker and reduce the amount of time I would be on my own.

After an evening of research, I decided on a relatively aggressive island-hopping tour and finally booked a hotel in Athens. The next morning, I explained the situation to my co-worker (and confirmed that he didn’t mind my crashing his vacation). He let me get through the whole story before dropping the bomb that he was going to have to cancel as well. He had learned that morning that he had an unexpected meeting come up right in the middle of his vacation and he unfortunately couldn’t get out of it.

So in little more than 12 hours, my vacation seemed to be falling apart. But I was (and am) determined not to let these events “ruin” my vacation. So here I am, sitting on a ferryboat to Syros after spending the last two nights in Athens. Traveling alone isn’t necessarily ideal (especially at mealtimes and during evenings out on the town), but it certainly does provide for an increased level of freedom/independence to do/see as much as I want and on my own schedule.

That said, I would prefer to have a traveling companion and I wish Brian could have made the trip.

* It should be noted that this is not the first time Brian has cancelled on a European vacation. It was seven years ago now that he was unable to join a planned trip to Italy because of medical issues. He obviously does not do this on purpose, but he does seem to have some seriously bad luck.

"It's all Greek to me"

I've often heard this expression used. Hell, I've used it myself on numerous occasions. But I don't think I really understood its full meaning until after my first few hours - nay, minutes - in Athens.

I thought living in a French-speaking world was difficult, but at least the French language shares most of its alphabet with my native English - and many of the words are spelled, if not pronounced, similarly. In Athens, though, I find myself struggling to think back to the first semester in my "Greek" business fraternity when I was required to learn/memorize the Greek alphabet. When I look at the signs, however, I realize I must have only needed to know the capital letters because the rest (with the notable exception of pi) make no sense at all.

But knowing the alphabet (which I don't any more anyway) and being able to understand the language are two TOTALLY different things. My travel book has a section on "essential phrases" and also includes other useful translations, but to be candid, I can't even understand/pronounce the phonetic spellings, much less comprehend the Greek.

I guess shouldn't complain too much as most of the signs are translated into English. But the street signs are not, which made the search for my hotel a challenging experience...