Mom Always Told Me Not to Swear



THURSDAY, March 23, 1995.

Here I am in a coffee shop, "enjoying" a terrible chocolate croissant, and writing in my damp (no, I didn't fall in the water) journal. Yesterday, when I arrived at Santorini airport there was no tourist office, no busses, no taxis, and once again everyone else on the plane vanished into cars. After two phone calls, confusion, and chats with the three women working the snack bar, a taxi was on its way. It dropped me off in town. Before I'd caught my bearings and noticed the tourist shops on my right, a man with a strange lump on his jaw came up to me and asked if I was looking for a room. At this point, I usually say no, but already flustered and bitter about the lack of tourist support in the off season, I said "Yes." He gave me the hotel's card, agreed on a decent price and told me the place was new and near-by. OK, I thought, why not?

The hallway smelled reminiscent of the vile carpet cleaner in Torun, Poland, but the room looked clean, and in contrast to the water bugs in my shower in Athens, it looked appealing. I freshened up and went down ten minutes later to retrieve my passport. The guy's wife said I'd have to pay in advance to get my passport back (somewhat routine) - but for two days in advance! This is most certainly not routine. Why for two days? Because she'd be gone tomorrow for a trip to the doctor to treat the enormous lump on her neck which matched the one on her husband's jaw. Yes, I asked about the lumps (I couldn't stop myself) - supposedly a car accident. Since I was planning to stay three nights, I hesitantly shelled over the money. When I climbed into bed to read, the first thing I noticed was that the sheets were a little gritty. I shrugged it off thinking I must be a little sandy. Then I noticed that the sheets were slightly damp and mildewed. Gross. This gave me the eebie-jeebies. Plus, it was cold in the room - but OK, summer hotels don't have heat. Let's try and make the best of it.

Laying there under four blankets and mildewed sheets in a cold room on a damp bed, I couldn't stand it. I pulled my hostel sleep-sack out of my pack so that I'd have something warm, fresh, and dry against my body and recruited my MIT sweatshirt to replace my damp, mildewed pillow. I read for a while and finally drifted off to sleep.

I woke up at about 3AM to the crashing of the storm shutters which had broken themselves free from the side of the building. Of course, I tried to ignore it, but in vain. So I hauled my ass out of bed to latch the shutters. I stepped down into a puddle! No, I hadn't wet myself - rain was leaking into the room through the balcony doors! The room was flooded! Somehow, standing in my underwear leaning out into a freezing cold island storm at 3AM to latch the shutters is sub-optimal and certainly far from hedonistic. To top it all off, I'd left my day pack with my journal in it on the floor next to the bed. Nothing like a wet book. I decided that would be my last night in the ironically named "Pension Blue Sky."

I rose again at 9AM and showered, shivering in the cold air and barely hot water. I left muddy footprints wading around the room in my boots collecting my things. I was angry and really wanted to leave. Of course, I'd already paid for two nights, and I strongly doubted that I'd get a refund. With my pack on my back (no, I wouldn't be talked out of leaving) I headed downstairs to check out. They feigned surprise and were immediately defensive.

"But you paid already for two nights," said Mr. Ugly Lump-On-Jaw.

I tried to be polite, "Yes, but I'd like to leave today."

"But you've already paid," Mrs. Ugly-Lump-On-Neck chimed in.

"I know, but I'd like a refund."

"What? You didn't like the room?"

"No. It flooded."

"That's impossible. It's brand new."

"Let's go take a look."

"No. It didn't flood." (Wow, this guy has X-ray vision)

"I'm going to leave today. You can give me a refund which would be the reputable thing to do, or you can be disreputable." (In hind-sight, I doubt they knew what reputable meant)

Note that the wife who'd insisted she wouldn't be there today was sitting there and joining in the argument. I'd been suckered. It was clear that I wouldn't get a refund, so I started to leave, and I foolishly tried get in the last word.

"Well, the room is flooded."

Again, "That's impossible."

Then (sorry, mom) I said, truly angry, adrenaline pumping, "Let's go take a fucking look."

That's when he grabbed my arm forcefully.

"Don't use that language in front of my wife."

Now I was scared and just wanted out of there. "I'm sorry," I said and tried to break away.

He then grabbed my lapels and pulled me closer and repeated, "Don't use that language."

"I'm sorry," I uttered.

I considered taking a swing at him, but wisely decided that my odds, while wearing my pack against an obviously insane, unstable and violent Greek man were poor. I got out unharmed, angry, and down about $20. A bargain. The weather is cold, cloudy, gusty and generally miserable. There are no tours of the island or the volcano until tomorrow. I'm honestly afraid that I'll run into that guy again and he'll accuse me of spilling water all over the floor and tracking mud around the room, and that he'll beat the shit out of me. Although that wouldn't be all bad since I'm again suffering from traveler's constipation. I want off this island.

