1st Trip to Greece

Photos: "http://shervinemami.multiply.com/photos/album/46/2008_-_08_-_August_-_Ios_Island"
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Aug 13th 2008:
Flight to Greece: Stuck in Airport for 1 day!

My boss paid for my flight to Greece, in exchange that I work a few more weeks in September before quitting.  But since I had less than 2 days notice about the idea of going to Greece, and I still had to work 17hrs a day during those days, I didn't get a chance to organise anything for my trip to Greece. Since I was already expecting to visit Greece on my big Europe trip in September anyway, I didn't actually decide if I will go on this trip to Greece or not, until just a few hours before the flight! So I had just 4hrs to finish my work, eat dinner, go home and pack my stuff, book a place to stay for my first night in Greece, print some maps of the area, drive 150km to the airport, and return my car to the car hire place! Surprisingly I did all this ontime, within the 4hrs.

I was recommended to pack very light so instead of taking a suitcase, I took 2 smaller bags and carried them onto the plane with me.  But I forgot about one of my bags as I went through a bag screening / security check! I didn't realise this until 20 minutes later when I reached the boarding gate, so I had to run back to the places I'd been, but of course, the don't allow you to walk back through the security sections, so I had to ask a security guard to look through the airport for my bag, which I knew I would have left in one of the 2 bag screenings I went through.  The security guard came back 15 minutes later with my bag, but after running the whole way to the boarding gate to get on the plane, I arrived 2 minutes late for boarding, and so I missed the flight! I had to pay $100 extra and wait for the next flight, which was 23 hrs later!

Since I had to wait a whole day for the flight, I wanted to spend the day at Dubai beach, but after several hours of trying, I realised that since I'd already cancelled my visa for United Arab Emirates, I'm not allowed to leave the Dubai airport until I visit a different country! So I was stuck in the airport for 23 hours!

Since Internet wasn't working properly in Dubai airport and I arrived in Athens 1 day late, I hadn't booked another place to stay for my 1st night.  When I got to Athens, my hostel was full so I had to find a new hostel, which I eventually did a decent place for 30 EUR / night ($45), right next to Monastirakki train station in the heart of the city.  Actually I thought I was in heaven because this hostel  is surrounded by about 10 hardware stores with really cheap tools and materials :-)


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Aug 14th, 2008:
1st day in Greece: Expensive!

I spent 4 hrs in an internet cafe to book my trip to a Greek Island.  Both my Greek boss & coworker said that Ios is the rock'n'roll party island for young people, so if I went to just 1 island I should go there, so I did.  Unfortunately my 4hrs of internet bookings in a rush turned out very bad, cos it turns out that in Greece, you are supposed to book these things through travel agencies, since only a fraction of things are available or cheap on internet.  Since hotel rooms were becoming full even while I was using internet, I had to book as fast as possible.  And most ferry tickets have to be bought 4 days in advance when booking on internet, so it was a big mess. The next day was a public holiday, actually the biggest day of the year in Greece, when everyone flees to villages and islands, so the cheapest room I could find for the 1st night was 90 EUR ($135) and 60 EUR after that. So I booked 3 nights for myself for 210 EUR ($300) since nothing else on internet was cheaper.

My boss said to visit the area called Psiri at night, which was about 10 mins walk from my hostel in Athens.  I walked all along a main street in Psiri at 11pm and didn't find a single place open, just really dark & sketchy backstreets with trash everywhere and some homeless guys.  After searching a few alleys, I eventually gave up on finding night clubs in Psiri, since I was basically asking to be mugged! But after getting lost on my way back, I happened to hear some music playing & noise from a distance, and finally found an area full of clubs & outdoor restaurants.

After failing miserably at chatting with various Greek girls I ended up chatting & drinking till morning with 2 Greek guys, which was really cool cos they told me lots about the Greek youth culture
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Aug 15th, 2008:
2nd day in Greece: Street scams

The next day I was very hung over.  I had just spent 2 months working in a very traditional muslim town in the middle-east, where you're not supposed to even look at girls, let alone chat to them or try to hook up with them! So I hadn't talked or interacted with ANY girls in quite a while, and it took about half a week to be able to talk to girls properly again, despite being in a country full of hot Greek chics! I also had rarely been drinking alcohol in the middle-east, which meant my tolerance for alcohol had changed a lot.  The country I was working in (United Arab Emirates) allows foreigners to drink alcohol, but the problem was that I had to drive every day & night cos there was no public transport, so I almost never had the chance to drink there.

