Aegina

I got up this morning, realizing I had just missed breakfast. Unfortunately, I had a bunch of things to sort out today. I had planned that I would switch from this hotel to a slightly cheaper hostel just down the road, but upon checking up on my calender, I realized I'm a day behind schedule, so i have to leave Greece tomorrow morning. Also, I have barely any space left on my laptop to hold anymore pictures, and I'm only a third of the way through the trip, as well as the fact that I'm reaching the capacity of my camera's memory card. And as if all that wasn't enough, my iPod got a little bit wet, and while it still plays, and the buttons work, It won't turn off anymore so the battery just runs until it dies.

I decided to start with the first problem. I went online, and did some searching to find a flight into Naples, Italy. The cheapest airline I could find was Olympic. However, Olympic doesn't fly in to Naples, just Rome. I booked that flight, and decided Naples is just like two hours away from Rome, and I had only planned on staying in Naples for a day, so I figured I could stay in Rome an extra night, and just find a day tour, or take a bus to Naples. The fact that I'm now leaving tomorrow morning means it'd be pretty much pointless to change hotels for the night, so I decided to just eat the extra 20 euros for one night, and stay here. After all, I'm already set up here. So I went down to the front desk, and asked them to charge my card for one more night. I still have no idea what to do about the picture situation. I guess one idea is that I could buy a new memory card when that one gets used up, and just carry around the other memory card with all my pictures saved on it. However, in order to get them online, I still have to download them to my computer, so what I'd have to do is delete all/most of the pictures on my laptop and just have the pictures all saved on my camera. I like having my pictures backed up though. I don't really like the idea of having all the pictures from my trip on one device. i suppose the good news is that the ones that you see on my blog site (the ones on my Flickr account) are backed up online, and that has unlimited space, so maybe what I should do is just download every picture I take to my Flickr account, and I'll have them on my camera as well. I don't know...As for my iPod, I guess maybe I'll find a mac store somewhere and see if they can fix it. Someone once said, the problem with technology is that everything goes wrong at once.

As soon as I had sorted things out to a point, I decided to take the metro down to the harbor and see if I could catch a ferry to one of the Greek Islands. I headed out, and after taking some time to decifer the Greek hiroghlyphs on the ticket machine, purchased my metro ticket and navigated the rails to the harbor at Pireas. When I got down there, I wandered around the harbor until I found a place where ferry tickets were being sold. I asked them if they had a list of available ferries to the different islands that I could get on today. They told me there was ferry leaving for the closest Island, Aegina in an hour. It only takes about 40 minutes to get there by boat, so that would give me the most time on the island. I asked them to book me on that one, and also whichever the last boat coming back was, which turned out to be at 8pm. They must have liked me, because they gave me a discount of about 10 euros, which made my whole trip about 24 euros, which I think was a pretty good deal.

After booking my tickets to Aegina, I had an hour to kill, and I realized I hadn't eaten all day. I firstly bought myself a bottle of water, because I knew I'd need it walking around an island, and then I went searching for some kind of food. I hadn't gone 2 blocks before I saw, like a sign from heaven, the big Mcdonolds "M" which had never before looked even the least bit appitizing, now felt like the answer to my prayers. I'd been craving fast food since yesterday, and so I walked up to the counter, ordered a Quarter Pounder with cheese, paid the lady 3 euros and enjoyed myself thuroughly. I made it back to my ferry terminal in plenty of time, and boarded the ferry. I'd been booked on the cool super-fast "Flying Dolphin" Ferry, which I was extremely phsyched about, although it's aerodynamic design didn't give you any way to enjoy the Mediterranean from a deck or anything. You had to stay inside the whole time.

When we landed in the Harbor of the island of Aegina, I suddenly realized I should have been here from the beginning. Aegina is absolutely beautiful! When we left Athens it was raining, but somehow the sun had broken through the clouds just as we landed in Aegina, and the whole town sparkled and shimmered with its reflection. I walked along the coast, and bought an ice cream cone from a little parlor next to the water. As the day went on, the clouds moved in again, but interweaved themselves with the sunlight, creating spotlights on the water, and highlighting the mountains like I'd never seen before anywhere else. the fog rolled in and covered the distant islands just slightly so that they looked like the shadows of the ones in front. As I sat next to the water, it began to rain. I didn't really want to move, so I sat there on a rock in the sand, soaking up the experience. Thunder began to sound at first a gentle growl, and then increasingly harsher. I don't think I'd ever heard thunder like this before. It resounded all around me, as if it were coming from everywhere at once. The rain fell harder, and the bell tower began to toll 6, and then the thunder again and lightning this time. It was like a symphony from heaven, I was dizzy and exhausted from listening to it all, and then a final blast of thunder, loudest I've ever heard. It stopped me in my tracks, it sounded like the end of the world, it was terrifying for a split second, and then beautiful. At that the rain stopped, the bell stopped tolling, and no more thunder sounded the rest of the day, and I was left with only the wind.

Afterwards, I'd felt like I'd heard the voice of God, only I didn't actually hear anything. I expected in all that to hear a voice, or something telling me something. I didn't hear anything like that. It was just an exibition of God's wonder. I feel singled out on this journey. I feel importaint, and empowered. Do I dare believe that God bent the very weather to his will today just to entertain me with a song? I can't really claim that that's what happened, but that's what it seemed like to me.

After walking back into the town a little ways, it began to rain again. I enjoyed the beauty of seeing the little beach town soaked in rain, and wandered through the streets. I came to a little bar that looked interesting and starred at the door for a second wondering if I should go in. Along side me I suddenly heard a man say, "Hello, how are you?" "What?" I replied, and I'm not sure why, I of course, knew what he said. "Are you going in?" He pointed to the door of the tavern. "Yeah, I was thinking about it." "Well come on!" He asked where I was from, and I told him America, to which he responded as most people seem to, "America! Well, welcome!" I introduced myself, and he said his name was Nectar. "I have a very sweet name" he told me, and laughed loudly. He opened the door for me and in a loud voice, announced to the whole tavern that I ws Tyler from America. A couple people laughed and raised their glasses, but most just stood there with blank faces. Nectar sat down with me at a table, and the lady bartender greeted him like she'd known him for years. He ordered a beer and two glasses, and we shared a beer together and talked politics. He told me he'd been to the United States several time for work, and I asked what he did. "I'm a seaman" he told me, "Seaman? Oh a sailor!" I replied, and he shook his head yes. We talked about work, and politics, and philosophy, and we played cards and backgammon with his buddies, and then I said goodbye to catch my ferry back to Athens. He said I didn't have to pay him for the drink, but just remember that if he's ever in california, I owe him a drink. I said that sounds like a great plan, shook his hand, and walked out.

I caught my ferry just fine, and felt really good about my whole experience in Greece. If I could do it again however, I'd definatelty start off by just going to one of the islands to find a place to stay, and then travel in to Athens for a day. Things are so much cheaper on the islands, people seem much friendlier (although people seem pretty friendly in Athens too), and you get to be right on the beach. Tomorrow I'll be getting up at 5am, and catching my plane to Rome, Italy. Pray for my travels. I love you all.