Howard’s Blog

And on the seventh day…

Day 7 started a bit later – 2 PM, as a matter of fact. Must have been the refreshments.
We decided to head out to the south side of the island – to a beach called Kalafati. We stopped in Ano Mera to grab some lunch – which wasn’t being served yet, so we just had a coffee – As we were leaving, the same dizzy Czech girl approached us to ask where Kalo Livadi was. Apparently she had hitchhiked this far, and the driver had told her it was about 10 minutes away – it was actually about 3 Km as the crow flies, and probably 5 on the ground. I sympathized with the driver though – I’m sure he was thrilled to get her out of his car. Anyway, we decided to be good Samaritans, and told her the wookie would come back to pick her up. So we changed our ‘plan’, and drove to Kalo Livadi – and then the wookie drove off to do the damsel in distress rescue. He had just pulled out of the parking lot when I observed the dizzy Czech girl walking directly in front of where I was sitting – obviously she hadn’t quite understood the ‘wait here, and I’ll come back for you’ concept.
I was sitting in a gorgeous restaurant terrace, and for the life of me, I don’t know why we didn’t take any pictures, but we didn’t, so there. On this, the 7th day, I had developed a full-fledged relationship with Greek salad, and religiously had- or – shared one every day. The wookie pulled back into the parking lot about 15 minutes later, with a distinct look of disgust on his face – and was thrilled to hear that the damsel in distress had managed her own way to the beach.

We ordered a bite to eat, and then noticed that the deaf-mute couple from the fast ferry were in the restaurant. For some ungodly reason they seemed thrilled to see us, so we ‘chatted’ a bit. We had discovered the day before that the only ferry to Santorin before the weekend was Friday morning, at 8 am, so we were determined not to overdo it today. It was back to town after supper/breakfast/lunch. We decided to buy some sunblock – the Vaseline over the tattoos was just too gross for swimming, and wearing clothes to cover them from the sun in 40° heat wasn’t how I had envisioned a vacation in Greece. On the way back to the Hotel, we stopped in to a quite bar across from Gippy’s for one last beer on Mykonos. This particular bartender brought a tequila with every beer. So much for a quiet evening. It wasn’t that late of a night though. We had a ferry to catch. Hotel Sourmeli Garden is the name of the hotel, and I can recommend it wholeheartedly. Nice people, 40 euros/room/night for a double, a 5 minute walk from downtown. And a mascot. A very cute mascot. It was time to say adIo to Mykonos, and to sum up the visit: Gorgeous sunsets(like this one, and this one, and this one), great beaches, beautiful vistas(like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one…and of course, this kind)friendly bars, expensive food and drink, worth one visit, at least. I have to admit, one visit suffices for me. I couldn’t bring myself to reduce this picture, so beware, it’s more than a megabyte..
It was one last trip to the grocery store for supplies needed to clean up the room, and collect our stuff. We had survived week 1 on the Joker. A miracle.
Tomorrow: Wookies in the Mist

First of all, in case you’ve noticed, some pictures have disappeared. I have a confession to make. A. is not who you think it is. A. is, in fact, a wookie. I misused an associate’s face on A.’s pictures because I was embarrassed, hanging out with a wookie. I’m sorry. The person’s face that I have been abusing belongs to an upstanding member of the community, a person who in fact would never, ever dream of getting a tattoo. Or drink beer. Or gallivant. Or hang out with me. A wookie would though.

Day 6 started out kinda weird. We drove into town, got stuck in a mini traffic jam(of course there was joyous beeping of the horn from all involved), and bump into R., who was on his honeymoon. R. used to work with the wookie. Small world – er, universe.. By now it was breakfast time – there are places in Mykonos where you can have your breakfast with a view. Or two. After that, we took off to paradise beach, just one more place that an acrophobic should avoid. Unless of course, he gets there by boat. Super Paradise is a gorgeous beach. Clean water, out of the way, and populated by the beautiful people. Which is why we ended up fairly quickly at the bar, hiding. Well, not really. Here’s the thing about tattoos: there are rules to follow immediately after getting one.

