June 6, Malyvos, Greece

I left Athens on Friday night on the 7 o’clock ferry to Lesvos Island. It is an allnight ferry and you can get a cabin if you want. Me, I go the cheap route and instead of paying out 118 Euro dollars I hand over 20 and take a deck seat. It wasn’t so bad.

The seats are Pullman seats, like on the greyhound bus, but with lot’s more room between them. I actually found them more comfortable than the ones in the business class section of my flight from Frankfurt to Athens.

I was sitting there by myself, in jeans; a T-shirt and my Roots Canada summer fleece when this older Greek guy stops next to the empty seat beside me and starts yammering away. I just look at him blankly for a minute and then smile prettily. He smiles back at me and, in halting English, says “Oh! You don’t understand?”

“Not a word.” I laugh. He chuckles and tells me I look Greek. He sits down and we start to chat. A nice old guy. A carpenter.

I love meeting new people. 🙂

A few hours later I got tired and entered full backpacker mode. I stretched out on the floor, with my backpack as a pillow and went to sleep. I figure if I can sleep on the floor under the escalator of the Singapore Airport why not on the floor of a ferry in Greece?

I arrived on Lesvos Island yesterday morning, still with no clue as to where on the island my hotel was, but knowing it was at least an hours drive form the port. As I was going down the steps of the ferry I saw a woman with a backpack. A big backpack with a tent and sleeping bag strapped to it. I asked her where she was from and she said Australia. We chatted a bit as we got off the ferry only to discover we were going to the same part of the island. So we hopped on the bus and spend the hour and a half-chatting and commenting on the awesome view surrounding us.

She’d been there before, for a yoga retreat, so she was a great person for me to hook up with. She was back again for the same yoga retreat. I also learned that although she was born and raised in Australia, she’d been living in Sri Lanka for the past 10 years. As a volunteer for the Red Cross, and a yoga instructor. We had a fascinating chat about destiny, fate, karma and all that stuff.

I love meeting new people.:cool:

When I reached the hotel. I took me all of five minutes to check in, toss my backpack on the bed, open a bottle of white wine from the mini bar and plant myself, in my bathing suit, on the small private sundeck off my room. I sat there, basking in the sunshine and looking out at the Aegean Sea and thanked the Karma Gods for whatever I had done to get there.

I won’t bore you with details of my early evening walk around the picturesque village but I will tell you a nice looking Greek guy bought me a beer and had it sent to my table that evening as I sat on the hotel patio. Then later on, as I sat at the bar with a couple from Holland, and one of the charming waiters from the hotel restaurant I had a great time flirting with the bartender. When he’d asked how long I was staying at this hotel for and I answered 4 days, he smiled at me and says cockily, “That’s long enough.”

I realize that he thinks he can get me into bed in four days, and the devil inside me tugs at his leash. Is it mean of me to want to take him down a peg or two?

Anyway, the male part of the Dutch couple was getting a kick out of the bartenders flirting. He found it very amusing and he leans over and whispers in my ear, “He is playing a game with you.”

I just smiled back at him and said. “I know, and for now I’m going to let him think he’s winning.”

I love meeting new people. 😛

To be continued…