So like I said, I got a big hang over in Athens from drinking for the first time in ages. It happened to be a public holiday (August 15th, the main public holiday of the year!), and EVERYTHING was closed except for a few western fast food places, so I didn't do much that day. When looking for food, I happened to see a sign for a Persian restaurant that was surprisingly open, so I ate there. There was just 4 persian guys inside, that are regulars there, so I ended up making friends with them and the waiters, and they all gave me tips for what to do in Greece, and how to find free persian music videos on internet (www.glwiz.com).

Unfortunately everywhere was shut that night because it was a public holiday and it was my last night in Athens, so I went to the city square and drank 1 EUR ($1.50) cans of Heinneken in the park with some locals that were drunken skateboarding. A sleek looking 50yr old Greek man walking down the street put his arm around me and started talking to me as if we were old buddies. I mentioned that I'm from Australia and just worked in the middle-east, and he said he also worked in Saudi Arabia for a while. As we were walking, he was acting over friendly to me, and he asked me if I wanted to have a few beers with him at a nice pub he knows. I said yes at first but eventually realised that he was trying to trick me into buying ultra high priced drinks from his pub. When I said I didn't want to go to a pub anymore, he kept trying to convince me to go with him, and saying that he promises we'll split the costs halfway, and eventually said he would even buy me a free drink. It almost seemed legit, but he was definitely trying to scam me. I was quite proud of myself for figuring out that I was getting scammed, thinking that I can't be out-smarted so easily.

Then at around midnight I walked around the backstreets in case any pubs/clubs were open, and I found a small russian pub in a small alley. There was only a big russian 60yr old bouncer outside, and a hot russian bartender inside. I asked for a beer, which was roughly the normal price for a pub / nightclub (7 EUR or $11), so I figured it was a decent place. The hot russian bartender asked me if I would buy her a drink so we can sit and chat since there was no-one else in the pub.  I was already quite drunk by this stage so I agreed, and we had a nice conversation about Russia & life in general. While I was still drinking my 1st drink, she finished hers and asked me if I could buy her a 2nd glass of champagne. I said yeah why not.  But after a few minutes she asked me if I could buy her a 3rd glass, and I finally came to my senses and realised its another scam, so I said I can't afford to buy her another drink. The she started saying that I need to buy her more drinks because otherwise she isn't allowed to talk to me. But I kept saying I  don't have much money so I have to leave. Then when I went to pay for my beer and her 2 drinks, they said it was 30 EUR ($45) per glass of champagne! So I had to pay them 67 EUR ($100) when I just had 1 beer!  I was annoyed at first that I got scammed by a hot Russian chic, but eventually I realised its pretty funny, and I got ripped of fair & square.  Then when I left the pub, the bouncer put his arm around me & started talking about how he can get girls to come to my hotel room. Then I said he already took all my money so leave me alone.

After spending so much money at the Russian "pub" and booking expensive accommodation for my island trip, I decided not to spend any more money for the rest of the night, and since my ferry to the island was leaving early in the morning, I decided to walk to the Acropolis. In the midst of getting lost and walking through random back allies by myself, I eventually ended up on top of a mountain with a perfect view of the whole city! Even thought it was really slippery & dark, there was tonnes of young people also drinking & playing guitars on this mountain top, so I was really lucky to "find" this place.
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Aug 16th, 2008:
Trip to Ios Island: Mega sunburn!

After a few hours on the mountain cliff overlooking Athens and a few hours trying to sleep, I caught the ferry to Ios Island: apparently the main rock'n'roll party island in Greece. The ferry ride was from 9am till 5pm, in other words 10 hours in the direct sun. I sat on a deck chair / bench on the top deck, next to a rediculously hot metal chic from Greece (I think), possibly the hottest chic I've ever seen in my life! But maybe thats just cos I'd been in the middle-east for 2 months, where ur not supposed to even look at girls!  I eventually tried to chat to her, but she couldn't understand English :-(

Unfortunately, I fell asleep for a while on the top of the ferry without much sunscreen on, so I ended up very sunburnt on my face, before even arriving at the Island!  The last things you want when you get on an island is to be sunburnt!  I looked like a lobster, and so I stayed indoors for several days in the hope that it wouldn't get worse, even though the beach was begging me to come outside.

