athens, 29 may

bye bye turkey, hello greece, land of olives and souvlaki and the greek orthodox church. my last days in istanbul were quite pleasant. there was a last night of dancing, saturday night, with all the cool people from PH and friends. i had a pretty early flight to athens this morning with eleonora, who stayed in the airport to wait for her mom while i tried to decipher the metro ticket system. eventually, defeated by technology, i just asked at the ticket counter. i almost fell asleep on the train but managed to (1) not miss my stop, and (2) not get on a train going the wrong way. success all around, i'd say.

now i'm at the hostel, sitting in their lounge-ish area, and blogging, because it's FUCKING RAINING! actually, it's not raining right now, but i'm pretty sure it's going to start again soon, and actually i don't feel quite up to touristing at the moment. i'm tired and a little grumpy, surrounded by chirpy young americans traveling on their parents' pocketbooks. see--that was the crankiness coming out, right there.

this was my plan:
1. sunday: arrive in athens. see the acropolis; go to the flea market. shower. sleep early and a lot.
2. monday: take 3-1/2 hour hydrafoil ride to naxos island (one of the cyclades). arrive after midday. find lodging; rent bicycle; get acquainted with island. eat. sleep.
3. tuesday: beach. beach. beach.
4. wednesday: take 6-hour morning ferry back to athens. arrive in early evening. go to movie. sleep.
5. thursday: fly.

but this is how things have developed:
1. it rained from the moment i decided to go outside. i hooked up with some other hostel-dwellers and braved the rain to eat some yummy food at a nearby joint. got all soaked. then it stopped raining. so, yeah, no flea market or acropolis. maybe i'll go to the acropolis tonight (it's really quite close).
2. when it's windy (as it's supposed to be this week), hydrafoils don't run at all, and ferries can be erratic. so if it were nice tomorrow, and i took the boat out, i might get stranded on the island and have to fly out to make my thursday flight. that would be both expensive and inconvenient, and sometimes even the planes don't run in the wind. that would really really suck.
3. i'm actually really very tired. my whole reasoning for going to an island was to beach it up, but if it's going to rain anyway then there might not be any point--i might as well stay around here (there are beaches here too, i think, just in case), explore all the sights, take it easy, and relax. that's sounding more and more appealing.

there's internet here, so i'm finally going to post all of the things i've written so far this trip. that should keep everyone occupied until i get back and start posting more regularly again.

i think my brain has turned partly to mush.