As usual, Kuniko had a busy schedule last weekend. She had to work on Saturday during her school’s culture festival, and then she had a club event on Sunday that she couldn’t get out of. As a double bonus she has also caught a cold, so she’s not doing so hot these days.

As for me, I had plenty of free time this weekend to try to make Mai Tai’s, read books, and sit on the beach. I’m glad I have all the free time on my weekends, and I’m trying to take advantage of it!

This week at work I’ll be wrapping up the last classes for the previous term, and starting from Tuesday I’ll begin teaching new students. I always look forward to meeting new students – especially hearing about their backgrounds and what they do professionally.

Should be a fun week at work!

This week has been a little odd. First, it is only four days long, because of the national holiday we enjoyed on Monday. Secondly, I’m using this week as a kind of equalizer to wrap up all my classes with students having about the same number of class-hours. This means some days have a few classes, some days have only one or two classes. Today I only have an orientation. This is good for me, since I can start planning for next term, but it is weird to have so much freedom.

Last night Kuniko had a party, so I spent the evening eating leftovers and playing GTA. The game is huge. I’m sure it’ll take at least a year to play it through. This weekend Kuniko has to work both days, so if there is a chance I’ll play some more. I’m also hoping to get some hiking in.

Japan has come a long way since I first arrived ten years ago. Things like imported food, the iPhone, American wine, Costco, even large shirt sizes are now easily available to make my life better.

Unfortunately there is one thing that still hasn’t made it to Japan – deodorant. Every time I go to the US I stock up on the Sure deodorant – sometimes up to 20 sticks. I can live with the weird looks at the register to keep my underarms dry during these brutal Japanese summers.

The bad news is that it looks like my stockpile is running low. The good news is that it seems like summer is pretty much over, so maybe it won’t be a problem to go light on the deodorant until we head out to the USA in December.

Fingers (and arms) are crossed.

It was a long, relaxing weekend. Friday night kicked it off with dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant with Yoshi and his family.

It was their first time at Mikaen, and I think they liked it. We ordered all kinds of food – especially the spicy stuff. It was good to see Yoshi’s son Akira. He is getting pretty tall and he still eats a lot. We spent most of our time talking about our recent travels. Yoshi had gone to France and England on a solo journey, and Mamiko had gone back to Taiwan to take in the entertainment culture there. We are considering a short trip to Taiwan in the future, so we’ll be sure to ask her for advice.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. We spent time watching movies, organizing our pantry (which is a big job), doing laundry, hiking to Akashi, and we even squeezed in a trip to Swaad for yummy Indian food.

This week should be odd. It’s only a four day work week, and I have an unusual schedule with some classes and some holes. I need to concentrate on wrapping up the previous term, and starting to plan the next term. This week I’ll hold an orientation for new one-on-one students, and their course will start next week. I’m looking forward to meeting my new students!

Tuesday night after work I downloaded the latest open world game to suck up all my time – Grand Theft Auto 5. I played Skyrim for almost a year solid, but since then there hasn’t been any big open world games worth playing.

My first impression is that there is plenty to see and do in the game, and it looks like it’ll keep me busy for a long time. The last few nights Kuniko has gotten home pretty late, so it is a perfect way to wile away the time until she gets back.

Luckily there is a 3-day weekend coming up, so I can get some more playing time in.

Back in the real world, the weather is cooling down enough so that hiking is back on the weekend agenda. We’re thinking about a short hike around Suma. Also, we’re meeting up with Yoshi and family tomorrow at our favorite Chinese restaurant. It should be a pretty good weekend!

Saturday night we had the Tojos over for dinner.  It started a little on the late side, but since they live just down the street we don’t have to worry about last trains or anything like that.

TJ and his wife brought over a bottle of wine they bought in Florence, and also they gave us a beautiful souvenir – a handcrafted glass wine stopper from Venice.  We gave them some olives from Greece and some Turkish delight from Istanbul, but I think we made out better in the souvenir department.