Even though I booked 3 nights at expensive hotels in Ios (the cheapest I could find on internet), I found a small remote hotel in Ios for 30 EUR ($45) / night for 2 beds.  Since an Indian guy from work was coming to visit Ios 2 days after me, I booked this cheap place for 2 days, to save about 150 EUR ($230)!  But when I tried to cancel the expensive hotels I'd booked, I found out that they need 2 days notice for cancellation, otherwise they charge your credit card for the full amount.  Which means I got charged an extra 200 EUR ($300) for 2 nights that I didn't stay!  I tried to get them not to charge me the full amount but they had it in their fine print.  So for my 1st night on the island, I was paying for 2 different twin share rooms (4 beds in total) just for myself!  So a lot of money was wasted on my trip to Greece!

But more importantly, Ios Island, and probably all 2000 of the Greek Islands, are fucking awesome.
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Aug 16th, 2008:
Partying on Ios Island

For my 1st night in Ios, I was supposed to meet up with my bosses friend that lives on the island, so he could give me some local pointers over a beer.  Ios is a very relaxed beach island in the day, with lots of water sports on the beaches but most people just spend all day on the beach until 7pm. Then most people eat dinner at around 10pm. But around midnight to 1am, everyone between 18 to 30 go to the center village and party till morning at all the pubs & nightclubs that don't close till atleast 7am. So I was supposed to meet my bosses friend at 1am in the center village.  As I was trying to find my way to the village,  I met 4 Italians that also just got to the island and were looking for the village, so I searched with them. We still weren't entirely sure how to get there, everyone we asked would just point at the mountain and say go up. Eventually I found 3 glammed up Greek chics that were going there through a shortcut that basically involves 10 minutes of mild rock-climbing, and yet these chics did it in high heels!  We found the village, and since 2 of the Italians liked rock & heavy metal, we found a pub that played it but wasn't opening until 2am, so 3 of us waited for it while the other 2 that didn't like rock music went to a dance club.  The rock club had decent rock / indie-pop / metal music, and cool drawings & stuff on the walls, but there was barely anyone in there so we started to leave, but talked to 3 Greek rock chics smoking instead. We ended up talking to them for a while cos they were hot and into cool music and play in rock bands. But they were 19.  We said we were 29, 27 and 18.  I was surprised that the tall Italian guy with a bandanna and old-school Guns'n'Roses shirt was just 18 when he looked about 23.  But then the older Italian guy whispered to me that the tall 18yr old guy is actually just 15yrs old!  It was basically the first time he'd been to a pub / nightclub!  We eventually left cos of the age differences, but the chics told us of another rock/metal club in the area called Orange, so we went there instead.

Orange was much more of my type of club, full of goths & metal heads & punks, and metal posters & pics all over the walls and really dark & smoky, and yet still a fair few chics in there!  I ordered an "Ouzo" cos I kept hearing of it as a traditional Greek drink. It tasted so bad! It was basically vodka mixed with tonnes of licorice / mint. I drank most of it and then asked a Greek metal chic if everyone does actually drink Ouzo, or if its a joke on the foreigners, and she started laughing at me, saying that only the older people drink it in small villages and only with food cos it goes well with food but tastes terrible by itself. She also said I should make sure I don't mix it with other drinks cos it makes an extremely bad hangover.  Considering I'd already had beers and a mixed drink, I put the glass down.  Then a few minutes later, the DJ played a Man-O-War song and about 10 Greek guys suddenly all collected together and started chanting the song as if they were in a huge opera, and played air guitars for about 20 minutes. It was pretty awesome.  Me & the 2 Italians talked to another set of 3 Greek metal chics, but they were also about 19, and the Italians wanted to check other places out.

