On our first morning of actually waking up in Greece, it was rocky. First off, we had to wake up at 7 am so we could eat breakfast and get an early start on the day since we were supposed to travel to Delphi to stay that night. Second, we were paying the price of enjoying seemingly unlimited wine the night before. Thirdly, we hadn’t had much sleep since starting to travel there. All caught up!

Once again struggling with a very heavy suitcase, the handle still stuck inside the bag, we made our way to the bus station, taking a quick taxi there. The bus station was a bit grungy looking in a rather ghetto part of the city, once having made it inside, we spoke to a local at ticket sales and realized we had made a grave mistake. The internet had promised us beaches and many activities in Delphi, and so we had planned three days in the town. The local told us Delphi can fill only a day, and that we needed to go to Santorini, a beautiful island that most people think of when they think of Greece with beautiful white-washed buildings with robin’s egg blue roofs.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have it in the itinerary, and now would be going on the word of this stranger. Maria was disappointed, she had seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and thought most of Greece was like that. She would miss the number one reason she came here.

We ended up about three hours in the bus station with our books, trying to plan Santorini and more days in Crete (our next stop) rather than Delphi. It was a little frustrating, trying to travel the country without reliable reviews or suggestions on what to do and where to go. Having a pregnant woman’s bladder, Maria couldn’t hold it and was forever changed and traumatized by the bathroom that charged you to stand in others’ pee to squat over a hole in the ground. “That’ll be 50 cents.”

ii Unintelligible and yet horrifying sound emitting from Maria’s throat

That’s another thing about Greece, unlike Rome, where there are free flowing fountains with clean water all over the city, there appears to be no tap water and every restaurant charges you for bottled water instead. Water is expensive. Who knew?

We took the long bus, arrived in Delphi around seven pm, and stopped to get Wi-Fi at the restaurant/bus station.

It turned out my travel agent had booked us wrongly, we were supposed to be in Crete that night. So she fixed it, got us a hotel for the night, and the woman greeted us at the hotel was very kind and upgraded our room. We charged up our phones and went out in search of things to do. The woman at the desk was very helpful in helping us schedule this afternoon and the next morning in Delphi so we would be able to see everything since we would need to leave in the early morning to grab the bus back to Athens.

We explored the Museum there, an hour before they were about to close. The few pictures we got was because of a fussy worker there, who did not like the look of us and told us “no phone” and eventually, as we understood it, “no photos”. Strangely enough, he let others take them, and so we tried to be sneakier after that.

Onto the Sanctuary of Athena, our first ancient site to visit!

On our way to the site, we ended up awkwardly following a man hoping he was going to the sanctuary (or somewhere else important) and ended up introducing ourselves. He was someone from our bus, an Iranian professor named Naeem. He was living in Norway and also loved to travel. He joined us and we wandered the adorable streets of Delphi and went shopping. We hadn’t liked the look of the stores in Athens, but these had a more uniquely Grecian, and adorably small town vibe. We went about picking out souvenirs for ourselves.

Maria had a hard time deciding on souvenirs since she wouldn’t be able to go to Santorini (a very sore spot Naeem has soon informed all about) she wanted a souvenir from that city.

We explored all down the main street of the town and went to the end of the restaurants just to head back to the first one we saw next to the bus station. I got a whole fish, eyes and all, and gave Naeem the info on prayers before meals when Maria and I were debating on who should do it for dinner. We had a good discussion about religion, you know, bonding material.

We went for ice cream afterward, standing on their beautiful deck facing the dark, sparkling ocean and mountain rims, we used a telescope to find the lights of the far off town.

We hung out in Naeem’s room afterward, talking about culture and how Norway and the United States were different. Maria and I shared with him the frustrations of living in East Texas, where people can be genuinely good people and yet “good-naturedly racist.” We would be disappointed when we had to leave Europe, where most people seemed to be quite open-minded, educated, and diverse, from all different kinds of countries. Coincidentally, we shared a fascination with the music of Hans Zimmer and discussed that despite Maria’s accented yawn beside me.  A woman next door complained of us having a “party” and we called it quits not long after, heading to bed only to wake up seven thirty to make it to the Temple of Apollo the next morning. Before going to bed, we ordered plane tickets to Crete, to avoid wasting a whole day just to travel to our next stop.

Breakfast was an adventure. There was a breathtaking view of the mountains from an outdoor dining area, and so we took our fresh plates and bowls of food out to a table. Unfortunately, I had put some honey in my oatmeal, and we had to spend the better part of our breakfast defending it from bees swooping in from above.

