I'm on a boat!

The ferry was very crowded and there weren't many comfortable places. We put our bags down and tried a couple of spots, but it was just tables and horrible plastic wicker chairs. I started dozing and could not get comfortable. I was sooo tired but I couldn't sleep, it was awful. After one of the stops we got some benches, and slept for a little while. The boat got more and more crowded the closer we got to Athens. It was pretty miserable and cold. We were in really close quarters with some nice woman and her family. She told me the boat was running late we wouldn't be getting into the port until about 1:30 am. Hmm. We didn't think about this. The subway stops running at midnight and we hadn't booked a hostel. We figured we would have to just take a cab. When we finally got in, I was nervous about how this was going to go. I was thinking if we could find a hotel that wasn't too expensive, it would be the same or less than a crappy hostel and a 20 euro cab ride. There were tons of cabs waiting for the ferry, so that was a relief. We decided to go across the street and just look at on of the hotels and see. As we were head that way, a cab driver was stopped and asked us if we needed a hotel. He was dropping some girls off and taking some Brazilian boys to a hostel. They seemed interested in splitting a cab and I tried to get what hostel they were going to out of them but I didn't have much success. Meanwhile, the man was trying to tell us that he could take us to a good hotel owned by his friend and that he wouldn't charge us for the cab. He said it was close and that it would be more for him to take us to a hostel. He said we would have the room for 50 euro a night. We were skeptical, but also exhausted and desperate. We went for it. The man called his friend and confirmed the double room for 50 Euro and drove us there for free. When we got there the man tried to charge us 60, but I gave him the look and said we asked 3 times how much and it was always fifty. He didn't want to deal with me so he gave us the key to our room.

It was actually really nice. We had a flat screen TV and a big bed and our own bathroom and it was like a regular hotel. There were only 2 cockroaches that we saw (even though the cabbie told me there would be none). Since we had slept on the ferry for a long time, we were kind of awake by 2 something when we got to our room. We climbed into bed and watched a movie, which turned into another really weird movie (Loverboy). Jane fell asleep at 430 or 5 and I didn't until 6. We slept until 11:30 and then packed up to be out by 12 and take our train to Patras.

We walked to the metro station (it was kind of far) and took the metro to the train station. We waited in several lines (Greece) before finding out that there was not a one o'clock train like our Eurail book said, but that the next on was at three. It was about 1 so that gave us plenty of time to get something to eat at the cafe next door. We got sandwiches and ate them outside and got a spot inside after the rush. We camped out there and later got chocolate slushies and Jane got a donut. We read our books and waited. When it was time for our train, we went to the platform but it kept not coming. It was a little late, but we thought we'd be find to make our connection to Patras (the train for which we needed reservations). We got on the train and got seats after a few stops. Later, a guy with one long dreadlock sat down next to me. The train stopped at a station and didn't go for along time. Everyone was freaking out and talking in Greek and getting off the train and standing on the platform and we had no idea what was going on. The dreadlock man told us no one knew what was going on. Turns out he was English, but with a Greek girl and their little baby. His not-wife was very pretty, but had a weird buzzy hairdo. People got on the train and off the train. People called other people to spread the news. We sat and we sat and i got hotter and hotter. The train would fake us out, too, and at one point it started going and CRASH!! we hit something. We all decided we our own train, like one car smashed into another car. It was exciting and pretty funny, because it was minor. We clearly weren't making our connecting train and we started making contingency plans. If we couldn't get to our ferry in time, we'd have to go to Bari and take the train all the way to Venice. There was another option that allowed for some other train that would get us there on time, but late so we wouldn't have a spot. In any event the train started up eventually, and we made it to that same desolate train station where we were to wait for the train to Patras. I realized that this was one of the only times on our trip we repeated something or backtracked. It was a weird feeling to be familiar with anything. Some man helped us and told us where to go. A train was leaving pretty soon, and we showed our seat reservations to the conductor and he told us where to go (even though this was a different train). We sat in our seats just in case, even though everyone was saying they never check seats, because it seemed like they were about to start. We had to problems with our reservations or tickets. I'm not sure if every thing was on Greek time and it was our train an hour later, or if it just doesn't matter, but we were on that thing for a long time. By the end I didn't think I could last any longer. It got SO hot on that train. No air conditioning, busted windows. You can only tolerate that for so many hours before you start to get dizzy or mad or both. Luckily just went I really couldn't take it anymore we were at the port. It was 7 something and we were SO happy to get there and be on time. We went and checked in and then sat down and had an ice tea.

Once we had chilled for a bit, we wandered out to some cafes we saw inside the port on our way by. We checked each one and really they had no food options for us. All the way at the end was a really sketchy kebab place or something that had an inordinate amount of meat and not much else. I vetoed that and we headed back to the ferry terminal to try there. We got some sandwiches and then went to the duty free store to look for snacks for the 32 hour ferry. We got some cookies and a six pack of snickers and not much else. At this point it was getting close to 9, when we were allowed to board, so we went over to the boat after purchasing our items and waited. They finally let us on after 9 and we roamed around trying to get the lay of the land, i mean boat. The boat seemed nice enough, but there really wasn't anywhere for us to be. We asked if they had any free cabins or sleeper chairs, but they wouldn't tell us until 9AM when we picked up the last of the passengers at other stops in Greece. We were sort of panicking because this was a really long ferry to be outside in the elements with no sleeping back or mat. Just when I was getting really nervous, a nice man showed us to the airplane seats and the luggage rack and said we could sleep there. WOO.

We chose a spot in the corner where it was just two seats together and they both reclined. We were the only ones in there for a longtime. We had to wait till midnight to leave, so we played cards. Jane did want to let me sleep too early since we had to sleep through the night so she kept me up (barely) until we left the port at midnight. We were off. It certainly wasn't comfortable, and way more people got on in the morning at Corfu and Igoumenitsa.

The ferry wasn't great, but it really wasn't that bad. We never left our seats for very long because we were afraid they'd be taken. We took our meals in the cafeteria restaurant, which was terribly over priced and pretty bad. We spent two or three times on food what we did on the ticket. And we only ate 2 meals of the cheapest option. We slept a lot and played cards and I finished Wicked. We finally arrived at 8 Greek time, 7 Italy time. It took us over two hours from then to slowly make our way to the port. Venice looked really cool. Jane was preoccupied because she slept with her feet down the whole time and her legs and ankles were HUGELY swollen. She was stressing about this and putting them in the air to drain as much as possible. We reassembled our stuff and waited for the hoards of people to get off the boat before even attempting. We were off the boat and on land around 9:30 or 10. Thank goodness. Only 37 hours on that boat.