More Greece Than You Can Handle

Kat's Take on a Christmas in Greece (by Kat Kocisky)

46 some odd hours on a train, early morning stops in various Balkan cities, and two wanderlust driven travel companions plus moi…all equipped with Greek names… THIS was my winter holiday in GREECE!!!

Jeremy (Dionysus: god of wine)
Harpswell (Athena: goddess of wisdom and war)
and I (Artemis: goddess of the hunt)

I’m sitting on one of my two beds in Szerencs, overwhelmingly giddy to be home in my BED that I LOVE. I feel like I’m melting into it right now…it just doesn’t compare to the train couchettes (train bunk beds that resemble those you’d see in an army camp). I can finally do laundry, use my own shower, my own kitchen, and gather my thoughts from the trip. I love being on the go, but sometimes there’s nothing better than getting home after a long time away.

Here come the itinerary and trip highlights:

Dec. 21st – Szerencs to Budapest, Budapest to Kiskunhalas, Janos provided us with a place to hang out for a few hours until our next train arrived at the unpopular hour of 2 am.

Dec. 22nd (1:46 am) – Kiskunhalas to Belgrade, SERBIA.

The three of us arrived in Belgrade at 6:30 am feeling a little ragged, but Jeremy was perky, because in the remaining ten minutes of the train ride, he made a Serbian friend with the girl sitting across from us. I guess he felt pressured as Harps and I would meet up with our Serbian friends later that day…but then again, Jeremy tends to ignite banter with anyone who speaks English along the way.

Harpswell’s dad’s friend fetched us from the dark train station (cold, aching, tired, and hungry, but still enthusiastic to see the bombed out buildings of Belgrade) and took us to his quaint apartment. Then the three of us fell asleep for a few hours and REALLY messed up our sleep schedules, while he read a book. We all picked up a few words in Serbian, I sampled the country’s specialty “Deer Beer” or “Jelen Pivo”, and we became acclimated to Orthodox churches and the Cyrillic alphabet just as we had to leave. The Cyrillic was a good BASE CAMP 1 on the Mount Everest of “NEW AND COMPLETELY FOREIGN LANGUAGES” before we hit the summit aka - Greek alphabet. But then again, once you get the hang of Hungarian, what CAN POSSIBLY BE HARDER? I left Serbia feeling flush from the snow that began to fall, the delicious meat dinner we all had, and we hopped the next train at 6 pm, ready for our couchettes.

Dec. 22 –23rd – Overnight train from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, GREECE (passed through Skopje, MACEDONIA sometime before dawn).

This portion of the trip was largely uneventful as the three of us attempted to use the beds/benches to our advantage. However, I did get snips of disapproval here and there from me mates about wanting to crash around 7 pm. I guess they weren’t prepared for how much sleep I like and NEED. From that moment on, I was known as the girl who needs too much sleep for reasons beyond my comprehension.

Border guards and ticket officers (see Jeremy…I know the difference) came to our glass box about once every seven or eight minutes to stamp our passports, study our Balkan flexipass tickets, and blabber something in Serbian/Macedonian/Greek (at one point we thought they wanted us to get off the train which made me suspicious and I imagined the train taking off without us and with all of our crap). We dined on Hungarian sausage, Jello/chocolate cookies, and Cheetos. Snacks fit for a champion.

Dec. 23rd – Thessaloniki to Athens, GREECE

In Greece, you need a reservation for anything you do. Our first incident of train trouble and group tension resulted from not being able to make a reservation for our train to Athens. We had finally made it to Greece, but we were still hoping to get to Athens before Christmas. After consulting about 6 people about what we should do, we ended up standing in between train cars for approx. 20 mins. We were forbidden to lay our stuff down in the train bar and tersely told by a few Greeks that we needed to move our asses outta there. Finally, the ticket officer directed us toward three empty seats in the dining car where people felt no qualms about lighting up in a no-smoking area. It was a chimney, and I rested my weary forehead on the table, glancing up every now and then to see the magnificent scenery jet by the window. The snow-capped mountains were spectacular and Harpswell even told me that one of them was supposedly Mount Olympus. I believed her as the mountain tops were hidden in the clouds…I liked to think that Zeus was still up there ready to toss a lightning bolt down at a moment’s notice.

(What Kat neglects here, is that two of the seats were together, and the other was at a different table. The two girls quickly snatched the neighboring chairs, and sentenced me to sit with three random Greeks. Luckily, the happened to be three lovely Greek ladies. I found it hard to butt into their conversation, but after one hopped off the train, i came up with a plan. I would us a magazine in a desperate attempt to decipher the Greek alphabet and take pity on me. Ta-da! Worked like magic, and an hour later (this was a five-hour train ride) I was talking with dark-haired coeds Katerina and Helena. Bo-yah!)