We ended up going to a big dance / techno club, since the 15yr old had never been.  Inside, he kept saying how crap it was and how stupid everyone looked and how terrible the music was, and we kept saying that yeah its a nightclub, you'll have to get used to it eventually.  But after a while, an Indonesian chic started dancing with the 15yr old.  Eventually they were on the podium dancing & making out for about an hour.  Me & the other Italian guy kept laughing, trying to think what the chic would do if she found he's only 15!  She was probably about 22, and she would have thought he'd be about the same! Eventually we went home cos it was nearly sunrise and the Italians were sailing to their next Greek island in a few more hours.  $10 says the 15yr old Guns'n'Roses rocker is a pill popping raver by now!
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Aug 17th, 2008
Staying on Ios Island: Peep Show

At my hotel, I went to use the girls toilet cos someone was showering in the guys toilet. After I started pissing, I noticed the big window in front of me was wide open, and there was a set of stairs to walk onto the roof of the hotel.  I considered closing the window in case someone was on the roof and sees me, but I figured its so unlikely that there would be someone on the roof and they would come down the stairs within the 30 seconds that I would be there, so I just continued. Then a chic did walk down the stairs!  I didn't realise until she would have already seen me pissing.  She just ignored me & kept walking down the stairs, so its all good. But if this happened while I was in the middle-east then I'd probably be in jail right now!
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Aug 18th, 2008
3rd day on Ios Island: Infection

On my 3rd day on Ios Island, I woke up feeling really bad, especially in my lungs & stomach.  I'd been out till 5am, but I only had about 6 beers, so it shouldn't have screwed me that bad.  I had a really bad cough, and whenever I breathed deeply I would suddenly cough up flem.  Normally I would barely notice it, but my workmate said it sounds just like a lung infection that he had in India, and if I don't take antibiotics then it will probably get much worse, and potentially become Tuberculosis. Then I realised that I've been coughing flem a lot for the past 5 days or so & haven't had an appetite in about a week either (I usually ignore or don't notice things like these unless if its really bad).  So then I started getting paranoid that my infection will get worse unless if I take antibiotics soon, but that means no alcohol, when I'm on one of the biggest part locations in the world!  I knew I would be drinking for 8 days straight if I didn't take antibiotics, which can't be helping an infection, so eventually I decided to see a doctor.  This was so annoying, spending about 6 days on a perfect party beach island but not being able to go in the sun because of my sunburn and not being able to drink alcohol cos of antibiotics!!

The 1st night I took all my medicine, I suddenly felt extremely tired & weak, so I didn't go out that night (and I didn't go out that day cos still sunburnt!). Me & my workmate hired a scooter to share for 2 days. He's used scooters & motorbikes a lot in India, so I assumed he knew what he was doing, but I felt like he was going too fast around the turns considering it was only a small scooter, so I kept telling him to drive slower around the bends and he would just keep saying don't worry. At one stage, I said it again, he said to stop worrying so much, then 20 seconds later we slid out on a turn and I flew off the back of the scooter!  A small Jeep behind us nearly hit me, but luckily they stopped just in time, so I wasn't really hurt.
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Aug 19th, 2008
4th day on Ios Island: Finally at the beach!
The next day I wasn't so tired from all my medicine and my sunburn was OK & not peeling, so we went to the main beach all day & tried the "Flying Fish": a big air bed that 2 or 3 people sit on while getting driven around on the back of the speed boat, and you get air cos of the wind and get through around and almost upside down, etc. It was pretty fun. But my coworker had only been in a pool or beach just once in his life (we took him to Dubai beach a month ago and tried to teach him to swim for the 1st time). So he wasn't used to being in water, and when he fell off the side of the Flying Fish, he was so scared of drowning (despite wearing a life vest) that he wouldn't let go, and kept yelling for help and to stop the boat.  So even thought they said I shouldn't, I went over to his side to try to lift him back onboard. But since all our weight was now on one side, we flipped the whole Flying Fish over, which caused him to panic even more so I had to swim him onto the boat & we went back to shore. I did some wakeboarding too, with some good jumps and some good stacks. Then we just chilled with some aussies for a few hours.

I went out at night, despite not being able to drink, and I still had a decent time.  I was in the "Orange" metal club most of the night with some Greek metal heads, and was constantly amazed at how all these ruthlessly hot chics kept going in & out of the metal club, cos u don't see that happen much in Australia or America!  There was only a few girls that stayed that weren't with their boyfriends, but since I was frustrated about not drinking, I didn't end up talking to any of them. Then at 5am I went to a small Greek night club to see what its like.  There was about 10 people inside, all Greek, and 4 were doing a cool traditional dance together. Eventually I talked to one of the chics, thinking she'd be around 27 - 28, and asked her if she could teach me how to do their dance. She said that dancing is part of their blood & life, so she can't just teach me in 5 minutes. Then she walked me over to the bar and introduced me to the 19yr old bartender, who was her daughter!!  I like Greece :-)  Unfortunately the daughter didn't like me much and after I decided not to hit on the Mum, I talked to 2 Greek guys for a few hours and watched them all doing dance improvisations.
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Aug 20th, 2008
5th day on Ios Island: Live sex show