Rule #1: No direct sunshine for 10 days. No problem, not like we’re on vacation in the Mediterranean or anything, right?
Rule #2: No salt water. No problem, not like we’re on vacation in the Mediterranean or anything, right?

There are other rules, but those were the kickers. Gippy told us to buy Vaseline and cover the tattoos with Vaseline before swimming. Yeah.
These rules were the reason for the beach pants. We found a way to cheat soon after this.
And so it was we found ourselves hanging out in the shade of the bar. On Mykonos you will not go into a bar at the beach and not get free drinks. This bar was no exception. For every beer purchased, a free shooter.. Driving away from the beach provided yet another gorgeous view.

On our way back to the hotel, some guy stopped beside us at an intersection: “Did you really drive that thing all the way from Austria???”
Yup. ‘Cept for the water parts.
The wookie was feeling a bit inadequate about his tattoo, given the fact that mine was much larger, and much more attractive, so it was back to Gippy’s in the evening. He had mistakenly assumed that the tattoo from the previous evening hurt because it was in a sensitive area – the ankle. The truth is, it hurt because for a wookie, he’s pretty much a wimp. His second bad assumption was that a tattoo on his chest wouldn’t hurt as much, since there’s more flesh under the skin there. Wrong. That’s pretty much where all the nerves come together.
While he was suffering(loudly, at times), I chatted with Dafni. She does the piercing work there. She told me her version of the history of Mykonos: “It started out as a place where people came to do their own thing, then it became a place where people came to watch people do their own thing, and now it’s just another circus”. Basically, the island used to be a haven for gays. There’s still a fairly high gay population among the tourists, but you couldn’t call it a ‘gay island’ I don’t think. But I didn’t ask, so what do I know..
Anyway, with all this in mind, and the prospect of a Vaseline purchase, the wookie decided on a rose. A rose. Good Lord. He likes it though, and that’s what counts. At some point in the evening an extremely whacked out Czech girl wandered in, rambled on in Italian for a few minutes, then disappeared. Dafni got a call from her boyfriend in France and was relieved to hear he wouldn’t have to go to jail after all(he was, of course, innocent).
We left when the rose was done and we had a picture of us with Gippy – that’s Gippy in the middle, and went downtown for refreshments. On the way some guy asked me where we were: ‘Greece’. ‘Not Thailand?’. ‘Nope, Thailand’s(test wind) that way’. ‘Oh. Thanks’.
Here’s a link to the tattoo parlour. Here’s a link to Brian.