The temple was amazing, everything pulled into an awe-inspiring site, not only with the magnificent mountain ranges all around us but the aged rock formations and carved stones beneath our feet and decorating the landscape, warmed by the peeking of the sun.

After we stopped at a spring to refill our water bottles, which apparently the locals use to avoid outrageous prices for bottled water, by refilling theirs once a week. I’m glad they let us go first! The Spring of Castalia was where travelers visiting the temples would have to cleanse themselves beforehand, in the healing powers of the water. And to think, we skipped the line!

Next we headed to the bus stop, bothering the impatient waiter from last night every so often whether this was the stop or not. People who don’t smile creep me out. What’s wrong with them? Are they serial killers, that they can’t have emotions? My attempts to make him smile did not work, so I backed away back to what was hopefully the correct bus stop. Our bus took us back to Athens, where we took a taxi that overcharged us ten euros to the airport. Two taxi drivers fought Maria’s luggage, taking it back and forth from their taxi trunks, yelling at each other in Greek, with us too scared and unnerved to say anything. They were fighting to scam the dumb tourists, I was aware I was being cheated, but not sure how to handle disagreeing. We made it to the airport, where our flight was delayed, and we also had to rush to a different gate. Cheap airlines, you end up paying regardless. Once on the plane, the flight was delayed another twenty minutes, and so I made conversation with Niko, a student studying in Italy who loved Game of Thrones and wanted to know why Americans love guns so much. I shared my ignorance in this fascination.

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We landed in Crete and took a surprisingly cheap bus to our hotel. Once there, we met another Niko, this one looked and spoke like a model and helped us with the hotel switch around. It turned out they gave our room away for the night because they hadn’t received the cancellation for the previous night. He put us in a hotel down the street for just a night for free and gave us suggestions on a place to go for fun, and restaurants. It seemed like the evening would only get better from here. Except for Maria, a weird very drunk British girl in the lobby tried to get us to eat out of her bag of chips, and when we declined, licked Maria’s hand and told her she was pretty. The girl’s boyfriend came to join us, and we headed out of there as fast as we could. Poor Maria.

We put our things away and dressed for a night out. All the good restaurants were past all the nasty bars and strip clubs that had men out in front of them, trying to get us to come in, and using every tactic in the book. They tried to shake your hands, then used the grip they had on it to pull you in and intimidate you with their closeness and try to convince you to come in and have a shot. I walked in my fast paced style which is more of a fast march, but Maria fell behind and probably looked like an easy target because of her short stature. I had to go back to rescue her, and we finally found a nice place to eat.

After eating dinner we were completely exhausted, I more than Maria, who had fallen asleep on the plane. We forced ourselves to go out anyway, checking out a place called New York Club. We got in for free (wonder why) and bought two Heinekens. We looked around and noticed it was a bit early to be there, despite it being midnight. It was a strange dance place, there were napkins all over the floor and every time the DJ thought you weren’t dancing enough, he blew an air horn and threw more napkins in the air which then landed all around you. I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to liven up the crowd or not. Shouldn’t you throw candy or something?

From there we went to Palm Beach, a club that seemed like a billionaire’s backyard. There was a sparkling pool with a chair area, and a DJ area with huge bottles of liquor and a VIP area nearby. There were so many people that by the end of the night the next person that elbowed me and tried to push past me, I ended up pushing back. Regardless, it was fun, we danced a lot. The men were a little less gentlemanly than guys I had danced with in Dublin. If you don’t know someone, presumably you don’t want their body pressed up against yours. These guys were unaware of that social rule.

Finally Maria and I found a group of nice guys that were willing to just dance, and have a fun time. We got their contact information in case we’d want to hang out again, and had to call an “early night” due to the hour being 2 am. Another early morning the next day, and no sleep. Well, as my sister (and someone famous) says, “You can sleep when you’re dead.”

Summary of Day 2 and 3

1. Iranians can also be Norwegian. Who knew?

2. Santorini is not all of Greece.

3. Don’t believe travel websites.

4. Apparently bees like honey.

5. Shrine water is apparently really cheap.

6. Cabbies love to scam you and fistfight over your luggage.

7. Americans REALLY love guns…seriously, everyone in Europe knows it.

8. Avoid Machis Kritis Street if you don’t like touchy strangers.

9. Above all…never use a bus station toilet. You never have to go THAT badly.

i. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Dir. Ken Kwapis. Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2016.

ii. Cromwell, Bob. “Greek Toilet Logistics.” Toilet Guru. Apache, Aug. 2016. Web. 16 Aug. 2016.

iii. Beardedrabbit. “How American People Shower.” Reddit. N.p., July 2016. Web. 16 Aug. 2016.