On the walk home from the nightclubs in the morning, I ran into an aussie bartender that I'd met earlier. He went to say Hi to his old boss on the way home, but his boss and everyone around him on the street were just frozen stiff, staring at the top of a building. We had a look and assumed they were just looking at the church there something. But then we realised there was a couple having sex out the front of a building on the hill in broad daylight!  Everyone was cheering, and when the finally finished the chic waved to us all!
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Aug 21st, 2008
Leaving Ios: Canadian chic

Eventually we caught an overnight 12hr ferry back to Athens, and were expected to sleep on deck chairs on the top deck even though it was really cold & windy. We were sitting next to 2 Canadians that were coming back from Ios too.  I assumed they were a couple, but I talked to them anyway. It turned out that I got along extremely well with the chic, who was one of the rare chics doing a Mechanical Engineering degree! Apparently a lot of people in Newfoundland (an island in Canada where she lives) do Engineering so they can work for the oil rig companies there. I really liked talking with the chic, definitely girl-friend material, it was a pity she was catching the ferry all the way to Italy. After a few hours of talking & playing cards we were too cold so we went inside and found a corner wall that wasn't occupied and slept there till morning. But unfortunately I caught a cold since I was already infected with something, and it made it really hard to sleep in the tiny space on the hard ground with air conditioning.
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Aug 22nd, 2008
Last day in Athens: Exhausted & sick

When we got to Athens at 6am, me & my workmate were exhausted, but we still had to catch 2 trains and carry our luggage for 25 minutes to get to our hostel. We were SO tired by the time we got there, we just really wanted to sleep, especially since I had caught a cold in the ferry ride and barely gotten any sleep. But the hostel said our room wasn't available until checkout-time at 11am! I kept asking if we could just sit or lie down anywhere, but they kept saying they were packed full. So we had to wait 4hrs before we could finally rest, despite being dead tired. My coworker walked around Athens but I really needed to rest so I went up 2 floors and sat in the hallway and tried to sleep.

People kept walking in & out of their dorm rooms staring at me, but I got a bit of rest anyway. The hot young cleaning lady kept throwing the sheets & stuff over me into the dirty pile, and didn't tell the boss that I was sleeping in the hallway, so I thought she was pretty cool. Then at one stage I realised she was sitting on the stair case around the corner, having a cigarette break, so I asked her for a cigarette so I could sit & chat with her. She ended up giving me a total of 4, and we chatted about Romania where she was from while she was constantly switching between cleaning the rooms and sneeking in quick ciggy breaks without the boss finding out. She said she came to Greece to earn some money to finish her uni degree in Journalism, since its really hard to find a job in Romania. She had been working there 7 days a week for 3 months, with just 2 days off!  Eventually I bought her a chocolate as a present for the cigarettes and asked her if she wanted to have dinner with me but it turned out she had a jealous boyfriend.

For my last night in Greece, I really wanted to go out to Exarhia, where everyone told me had lots of rock / metal clubs, but it turned out pretty hard to get there on public transport and I was still really tired, so I ended up just resting.
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Aug 23rd, 2008:
Flight back to Dubai: Ear Infection

We caught the flight back to the middle-east the next day. That was the worst part of the trip (besides the 1100 EUR I'd spent in just 9 days): going back to the middle-east, where things are so much more anal than Greece and you can even get in trouble for just saying something undesirable, such as saying Hi to a girl!  I really liked my trip to Greece (even though things didn't turn out so perfectly), so I'm definitely going to visit the traditional parts of Greece in a month, and hopefully the party island again next summer :-)

The air pressure on the flight back to Dubai caused my runny nose to painfully spread into my ears and I ended up in a fair bit of pain & sickness for the first few days back in middle-east.  This happened to be the only few days that I was in the middle-east and didn't have to drive people around all day since I didn't have a car, but of course I was on antibiotics so I couldn't drink now that I finally had the opportunity!  I'm pretty sure God is trying to mock me on a daily basis, but I'm not complaining :-)
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