Day 5

I’m just writing one day today – why? Cuz I’m lazy, it’s Sunday. We drove the Joker into Mykono town in the ‘morning’, it really is a nice harbour. There are windmills all over the island, none seem to be milling, but they are nice to look at. After breakfast(this was about lunchtime, so breakfast was souvlaki – did I mentioned I gained about 4 kilos in 3 weeks??) we took off to Ornos beach. For some unknown reason we took not one picture of the beach. I have no idea why, but we didn’t. I stayed in the shade, still having deep red thighs, and at some point in the day/afternoon we decided to hit the beach bar for a bite to eat. After lunch the waiter brought us a mini-pitcher of what I foolishly assumed was water. No such luck. More like Greek moonshine – or Raki, not to be confused with Turkish Raki, which is their equivalent of Ouzo. After finishing it off it was back to the hotel for a quick change of clothes and into town.
Mykonos is incredibly expensive. A small beer here sets you back 5 Euro – and food costs a fortune too. The only thing that wasn’t expensive was the hotel, which cost us 40 Euro a night. Anyway, on the way into town A. decided to go into the Mykonos Tattoo parlour. When he was about 14 years old, he decided to give himself a tattoo, and had been meaning to cover it up for years, just hadn’t gotten around to it. Here we met Giuseppe Cino, a one-of-a-kind if there ever was one. A. checked out the available tattoos, decided on a funky scorpion, and Gippy told us to come back at 9 PM, and told A. not to drink alcohol before getting his tattoo. Being the responsible kind of tattoo victim that he is, A. drank only wine. I got to enjoy beer. We didn’t ask Gippy later if he considered wine to be alcohol, but we didn’t, and that’s what counts.
So it was back to Gippy’s at 9, and I was surprised how long it took to get started, so I browsed the different tattoos while I was waiting – mostly for dolphins, I always figured if I got tattooed it would be a dolphin. Meanwhile, A. was looking scared, so I made fun of him as much as possible.
Gippy got started – did I mention A. was a chain smoker? Somewhere about halfway through I mentioned that I had found a cool dolphin, and then things got out of hand, and after Gippy had finished with A., it was my turn. As I layed down on the operating table, Gippy announced he needed different music for my tattoo. He cranked up his stereo as loud as possible, and put on the ‘Dusk ’til Dawn’ soundtrack. The part where Chet Pussy(Cheech Marin) is making his sales pitch for the whorehouse. Surreal. This is the outline of the dolphin I chose, here it is about halfway done, and here it’s almost finished. The whole thing took 3 hours. While Gippy was working on me, Brian, a Canadian Artist living on Mykonos, did a Henna job on one of the English girls who had wandered by(and kept asking me if it hurt). A. repaid the teasing from me by casually walking by and inserting his fingers in my nostrils.
It was almost 2 AM when I was finally released back into the wild, and we truly had no choice but to kill the pain, and then we headed back to the hotel and continued killing the pain. We had our souvenirs. All was well.

One of the last days of the trip where the phrase ‚this morning’ can be used, we decided to give breakfast on the ferry a fair chance. Breakfast wasn’t nearly as generous with us. This, as we would later find out, was no coincidence. Greek food is wonderful, but they just don’t know how to do breakfast. The buns were ok. The bacon… well, what ever it was, was tough and slimy. The eggs were floating in grease… or something.
On the way to breakfast we got to see how the other half spent the night – and were immediately grateful for having booked a cabin. It was time to actually enjoy some Mediterranean sun, so most of the day was spent on deck, with the occasional visit to the bar to um, get some peanuts and a coke….yeah, that’s the ticket..
We made it into Patra after sunset, and had our initiation in the ANEK Ferry Line’s ritual known as ‘disembarking’. First of all, you crowd together in a stairwell with approximately 500 other passengers, waiting for someone to open the door to the garage. After the door has been opened, you find yourself looking at a sea of 18 wheelers(which didn’t seem to have been there when you boarded), all of which are already manned, engines running(how the hell did the truckers get to the garage so fast???), spewing vast quantities of exhaust into already super-heated, super-moisturized air. You make your way – luggage on your shoulder – down the 25 cm wide space between two roaring machines, poised at any moment to dive under one or the other at the first sign of movement, movement which would inevitably mean the crushing of luggage, and luggage bearer. Finally making it to the Joker, drenched in sweat, lungs full of exhaust, and make your way between the behemoths the the gangway, and fresh air. You want pictures of that nightmare go take them yourself. I sure as hell wasn’t stopping to enjoy the view.
At last.
And off you drive, exalted at the narrow escape…and straight into a dead end. Ok, so we drove the wrong way. We used the opportunity to catch our breath and decide on a course of action. Actually, A. smoked, but it sounds better if I say we caught our breath and decided on a course of action. Fortunately(?), A. chain-smoked, so we got to decide a lot of different courses of action over the next three weeks, which isn’t such a bad thing when you have absolutely no plan. Anyway, we decided to drive in a westerly direction until we found a hotel, and bunk there before heading to Athens the next morning(we were still using the word ‘morning’ at this point).
We soon found the Hotel Delfini, dragged our stuff into our room, and headed to the hotel bar for some refreshments. When the guy at reception/bartender/porter/night manager told us there was Heineken, we assumed he meant the tiny little bottles that Heineken usually comes in, so we figured given his multiple duties, and the fact that the reception desk was quite some way from the bar, we’d order four of the little things to save him from running back to the bar to get us more in 10 minutes. He arrived with 4 half litre bottles. Oh well. We sat there for a … while … and then crashed. The phrase of the day was delivered by A., ‘Excuse me sir, could we have another 4 beers please?’. I’m not telling how often it was said.