Hopefully I'll fly out of here this afternoon which seems an enormous waste of money - but I don't really care. Mykonos and Delos were great. Athens was great. I'll just call those Greece and this trouble. Maybe someday I'll go to Crete during the "on-season." The flight is full - but I'm going stand-by. I don't want to pay for another night on Santorini - what a bust! Does this count as a travel nightmare? At least (knock on wood) nothing was stolen.


FRIDAY, March 24, 1995.

I squeaked on to the 5:30 flight out of hell. At the airport, I met a Greek guy with the inside story who helped me jockey for a stand-by position. He'd left Greece when he was 17 and gone to the United States for, as he put it, "love and business." He spent twenty years in Denver before returning to Greece where he now feels like a foreigner. He says that although these days the Greeks are well educated and increasingly prosperous, their history of need creates a civilization of corruption, greed, crime and general anarchy. I definitely noticed that people don't know how to stand on line. I suppose Americans have their share of corruption, greed, and crime, but at least they know how to stand on line. Perhaps it is the understanding of what it means to wait that causes the loathing of waiting and the overwhelming, American need for faster service.

The Greek guy happened to run a hotel on Santorini and told me that I should write to the police about my incident. He also told me that the receipt I was given was illegal - they weren't reporting their income. Big surprise. He said enough letters will shut them down. Perhaps, I'll write ten.

I prayed that I'd be able to change my ticket and catch an evening flight to Rome. Naturally, my bag took about thirty minutes to appear - come on guys, this is a small plane at a small airport. Coffee break? Pilfering? With every minute that passed, I felt my chances of getting to Rome dwindling. With a pissed off, grumpy, New York attitude, I told the taxi driver who was asking too many questions to "just get me there," and headed to the "East Terminal" - actually another airport about $6 away. I arrived at 7:20, saw an Alitalia flight to Rome listed for 7:25 and flipped out trying to find an Alitalia agent before an information desk clerk calmly informed me that the flight was at 7:25 AM. If it had been an evening flight, it would've said 19:25. Oh, yeah... right.

After a trip to the basement office to find an Alitalia representative, I discovered that my first possible flight to Rome was the ticket I already held for Saturday afternoon. Joy, oh, joy. And so, setting money aside, I let Calgon take me away to the Marriott hotel where, for $99 a night, I had a fabulous room, plush towels and CNN. I slid into a bathtub full of hot water and luxury bath soap and sighed.

Knowing I was being stupid, but not wanting to deal with any more Greek tourism, I became a hermit and spent the next thirty-six hours in my room. The hotel van into town wasn't even running because of some dumb holiday. Boy, sure a great time to come to Greece. I left the room only to grab lunch and enough groceries to stay fed until I left the hotel for the airport. There was no way I could afford the hotel's $15 burgers and $5 Cokes. The room was luxury enough. I spent the time sleeping, overeating (the Greek bread and cookies were worth it), writing, reading, and watching way too much CNN. I found myself desperate for clips of Michael Jordan's return to the NBA and craving the next repeat of the OJ Simpson segment. Pathetic.

All CNN and no play made Brad a dull boy.


SATURDAY, March 25, 1995.

Welcome home! That's how I felt returning to Bell'Italia. As screwed up as things may be in Italy, I feel like I understand it, and Greece seemed worse. I just sucked down my first beloved Italian cappuccino in a week - liquid heaven. How will I survive without it? I've got just a few hours to spend in Rome before I hop the night train to Nice.

In the Athens airport early this afternoon (of course, I was there way too early - but at least it was a change of scenery), I was really bored. After about an hour, I met three American girls from a small college in Kentucky, who were studying in Strasbourg, France. They were about as interesting as a brick wall. Good grief - and I was already really bored. About twenty minutes later, I met three more American girls - these from Cornell and studying in Rome. They were much more interesting. We shared our frustrations with the sparse Greek transport and the difficulty of getting information. Also, it was great because they'd read the two books I just finished reading (The World According to Garp by John Irving, and Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins) and I got to talk about the books, something I'd been wanting to do. They made fun of me for talking about the news so much - I really overdosed on CNN.

An interesting observation - Greek news stands are devoid of computer magazines. Italian news stands have plenty - even sell some software. It seems that Greece has not entered the information age. Information feels so unavailable there. For crying out loud, their capital city's international airport feels like a second rate train station! After a glass of German beer, I might even say that the train station in Krakow, Poland beats it.

The way I see it, I've been traveling from Mykonos to Nice for four days now! Finally, I'm only a night train away. Hopefully I'll avoid another snoring, smelly Frenchman.



Copyright 1997 by Bradley Edelman
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