We arrived in Athens at night and deep down I was incredibly excited to be there despite the fogginess in my head from being on an eternal train. Athens is one of those places that was on my invisible list of cities to see during my lifetime. I never thought I’d actually get there, but then again I never thought I’d be teaching English in Hungary either. I’m fascinated by Greek mythology and all of the architecture so I couldn’t wait until daylight so we could start exploring. We succumbed to a taxi to take us to Hostel Zeus as we were in no mood to figure out the Greek metro system (which we later learned far surpasses the Budapest/Prague metros). Our first night consisted of getting our bearings in a new city. We dumped our stuff in Rm. 16 and grabbed gyros and drinks before deciding to head back for the night. The hostel was fairly empty and we only met two other American girls that night…and then a random guy in the fourth bed of our room, which was strange as most of the other rooms were completely empty.

Dec. 24th – Athens

Christmas Eve in Athens brought us a hike to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon, Temple of Athena, Theatre of Dionysus, the Agora, and a breathtaking view of the millions of white buildings clustered at the bottom of a valley between mountains. Ruins were scattered throughout, seemingly sporadically dropped from the sky to land among the hundreds of cafes and bars. Mountains cropped up to create rolling neighborhoods and the sea was distant but visible. Harpswell and I liked to pretend that the stray cats and dogs found wandering about at the top of the Acropolis were ancient gods and goddesses reincarnated as animals, still watching over their old city. The Agora (or marketplace) reminded me of the deck at home in Naperville as mom and dad have made it into a backyard paradise. Not that our deck contains Ionic columns, busts of Greek heroes, and marble floors…but the overall ambiance of lush greenery, birds chirping, and a sense of calm resonated here (in a city of 5 million!).

On the way home, we stopped for Ouzos, a Greek licorice drink at a stray bar and were in good spirits for the night. We met up with a number of people on Christmas Eve, a big party night in Athens (or it could have just been another Sat. night…as the primarily Orthodox Greeks don’t celebrate Christmas until January 7th). Many of the bars that night required a reservation, and Jeremy almost got us beat up at one of those. After the bouncer asked us to move from the steps because we weren't willing to pay an 8 Euro cover charge, he opined out loud, "Uh-oh guys, we must be holding back the hordes from paying 8 Euros to get in!" He bouncer took menacing steps forward and growled, “You got a problem with that?!” But we managed and it was definitely a Christmas Eve different than any other.

(This is a clever attempt to cloud, in poetic language, the fact that Kat hooked up with a boy from Cyprus that night. I was kind of a pimp all trip. I would talk to random people, and boys are more approachable for me for the obvious reason than I'm way more invested in the feminine outcomes. All the boy were wandering foreigners with accents and if Kat and Harps are a sufficient sample size, American girls are obsessed with accents.)

Dec. 25th – Athens

Christmas Day in Athens was beautifully blue and sunny, with a juxtaposition of tropical flora and Christmas décor. The green of all the plants was so sharp in contrast to the Hungarian winter plain. I made my other two travel companions wait to see the changing of the guards at the Parliament building and then we wandered home to prepare for our fancy Xmas dinner. Dressed to the nines, we headed out to a Greek restaurant and adapted to the new dinner hour. People were still arriving to eat at 1:30 am, just as we were about to leave.

Dec. 26th – Athens

This was our emergency day in Athens (unplanned) but necessary as we hadn’t bothered to research what the hell we were going to do after our hostel reservation was up. A spinach pie, a few hours at an Internet café, a short power outage, a Greece guidebook, and some advice from our John Lennon look-alike hostel front desk worker from Liverpool later…we decided to hit up the town of Nafplion with no other knowledge than what Jeremy discovered in the guidebook. We got a few nods of approval when we told some of our short term friends/acquaintances in Athens where we were going. We then planned to hit up a few museums, but realized that most everything was closed in Athens due to the recent holiday.

So we did what we do best, we wandered. And we wandered right into a cricket match in a city park area. Miraculously, all of us were really into it and became loyal spectators, cheering for the fielders (?) that were standing next to us. Jeremy tried out his Hindi and we all got to know some of the players who were from Pakistan. One admitted to us that the Greeks don’t necessarily give them the five-star treatment. Next, we trekked up to a small cliff where we watched the sun set over the sea and managed to ascend above the exhaust and ground pollution. To one direction, storm clouds materialized over the mountains and blended the two into a dark bluish gray mass. It was beautiful and a perfect activity for my favorite time of the day. Later we learned that this area was prime for evening drug dealing…

Dec. 27th – Nafplion (small town on the Aegean Sea about 2 hours south of Athens)

Hopped the bus for Nafplion the next morning and had absolutely no idea of what the place would be like. What Harpswell and I wanted was a beach and so we were crossing our fingers that the guidebook was right. When we pulled into the town, we were greeted by a huge fortress on a mountain that curled itself around the entire plateau of its summit. We had our pick of places to stay and we finally decided on a place with a little kitchen and lots of bookshelves. It even had a balcony looking out at the fortress mountain. The town consisted of narrow but hilly cobblestone streets lined with bakeries, shops, and cafes. Balconies covered in flora not seen in Hungary at ANY time of the year overlooked the streets/sidewalks.