Holy smokes! It’s Monday morning, and we’re in Greece! Yippee!! The only thing separating us from the ferry to the first island was about 220 km of highway.
Another horrible breakfast.
We did our best at first to keep to the secondary roads at first, but we kept ending up in the middle of building sites, or off-road altogether, and although it’s fun, it’s not the fastest way to get from A to B, and that was the goal. So we decided to do the highway, and it went pretty well. We ate our first meal in Greece along the way. Yeah, I know, but it was beside a gas station, and we couldn’t resist the irony. Besides, I got to sit with Ronald. The pleasant drive along the coast soon gave way to ugly cliffs. The stretch of highway between the short bridge linking Peloponnesus and the Mainland, and Athens, was nightmare material. I’m sure it looks fine in pictures, but the wind gusts here really blew us around. They came from all angles – and occasionally made us lean to counter them – lean into traffic, occasionally, which would have been interesting if they had suddenly stopped…
Finally, we made it into Athens. For anyone who has never been to Athens, it has to be the ugliest, noisiest, dirtiest city in the world. And for some ungodly reason, you have to drive through the ugliest, noisiest, and dirtiest parts to get to the port. Now that I’ve written the word ‘noisiest’ twice in the last two sentences, I feel I have to explain something about the Greeks when they drive. They speak with horns. Whether it’s ‘hi’, ‘look out’, ‘sorry’, ‘excuse me’, or ‘you asshole!’, they say it with horns. And they all ‘speak’ at the same time.
We were in some mental distress as a result of the last 1 ½ hour of driving, so we were thrilled to find out that we could catch a fast boat to Mykonos in 2 hours. Which meant we didn’t have to drive through Athens again, and even better, we didn’t have to spend the night there. We were so pleased to be informed of this that we retired immediately to the nearest pub, for stress relief. This is a sign that hung in the bathroom.. WTF???? At this point in time I discovered something quite interesting. I had remembered to put on shorts for the drive to Athens, but I had forgotten to put on sunscreen. Both of my thighs were developing the most attractive shade of sunset red. And they hurt. A sure sign that’s it is truly too late to do a damn thing about it. Only refreshments help when sunburn is this advanced(almost a month later, my thighs are still a completely different shade of brown). Anyway, we drove on board the fast boat, (the refreshments had obviously started taking a toll – the garage organiser was a bit chaotic, ew had no idea where he wanted us to park, another guy asked ‘where are you going?’. A. answered ‘We don’t know’. The look on the guys face made it abundantly clear he hadn’t meant where we were parking, rather where we were disembarking…)and made our way upstairs, where the passengers were finding their seats. I’m sure if we had looked, we probably would have had assigned seats too. But given the beckoning stools in front of the bar, we didn’t need to look much further. The Heineken here didn’t come in bottles, large or small, rather in little(330 ml) cans designed to look like beer kegs. They were so small it was almost embarrassing ordering them. It was even more embarrassing ordering the 8th..
Somewhere towards the end of the 2 ½ hour trip we got into a discussion with a deaf-mute couple from Italy. Seriously. A really, really nice couple. The guy told us a story about running into a moose once. Finally we were in Mykonos, and were accosted immediately on the port by hoteliers advertising their rooms. So much for all of the warnings from friends about not finding a place to stay. We took the first offer, followed her to the hotel – Hotel Sourmeli Garden, found our way back to a grocery store to buy supplies, and drank them before crashing after a long, hard, dusty, stressful day. But hey – we were finally on vacation.
Don’t forget to tune in next time, when we meet Gippy, Brian, the Lobster/Salamander/Scorpion attack, pain, and the flaming dolphin.

p.s. All of the linked pictures here have been reduced to 640*480, 72 dpi. The originals are either 5.1 or 7.1 Megapixels – between 1.5 and 2.5 MB in size. If any particular picture tickles your fancy, let me know. There will eventually be a dvd with pictures AND the video sequences…..

