As I’m sure the majority of you who read my blog know, I am back in Vancouver (well, that’s not exactly true, I’m driving to California to visit some family and friends). That doesn’t mean I don’t plan on finishing all the blog posts I’ve promised to write, because there is plenty of stories to divulge. I want to keep writing because these blog posts are as much for me as they are for you. They are my journal entries; they are the key to remembering what an amazing adventure I’ve had in the last six months. As for what’s in it for you, of course it’s for the stories, something to entertain you while your procrastinating at your job or from your studies, but it’s also to encourage you. Throughout your life, there will be plenty of opportunities and a rollercoaster ride of adventures, but there is only going to be one time in your life when your young, single, and able to do a trip in the way that Horatiu and I have done it. Free from commitment, free to do whatever you want and to meet people you otherwise wouldn’t by say… going with your wife to the Bahamas when your 32. You truly learn a lot by taking it upon yourself to do a long trip away from home, both about yourself and the world around you. I have a lot more to say about this, but I’ll save that for a post of its own. For now, I’ll enthrall you with my adventures in Greece.
Day of driving around Greece on scooters
Greece was supposed to be what the majority of my Balkans trip was going to be. The initial plan was to go straight from Sarajevo to Greece, but as we got to more places, we wanted to see other things. For those of you who know me, I prefer an adventure to include as much “winging it” as possible, planning your every move is simply not as fun. That and the whole visa issues popped up, but since I was in Italy, there was no problem to go to Greece and back. We decided we’d go to Corfu Island and figure things out from there.
Random beach
We spent 5 nights in the highly esteemed “Pink Palace”, a place that I’ve heard about from travelers from all over. What it is essentially suppose to be is a party hostel; something that resembles the best party colleges in America, and although the place was a quarter full then it usually is during that time of year (I assume due to the recession), that’s exactly what it was. Although there are certain problems with that, because while you meet your fair share of fantastic people from all over the world, you also meet your fair share of douchebags, and I use the phrase because there isn’t another one that I could find to describe these guys any more accurately, and I’ll tell you exactly why so you can see if the bill fits my description.
The women working at the counters are brainless, and the guys are grease monkeys. Firstly, all of people who work there get about ten euro a week to work there, the only perk is that they get free food and a place to sleep. And while that is all well and good, after five nights, I was definitely partied out and needed a different type of adventure, so I’m not exactly sure how they don’t get sick of the place, but considering they do it for such little money they must be satisfied with it. These guys’ ideas of a “chase”, in terms of getting women were waiting until the night and hitting on the ones with the least intellect and the most alcohol. I enjoy the chase, probably more then most, but not like that; going after ones you’ve never met late into the night that are drunk isn’t the exactly the most exciting nor most challenging thing in the world. In my opinion, doing that is generally done in desperation, but I was shocked when I heard one of the guys had reached a number of two hundred, a number that could “wow” you if you didn’t know how pathetically the number was achieved. As an example to illustrate how big of losers I (and many, many others) thought they were, here is a scenario. When we were on one of the famous booze cruizes, someone took a picture with them, only to stop and make them retake it where they were wearing a pair of shades, and only again to retake it because it would be so much more “cool” if they were holding beers in their hands. Anyways, I just thought I’d share some stories about these guys, and to note that there is still a ton of fun to be had at this destination despite the staff.
The Pink Palace
As I said before, this hostel was a place to come, get drunk and party with travelers around the world. We did just that, meeting people from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Argentina, Finland, America, and a ton from Canada, both the normal kind and the separatist kind. During the day there was plenty to do, they had ATV tours, snorkeling, lots of beaches (although the private Pink Palace beach was far from impressive), good places to eat, and of course, the semi-daily previously mentioned booze cruise. Horatiu and I ended up renting scooters and driving around the island (this time I wasn’t stuck with a slow 50cc bike, this thing could really rip). We drove around to a couple beaches and I witnessed Horatiu wiping out on his scooter, which is always scary to watch when it occurs but an amusing memory to reflect upon. We spent one of the days on one of the famous booze cruises where they take you to jump of ten meter high cliffs, swim into bat caves, and hang out on private beaches. And of course, as the name suggests, drunk all day from morning until night. There were a lot of cool people we met on the cruise that we continued to hang out with throughout the night, and I won’t go into details but I’ll just say it was one crazy night. Overall we had a great time at the Pink Palace – if your going to Greece to chill out and go to the best beaches, I wouldn’t recommend this place, come here only if you want to party, because that’s what its here for. I had my fun, but I was definitely partied out after the five nights there, and ready for a new adventure.