Harpswell and I eventually made it our goal to find the beach and take a dip. Every step we took uncovered a new and incredible mountain, stretch of water, or cliff covered in cacti. On the way, we ran into Jeremy and we all had the same wide-eyed smirk on our face. Almost in unison, we agreed that this town was beyond spectacular.The beach was not just any beach, but the Aegean Sea. The same sea that King Aegeus supposedly jumped into EONS ago after falsely believing that his son Theseus had not been successful in killing the mythical half man, half bull, Minotaur. When in fact, Theseus had slain the beast and in his excitement, had forgotten to raise the white victory flag that would let his father know he was okay. Instead, the King saw the black flag and jumped into the sea to his death. This is the same sea that Harpswell and I plunged into! Our winter holiday was starting to get TROPICAL! It was necessary to start swimming quickly so that the blood would flow and keep us warm. Harpswell, in her Maine upbringing, dove in right away, but I took a little longer. Once I did get all the way in, I looked to shore only to see on old Greek man with two raised arms, cheering me on. I

That evening, our crew had the best dinner yet on the trip. Jer and I ravaged our swordfish, while Harpswell finally got her kalamari…not to mention flan and red wine. For reasons beyond me, the wait staff continued to bring us free dessert…”FLAN ON THE HOUSE!” “CARAFE OF WINE ON THE HOUSE!” Afterward, we tried to go dancing after dinner, but we were the only ones dancing, as apparently Greeks haven’t inherited the dancing gene.

Dec. 28th – Nafplion

The last day in Nafplion was a little rainy, but that didn’t stop me from wandering back out onto the beach path, only to be pummeled by a high tide wave. Salt water in my mouth, in my hair, on my shirt, pants, and purse, and absolutely soaked my shoes. I felt like I was standing on that bridge after one of those water rides at the amusement parks. Later on in the evening, I took the same walk with Jer and Harps and warned them that Poseidon was angry today. But I don’t think they believed me until they saw that same wave crash up onto the path. It was about 23 times scarier at night, with flashes of lightning popping up every now and then from the dark clouds above the sea. Despite the sea storm, we could clearly see a myriad of constellations to the left of the fortress mountain. We timed the wave and ran through the tunnel like we were part of an obstacle course. The adrenaline was rushing as we made it through.

(This was not actually as scary as Kat's epic tale would make it seem...)

Dec. 29th – Leave Nafplion for Athens at 6 am, Athens to Thessaloniki

After reaching Thessaloniki, a big city in northern Greece, Jeremy introduced himself to an red-headed Irish guy who was waiting in the international train line. Three beers later, we had made acquaintances with another solo English speaking traveler at an outdoor cafe while waiting for our next connection to Belgrade…he gave us a lesson on United Kingdom/Irish geography using a mobile phone as a map while gypsy children petted our hair and a bold white cat pawed in the air in an attempt to get our Cokes.…

Thessaloniki to Belgrade (30th of Dec)

SLEEP!! SLEEP!!

Dec. 30th – Belgrade to Subotica, SERBIA, Subotica to some small town on the Serbian border

We traveled in a silver train/bus/trolley like war vehicle that moved at the pace of a lawnmower while the driver happily chatted/played cards with someone standing next to him. What fit the situation even better was that, instead of heading north in a straight line like initially planned, we skittered on the Serbian border for some time just to prolong things for the hell of it. It could have been worse!

(Cloaked in the fond memories of our little silver bug-mobile, I feel like Kat could have emphasized more how UNBELIEVABLY CLOSE we came to not escaping this adventure! Imagine yourself trapped in a country, just trying to get out. You hop smaller and smaller trains, going to smaller and smaller cities in the hope, the whim of a prayer, that simply getting closer to the border is a good thing. We almost did not make it. Serbia almost did not let us go.)

SMTONTSB (see above) to Szeged, HUSzeged to (we thought Budapest) but ended up in Szolnok, HU

Dec. 31st - Szolnok to Budapest, HU for NEW YEAR’S EVE 2006!

For anyone who actually read all of this…WOW! Impressive! I’d just like to say that this Greece trip has to be one of my all time favorites. I had two wonderful travel companions and we saw a lot, laughed a lot, weathered some tension here and there, but made it out alive seeing more of the world than we had before.