Zuerst muss ich sagen, es ist mir einfach zu viel Arbeit, das Tagebuch zweisprachig zu veröffentlichen – zumindest jetzt. Vielleicht schaff ichs am Wochenende, aber nichts versprochen… falls es unbedingt in Wienerisch erwünscht ist, lass mich wissen Sorry!
Greece
Day 1-2
To start the recounting of the stories we survived in Greece, I think it’s necessary to mention that I have an acute case of Acrophobia. I am absolutely terrified of heights, and have been for as long as I can remember…

♪That’s great it starts with an earthquake♪… well ok, it didn’t. In fact, it started out in a fairly normal way, made it to the southern train station in Vienna, found out that there was/wasn’t/was a train that would take us, and the Joker, all the way to Venice. Also found out that you had to reserve this train at least a day in advance. So it was off to Villach. I had been out the night before, and only had a few hours sleep, so I was hoping we’d catch the train to Venice, but what the hell. We went straight to the restaurant car, had a seat, and were immediately deluged with unwanted information from some guy who obviously hadn’t waited for the train’s arrival to start drinking heavily. He was in fact, the only entertainment on the trip. At some point in time, he started repeatedly calling ‘Sonja’, a friend’s girlfriend, ostensibly to give her advice on how to be diplomatic with her boyfriend, but by the third phone call, it was pretty obvious that his friend didn’t need enemies, with that kind of buddy.
Anyway, we rolled off the train in Villach(which is when, and where, the picture of us in the last post came from) and it was off to the races. This was the first time I had been a passenger on the Joker at high speeds, and also the first time I had driven the highway between southern Austria and Venice. Lots of tunnels, and lots of bridges. High bridges. The darkness(we left Villach at about 11:30 PM) probably was a good thing, as I would discover 3 weeks later, but it certainly didn’t stop me from imagining that the bridges were all about 400 feet high. The worst thing about the Joker at high speeds is wind. Wind seems to make a game out of creeping into every nook and cranny of the quad, and the people on it. It makes you think you’re being lifted, either off the quad, or with the quad off the road. It wasn’t that windy thank god, just when we left the tunnels we’d catch a gust. In a tunnel just slightly longer that the rest, A. decided to see how fast the Joker would go. I noticed we were cruising along, so I leaned forward a bit to check the speedometer. It was in this slightly forward-leaning position that I discovered a whole universe of information about the Bombardier Traxter Max. First of all, Bombardier decided to build in a governor. Secondly, they built it in at 110 Kph. Thirdly, this governor doesn’t just stop you from going faster, it actually cuts the gas flow to the engine. Which, on the quad, is the equivalent of hitting the brakes. Hard. So there I was, hanging on for dear life, trying my best not to be catapulted through A., and at precisely this moment we exited the tunnel. Onto a bridge. Into wind gusts. Fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. Shortly after this episode, the acrophobia combined with my exhaustion to form vague, recurring hallucinations that the wind was actually lifting me off the quad.
Eventually we made it the Venice, and after the first hotel we checked was booked, we decided to find the port where we’d be shipping out from, before trying again for a hotel room. After being evicted from what seemed to be a military port we’d stumbled on to – after seeing this sign, we finally got evicted from the right pier, not because we were at the wrong place, just the wrong time. It was 04:00 AM, and we decided it just wasn’t worth getting a room, and we’d tough it out on the dock. Ignoring the sleeping bags and air mattresses we’d packed precisely for occasions like this, I crashed on the Joker, and A. bedded down on the dock(a roll the wrong way here and he wakes up wet).
Two hours later we’ had enough of trying to catch some shuteye, And headed into town for some breakfast. Coffee. Shortly before 8 AM we made it back to the right pier. I went in to exchange our internet confirmation for some real tickets, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was 4th in line, 10 minutes before the counter opened. 2 hours later, I was less than pleasantly surprised to still be 4th in line. Computer failure. No tickets. Another half hour, and they had started processing people with real tickets, but not internet confirmations. I was tired. Thirsty. A. brought beer. Not exactly what I needed, but liquid is liquid. Eventually I got our tickets, and they squeezed us in on the Levka Ori. We dragged one of the luggage bags up to reception, where about 300 people were waiting for their cabin keys. Our decision was as logical as it was decisive. Off to the bar until the crowds were gone. At 2 PM, the crowds were gone. Naptime ‘til 5 PM. Supper came later- my first Greek salad of the trip, then back to the bar and maybe a beer. Maybe. The bottle of water in the last picture was one of at least 6 that we ordered and forgot to take with us. At the end of the second day, at about 1:30 AM on Sunday, it was finally time to sleep. I remember being able to hear someone in the adjacent cabin snoring, and feeling slightly sorry for them as I nodded off.