We had no idea what island to go to, and since the more famous islands where too far to go, since we only had five days left, we decided that a road trip around Greece would be more appropriate. I know that everyone who goes to Greece loves to go to the beach, but I’ve never been a big beach type guy, and that didn’t change coming into this country. We attempted to get a car on Corfu, but unfortunately you can’t take the car off the island, so we took the first one we could to Igoumenitsa and hoped for the best. When we arrived, we looked for a place that had an automatic car that wouldn’t be too expensive. When we arrived, there was nothing comparable to the prices we found online on Corfu or in Athens, and so we didn’t know what to do. We actually ended up finding a place that offered us a great deal, but that fell through and we were stuck. What some people recommended us to do was to take a bus to the closest big town and see what it had in store for us. So, we hopped on a bus to a city I had never heard of, Ioannina. The city was ridiculously nice, and it turned out that it was a university city full of students. We ended up finding a place that had an automatic, only to find out that the battery was dead, and they wouldn’t be able to replace it until the next day. We decided to wait, and when they finally replaced it, they asked us how old we were, and the result was that we were a couple months too young. You had to be twenty one to rent a car in Greece, a small tidbit of information that would have been useful to know before we started this wild goose chase. We ended up taking a bus to check out Athens.
Ioannina
A lot of people had bad things to say about Athens, but to them, I say they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. But we only stayed there for two nights, so I guess we wouldn’t be best to judge. We stayed at a small hostel in the side streets of Athens that was full of cool people and a lot of character. While in Athens, we happen to notice Tiesto signs all over the place, and when we finally took a closer look, we found out that he was going to be there during the same time we were there. It was fate, and we had to get tickets. On the first day, we did the typical tourist things and saw Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus, and other big name attractions of Greece. It reminded me of Rome in a lot of ways, with a slight Istanbul-like feel. The things to see in the city are nothing to yawn at - they were absolutely incredible.
Dog chillin’ beside the Temple of Zeus
As for Tiesto, getting the tickets were an adventure of their own, never mind the actual event. We set out to the box office, only to be told they don’t sell them there, they sell them at a different box office. We hop on the metro and head over, only to find out they don’t sell them there either, they are sold in a store. When we get to the store, we find out they are sold out, but we are told we can buy them at the actual event, although it’ll cost more. We had already wasted hours chasing down these tickets, we weren’t about to stop now. A Greek girl showed us on a map where she THOUGHT the event was, so we headed over to the stadium to check. Unfortunately, everyone there spoke terrible English, but we were informed we were at the wrong stadium. We got directions to a different one, walked a couple kilometers and found a stadium that seemed relitiveyl empty and lifeless. At this point, we are tired, hungry, and almost ready to give up, since we just arrived at our last lead and were empty handed. We found a restaurant at the stadium though, and thought we’d ask. Turns out we met a couple young people who claimed they knew where the event was, but it was far away on a random tram that went south of Athens. We already passed the trams, so we knew where they were, and we spent almost six hours trying to find these tickets, we thought we’d give it one last go. Plus, we were responsible for getting a ticket for our new random friend from New Zealand as well. After a half an hour on the train, we arrive at the stop they told us about, and saw it wasn’t a stadium that Tiesto was playing at, it was outside an airport hanger. We arrived at about 7pm and the gates were about to open, so we bought three tickets and headed back since Tiesto was playing at 11pm and we had no intention of staying for the random Greek DJ.
Michael, Horatiu and I at Tiesto
When we arrived at the hostel, the guy we got the ticket for was there waiting for us. He was pretty stoked to see us, not only because we were going to Tiesto, but also because we didn’t steal his money. Before we headed off, we had a free dinner at the hostel courtesy of some guy who cooks for everyone on a weekly basis, had a few beers, and headed off. Michael was a cool guy, turns out he was a computer engineer but got bored and started volunteering all over the world. He bought us some vodka all to share, and told us not to thank him for it, but to thank the tsunami donations from the disaster in Indonesia. Turns out people were far too generous after seeing the crisis, and there was plenty of money to spare for the volunteers. I felt kind of guilty drinking it, but there was so much to drink that it was soon forgotten. From all the parts I can remember from Tiesto, it was amazing. He was great, it was awesome partying with Greeks, and Michael was definitely a blast to hang out with.
Picture taken and they gave us a memory stick - I pretty much don’t remember this at all
Greece was a great place to go. I thought I was going to relax on a beach, but that idea died a lot faster then I expected. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to go to the other great islands, but they’ll be plenty of time for that in the future. Corfu was a blast, and Athens was a place I definitely won’t forget. After this, we headed back to Italy where we stayed with my family. Shortly after Horatiu departed for Romania, and I continued to stay with my family and then I decided to backpack through a few more cities in Italy.
Tiesto spinning in Athens
