As I layed down in bed last night I thought about how many people get a chance to visit both "sides of the coin" in their life. I mean, back in 1999 we had thought that Australia and Greece were an either or propositions. One or the other, but certainly not both. And yet, we got to do both. How blessed can you be?

"So there must be some downside to Greece" you must be thinking, "Please give me some reason to NOT want to go there." Well here it is.

Steps.

From the road that the cab drops you off on to Manos Apartments is 65 steps, and we are near the top of the hill. Many places to stay are located another 17 step down from Manos. One such place was called Agasi House. This place looked really cool. As a matter of fact they have one suite that has its own private pool and it is at the very edge of "inhabitable" zone. In other words, you go one more step, and you are tumbling down the cliff into the Aegean. The front door of the "pool suite" is another 61 steps down from the front of Agasi House and that door is one flight of stairs above the suite, you enter and walk down a flight into your room. At that point you are about 150 steps from the road and most of these are very uneven.

The steps of Firostefani

The other downside of Greece, high cost of internet access. But face it, most people don't care about that. It was 6 Euro per hour at the access point we went to, we didn't bother shopping around, maybe we could have found cheaper, who knows.

Our room on the other hand was really nice. When we arrived the table was set with blue and white china and the little kitchen is adequatly equiped with some pots and pans and just enough to cook a few meals if you were so inclined. It could use a decorators touch but, it's not like you are going to live here or anything. (Although after you watch few sunsets, you may change your mind.)

Traditional Cave Dwelling - only windows and door at one end.

The bathroom was a bit weird. No real shower, just what I would call a "shower zone". An inset in the floor of about an inch with a drain and a fixture on the wall, no curtain or door. A bit strange but these are billed as "traditional cave homes". Whatever.

The "shower zone".

A word about the color blue in Greece. You tend to become a connosuer of the color blue when you come to Greece, you certainly see a bunch of shades of it. People who know me that I am a real advocate for minimizing the influence that city, county, state or any other form of government or organization has on a persons desire to build what they want and paint it what ever color they want as long as they do it on their own land. However, if there were a place that I would relax that view point, it would be here. You see a lot of blues in Greece and some of the shades work, some, just look like a mistake. Then, take the example of Kafiera Apartments right near Thanos' place, they just use WAY to much blue. Thanos seemed to have it dialed in though. We really appreciated the color amount of blue trim he had on his building.

Thanos uses the right blue.

When it came time to check out I walked into Thanos' office, which was right next to our room, and told him that I had to pay him. We settled our 5 day bill and it came to 450 Euro, a little less then $550 US and then I asked him about the scooter. When I had returned the scooter that we had rented on Sunday the scooter guy said, "you pay your hotel for that".

I must say, that concerned me a bit, sounded a bit shady if you know what I mean. After all, in an attempt to NOT get ripped off I told Thanos that I had asked around and I knew I could get a scooter for 25 Euro for a 24 hour period and didn't want to pay more. After making his call he told me that it was only 25 Euro, which could have meant, "I know a guy who rents them for 20 Euro so I can make an easy 5 Euro, I'll just tell my friend that I'll pay for the scooter."

As it turned out, when I asked Thanos about the scooter charge he said, again in his very broken English, "is OK, I pay, not to worrry, from me."

I was amazed. You think that in a tourist area like this everything is about "how much of this guys money can I take from him, either legally or illegally", and yet, Thanos just gave us 25 Euro! What a pleasant surprise. And believe me the 25 Euro ($30.25 US) was not the issue, it was just so nice not to feel like you were being taken for yet another Euro just to call a stupid cab.

65 steps up from our room, waiting for our cab.

Thanos had arranged for a cab down to the port. I was a bit concerned by this, I always have an aversion to cabs because they can drive in circles if they want to and most of the time you won't know.

As a matter of fact, one time when I was in Vegas working I got in a cab and told him I wanted to go to my hotel. I could SEE my hotel, I mean, I'm not to total moron. So, at the end of the block he turns left instead of right. Immediately I lean forward and say, "hey, where are you going?" He had taken me for just another convention flunky and thought he could take me for a ride down the strip. He muttered something intelligable and I DEMANDED he turn the cab around at the next intersection, all the while yelling at him. When we pulled up to my hotel I saw the meter on his cab said 8 Dollars and I handed him a 10 and asked for my change. He had the NERVE to say, "hey, what about my tip?", to which I responded, "Oh, you want a tip? Next time don't drive in circles!" and got out of his cab.