Hi!

We’re back, we’re alive, we’re tired. All three of us. I’m still trying to figure out a way to blog the events of the last three weeks, from sleeping on the docks in Venice to missing a train that didn’t exist in Villach and pushing the Joker to the limit on a final day journey totalling around 700 km. Apart from that I have to browse through a few hundred pictures and find some acceptable for publication. I’m not going to start today though – just too many cobwebs still in the grey matter. Today’s entry, in typical backwards style, are the credits. So here goes.

Starring: The Joker, A., Me, Greece

Co-Starring: Giuseppe, Yes Please, The Norwegians, Brian, Chris

Special Thanks to: Greenpeace(for not forcing me back into the water), Heineken Beer, Mythos Beer, Ouzo, Aspirin, Bepanthol, Tequila, sun lotion/oil/cream, Chris the Welshman, the twins on the ferry, the twins in the bar, the deaf couple on the fast boat(and on the beach), the elephant, the Greek folk music group, the gods that protect idiots on dangerous mountain passes, the gods that protect idiots on ATV’s in general, Bombardier, the whales, the whale-watchers, salamanders/lobsters/scorpions, big fish, little dogs, Czech girls, and sudden bursts of unexpected life-saving common-sense.
Servus!

Wir sind wieder da, noch am leben, und müde. Alle drei. Ich weiß noch immer nicht wie ich die Geschichten der letzten drei Wochen bloggen werde, vom schlafen am Pier in Venedig bis ein 700 KM letzen Tag mit dem Joker wegen einem verpassten Zug den es nie gegeben hat. Außerdem muss ich durch ein paar hundert Bilder suchen, um die akzeptablen auszusuchen und irgendwie zu Verfügung stellen. Heute nicht – ich bin noch viel zu müde…aber typisch für die Reise, werde ich anfangen mit dem Ende:

Greece on a Quad

Mit : Der Joker, A., Ich, Griechenland

Auch mit: Yes Please, Die Norwegerinnen, Brian, Chris

Ganz besondere Danke Schön an: Greenpeace(weil sie mich nicht wieder ins Wasser gezwungen haben), Heineken Bier, Mythos Bier, Ouzo, Aspirin, Bepanthol, Tequila, Sonnen Lotion/öl/creme, Chris der Welser, die Zwillinge auf der Fähre, die Zwillinge im Lokale, das taube Paar auf der Schnellboot(und am Strand), der Elefant, die Griechische Volksmusik Gruppe, die Götter die Idioten auf gefährliche Bergstrassen beschützen, die Götter die Idioten auf Quads überhaupt beschützen, Bombardier, die Wale, die Walschauer, Salamander/Hummer/Skorpione, große Fische, kleine Hunde, tschechische Frauen, and plötzliche Anfälle Lebensrettenden Hausverstand.

just a quick note from an internet cafe somewhere in creta to say that I’m still alive.. today an elephant looked out of the back of a truck at me. really.