During the last three weeks, I think we used every mode of transportation possible. The most common mode was on foot. As I travel, I keep a journal and write about what I’ve done and various observations and details. Here is one of my entries…
Monday, July 14, 2008
I think we’ve used every mode of transportation today. The train workers were on strike, so we could only take the metro to Ethniki Amyna and then took the bus to the airport. Our flight to Hania was only about 35 minutes in the air. The bus from the airport only runs three times per day. Our cab driver spoke limited English. So with our hosed up Greek, we were all confused. He kept saying, “Gamba? No Gamba.”
It turns out Gamba is the street that our hotel is on. But there are no cars that can drive here. So he drops us at the edge of the port and we end up schlepping our luggage around the harbor.
Our room is on the 4th floor of Ifigenia Studios. It is very cute and has lots of charm. The spiral staircase can make you dizzy on your way up or down. And there’s another one in the room to get to the beds.
I sit on the patio, drinking a glass of Boutari wine as I write this with nearly a full moon and a cool breeze. It’s very picturesque here in old town Hania.
Our afternoon consisted of walking along the sea to the public beach and back. We found the bus station to map out our schedule and found where to buy a ferry ticket for Santorini. After we got a few groceries, we sat at a restaurant on the harbor and looked through our guidebooks.
There are hardly any American tourists. That’s actually kind of nice.
I’m trying to learn some Greek. But with the different alphabet it’s really hard. We seem to be making up words all the time. I can really identify with the phrase, “It’s Greek to Me.”
We have a general plan figured out for our time on Crete. So we’ll see how closely we follow it.
The next morning is when I woke up to my first earthquake at 6:30am. It was near the island of Rhodes and was 6.3. Being from a non-earthquake area, we weren’t exactly sure what to do. But it only lasted about 20 seconds. We actually stuck to our Crete plan for the rest of the week. More on that in another post…
The photo is a picture of my view as I wrote this. But this one is in the daylight.
