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It is incredible, but when my USA wake-up call, and my alarm go off
at 5:30 I am up like a shot and into the shower. It is easy to pack,
just put whatever is still clean into the backpack and everything
else into the suitcase. Haul it down to the desk and cram it into the
tiny trunk on my tiny car. Back inside for my 'free' breakfast
(everything is a 'B&B'), but that's OK, nothing for me. I'll have
a coffee I say, standing up near the kitchen door, refusing to be
seated and the only waiter pours it into a china cup. "Take
away", please I say, and he pours it into a Dixie cup, but that
is OK because I take a sip of it and pour the rest into the bushes on
the way to my tiny car.
I am very early, and very confident. I have marked the airport and
the turnoffs and I can read my map with simple expertise and, of
course, have my emergency Greek message tucked in my pocket. I set
off south, down the coast highway that hugs the Aegean sea and the
day is cruddy again, totally overcast, chilly and wet, and
surprisingly with near gale-force winds. The sky breaks gray as I set
off, and within 15 minutes the streetlights go out, one by one. I
listen to Voice of America, and enjoy the scenery which is
simultaneously exotic to my eye and a constant loop of repeating
scenes like when people run in "the Flintstones".
 At
times different harbors, lagoons, inlets open up before my eyes and
are spectacular. Sometimes small (or large) Greek Orthodox churches
dot a hillside. I stop at a tourist stop area, closed during the off
season so early in the morning, and the wind and the spray cut
through my blue jeans and jacket. But I am determined to get a
picture of a Greek flag standing nearly straight out from a flagpole.
Sadly, after getting developed, these pictures were not worth the
effort that morning.
The little place has an outdoor cafe, overlooking what must be a
spectacular lagoon during summer. I can imagine sitting and talking
and drinking those little cups of dreadful coffee as the sun sets on
the Aegean. But not today, certainly not this morning. Today, the
wind is slowly blowing the chairs over and they clank and rattle like
some strange new-wave band.
As I try to leave, to return to the highway, the little one-way
one-car lane with one meter high rock side walls on both sides brings
me to a closed and locked barricade. I am forced to put my tiny car
in reverse and turn my head and body around and back that car out for
almost a quarter mile. It was fun, and I was getting the hang of everything.
 Sometimes
the road follows the hillside climbing a hundred or more meters and
providing without notice a spectacular view of the tiny hamlets and
tiny houses and beautiful water capped with many many beautiful
whitecaps and spray. I stop, again and again, and take way too many
pictures of essentially the same scene.  Each
is beautiful but enough already!
I pull into a little seaside town, like the ones in Florida, and it
is out of season and nearly deserted. Several hotels, motels,
resorts, and B&B's are visible and others are advertised
everywhere. Christmas lights and green garland decorate the city square.
Then I spot it! A bakery! More Egg & Cheese roll-ups!
My tires screech as I pull in and stop. "Anybody speak
English?", and a pretty girl, around 19 years old, with puffy
black hair and shy dark eyes is identified by everybody and
immediately blushes and looks away. I quickly find the warm counter
filled with the egg treats and ask for 'One of these and one of
those' using the universal pointing finger and counting finger. They
are placed into a white wax paper bag and I am directed to pay the
young girl that everybody has fingered. But I need something to
drink. Behind the counter is another refrigerator stocked with little
cartons of Milk and Chocolate Milk and every type of juice (Orange,
Pear, Peach, Mango, etc). I want a chocolate milk, but the second 19
year old, already confident that she cannot speak English, starts to
tell me in Greek something. I wave her off, give her the one count
and point to the cupboard. She talks again, and I wave her off and
she turns knowing she will pick 'the wrong one' whatever that means.
I waver her off, take any – I don't care, and I am handed a
carton of peach juice, not my choice but not the point. I return to
the original girl, who rings up my choices, and I look over her
shoulder at the blue number in the cash register window. Now I'm a
local, I count out the right bills and coins (exact change!) and
smile profusely. Our English language expert says her first word to
me: "Thank you" and the fuss is over but I have created a
story to last the rest of the day at that bakery.