This trip was different. It was a much longer ride then we had taken when we arrived at the airport on our first night on Santorini. That cab fare had been 12 Euros. This ride to the dock was only 14 Euros.

Oh... and this guy, I gladly tipped him.

Beth, always photo hunting.

In an attempt to sample as many forms of transportation as possible we had decided to try the high speed ferry on the way back to Athens. I just saw it as another chance to ride on a boat. I think Beth thought it was another potential danger zone for motion sickness. What ever you want to call it, it WAS cool.

This thing was about 300 feet long and it was a catamaran. When it backed in at the dock it had a really elaborate ramp that articulated down to meet the dock. The ramp was about 30 feet wide, you could safely get two lanes of traffic and a stream of pedestrians down at the same time.

The vodofone "Highspeed 1"

An amazing ramp unfolds off the back and off comes the passengers, and cars.

We finally planned ahead with snacks.

While at sea, this thing seemed to move right along. It was powered by 4 huge Catapillar turbines that powered two huge jet drives. The rooster tail, if you will, had to be about 10 feet tall off the water and the foamy white wake it left behind had to be a least a half mile long. It moved so fast that there are decks on the sides of the vessal that they don't allow you on when they are at sea. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing like taking an airplane but it had to be doing at least 40 miles an hour, and at sea, that's pretty fast.

This thing has 4 huge Catapillar engines and really kicks up a wake.

Arriving in Athens was such a let down. Similar to the experience of arriving in Florence after the peacefulness of Venice on Day 20. Basically you are just in a dirty loud city. We talked about how Ashley and Lauren had told us that they wanted to go to Greece but probably could only go to Athens. How sad is that? It would be like someone dropping you off on a bus in downtown San Francisco and saying, "Welcome to California, hope you like it."

Waiting to enter port in Greece.

We negotiated a cab ride, which took a while.

Greek cab drivers treat their cabs like private taxis. On the first night on Santorini when we got off the plane and grabed the first cab as we climbed in we couldn't help but notice that there was some girl already in the back seat. I thought it was the guys girlfriend or maybe his daughter. It turned out that on the way up the hill, he dropped her off at some club and she reached forward and handed the guy at least 10 Euro, I recognized the blue bill.

Similarly, this morning on our way to the boat dock the cab driver detoured thru a taxi stand and was yelling in Greek to everyone as he trolled by. I assume he was saying, "is anyone going to the boat dock?"

Well, sure enough the first cab we found wanted to pull the same stunt. I had had it and didn't want to let another cab driver double dip on me so I refused and we took our bags out of the trunk and found another one. Where as the first cab driver told us 15 Euro to our hotel, the second guy said, 10 to 12 Euro. Before you think that sounds like a bargin, I'm pretty sure the meter said 7.90 Euro as we were climbing out and when I asked him how much he said, "12 Euro". Oh well, at least it wasn't 15.

As I'm paying the cab driver Beth is dealing with the bellman. When I walk up to her she says, "Look at his name tag!". No way, what a small world... or at least, what a popular name.

Our bellman, check his name badge.

After checking in we went to the roof of the hotel for dinner. It was as if they built this hotel in this location because of the view of the Acropolis. We didn't have the right lens but the view during the pre sunset hour was really amazing.

You can just make out the Acropollis behind Beth.

While we were eating we saw these two ladies walk out of the elevator and one of them had a Canon Digital Rebel with a long lens on it. She was looking around as if she were looking for the Acropolis, (the place was advertised as having the view). I looked over at her and said, "It's over there" and pointed toward the view she was obviously looking for. She smiled and said thank you.

After they returned from taking the photo they were looking for we had a nice chat with them. Turned out they were from Ben Lomand, in the Santa Cruz mountains and one of the ladies grew up in San Mateo. It was their first time to Europe and were going to be on one of those cruise ships that we saw everyday from the cliffs of Firostefani. They would end their cruise in Venice and it was fun to be able to share some of our thoughts and pointers. Here we were at the end of what was really a HUGE event for us but we were sounding like old hands. I think they appreciated the input we had given them.

The cruise ship ladies.

We had thought about taking a cab out to see the Acropolis after dark but considering my cab-phobia, we decided to call it a night and headed to the room. We had a lot of travel planned for the next day.