 I
drive down the coast, to its very southern tip, and visit the ruins
of the Temple of Apollo. It is on a hill on a bluff overlooking the
Aegean on 3 sides. Unfortunately it is out of season, so the actual
ruins are gated and locked, but I would have no desire to walk around
them anyway. It is 8:30, and I need to be AT the airport AT 10
o'clock (no more missing my flights), so I walk around a little and
take a dozen pictures. The ruins are pretty, but they are all pretty
much the same. Several marble columns is all that remains and I have
kind of decided to myself that 'if you've seen one ancient Greek
ruins, you've seen them all'. So I take some pictures and listen to
the wind blow around the folding chairs at the out-of-season outdoor
cafe. I am enjoying myself, and decide that 'in-season' is not for
me,  time.
With an hour to go, I click the GPS and head for the airport. I
retrace my route (something I normally consider a sin) but am
pleasantly surprised that the scenes are somehow different from this
side. Same gorgeous water, same green hillsides dotted with little
white building with faded red tile roofs. Yes, spectacular and here
goes another 10 snapshots. I am still hungry, and not looking forward
to the 11 hours to get to JFK, the 3 hours layover, and the 2 hours
to get home to Tampa.
I am on bakery 'red alert' as I drive north but do not pass any in
any of the tiny seaside towns (I found one, but it was 'closed for
the season'). Eventually, I end up back in the same little town and
the same little bakery (and it is, after all, lunch time now) so I
park my tiny car and head back inside. The young brunette lights up
to see me, then blushes again. Her smile is contagious. I turn to the
heated case behind me (just one of these this time) and return to the
cash register. I pay and return to the car as I hear the several
girls teasing and talking to each other. I put my roll in the car,
and get my camera and take a step back into the bakery. Two of the
girls immediately drop down and hide behind the counter. One of the
grizzly old guys steps out from the back (with flour in his hair) and
my new friend stops, puts both hands on the counter and smiles
directly for my camera. I take the picture, smile and nod, then I
blow a kiss and run off to my car.
 I
hit a kiosk for another Coke, and the last 20 minutes to the airport
is uneventful. I stop and get petrol, and take pictures of the pizza
hut. One street corner beggar catches my eye, he is walking among the
cars stopped at the red light playing a full-fledged accordion. The
tunes are Greek, some are for Christmas, and I thought for a minute I
heard some Lennon and McCartney. I park the car and walk out to the
intersection with my camera. He sees me and lights up, facing me to
make sure I get the best picture possible. I risk my life and limb to
cross the busy street to meet him and to stuff into his hand two of
those strange coins that will, in less than an hour, magically
convert from being currency to soveigners. He doesn't miss a beat and
I risk my life again to cross back to my tiny parked car.
The airport is a piece of cake, easy car return, a just few questions
from the Delta people. The airport international terminal seems
throughly modern from the outside, but looks dated to the 60's on the
inside. We clear only one x-ray machine, and wait in a stuffy lounge
for one last bus to drive us out on the tarmac and to the stairway up
to our flight.
I am surprised that my "platinum upgrade" for the 11 hour
flight from Athens to New York, is not to "business class"
(the equivilent of domestic US first class) like it is supposed to
be, but rather to actual "international first class". These
are the seats that fold out like a Laz-y-boy. This will make easy
duty of the flight that is almost 3 clock hours longer than the one
over (due, I assume, to headwinds). I am in the aisle seat, and the
man in front of me reclines his chair but the man on my window seat
can easily stand up and pass between my seat and the one in front.  The
man on the window does not speak English (Greek? Italian?), but that
is ok, I do not want to talk. Although the day was cruddy and
overcast, as we taxi and take off from the international airport, the
sky is filled with miraculous sunshine. The city peels away and
Greece floats by, spectacularly lit and the little white stucco
houses with the red tile roof fill hillside after hillside. In 15 or
so minutes we are over the water, then past the Alps, and on our way
back to JFK and the USA.
As the view disappears and the clouds roll in, I plug in my laptop,
and start to write the story you have just read here. I cannot sleep,
so I amuse myself with happy thoughts and recollections of my 8 day 3
country adventure. While Saturday is being spent "chasing the
sun" from Europe to America, I will have to be on a plane Sunday
night and back to work on Monday morning.
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