Dinner turned out to be a big success.  I loved the montadillos and Kuniko made little tartlets, and tons of other finger foods to enjoy while we talked about our trips and other news.  TJ likes to talk about the company and his projects, but I don’t really have a lot of interest in talking shop, especially in front of two people who don’t really know anything about what is going on at our work.

We ended up drinking quite a lot, which is a surprise to pretty much nobody.  It was a great time, and I think we ended up sending them packing after 1 am.

The next day we could sleep in late, and we took advantage of it.  The weather was getting progressively worse as the morning wore on, and we realized that there was a typhoon on its way.  Luckily, the bulk of the typhoon passed to the south of us, but we had a full day of rain on Sunday.  We spent the day curled up on the sofa watching movies and working on the leftovers from the party.  It was a restful day, and something we both needed.

All through the night the wind howled and the rain smacked against every window of our house.  I was sorry to see that it was still raining cats and dogs when I woke up the next morning at 4:30 am.  Kuniko was nice enough to drive me to the Okubo station on her day off, which helped me keep my socks dry.

I waited at the station for the first train, scheduled at 5:30 am.  Believe it or not, the first train didn’t leave until about 10 am.  I didn’t wait around until then, though.  I bumped into a former student who was waiting just like I was, and together we devised a plot to get to the Sanyo train line, and take alternate transportation to work.  It still took a long time, and I ended up arriving late to work for the first time in my life.  Luckily I wasn’t the only one – two of my students were gone for the whole morning and they missed my class.  Still, it is amazing the havoc that a typhoon can create.  Some of the images of the flooding in Kyoto and Shiga were pretty shocking – it was a wet one.

When I left at the end of the day the typhoon had passed on, and it was just sunshine and blue skies.  Hard to believe anything happened at all!  Kuniko had made up a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs and some potent garlic bread to go with a green salad.  Yum!  I’ve got to admit it is nice to come home to a hot meal now and then.

Tomorrow after work we’re going to make our first Costco run in several months.  Time to stock up on wine, beer, cheese, and other supplies to keep us in business through my birthday.   I’m hoping they have some goodies to buy for our dinner tomorrow night.  We’re going to come home exhausted, and maybe cook a few items for the upcoming pinxtos party.

I’m sure we’re both going to sleep well on Sunday.  I think Kuniko may not get out of bed, actually.

I’ve been on the same pattern at work for the past three years.  I teach six month terms – the first term runs from April through September, and it is comprised of only one-on-one classes.  The next term begins in October, and it has some classes for new employees in a group format, and the rest of my time is filled out with one-on-one classes.  Since I’ve been following the format for so long, I kind of figured that it would stay that way.  As usual, just when you expect things to be the same, something changes.

As I mentioned before, I heard that they were considering other formats for the class, and suddenly all the balls are in the air.   I heard that perhaps next week we’ll find out where the balls landed and what exactly I’ll be teaching in two weeks’ time.   I made some suggestions recently, and here’s hoping that they pan out!

Kuniko is running on fumes these days.  She had to work last weekend, and she’s been exceptionally busy at work recently.  Often she returns around 10 pm, and then it is a quick dinner, a quick recap of her day, and then we have to head to bed to catch what sleep we can before our alarm goes off at 4:30 am the next day.  Luckily she’s got a three day weekend coming up…

We’re planning to host a very small party at our place this Saturday night.  We want to spend some time with the Tojo’s.  They went to Italy in July, and we want to hear all about their trip.  Apparently they brought back a bottle of wine to share with us.

In return, Kuniko wants to make pinxtos and tapas for that night.  I can’t wait to see how it goes over – Japanese people aren’t really used to finger food, but the Tojos seem like they won’t mind.  Kuniko is looking through recipe books, checking the internet, and looking through the hundreds of pictures that we took during our trip.

I’m glad being a shutterbug is finally paying off.

As of last week, I finished up blogging our trip, organized all the photos, finished unpacking, delivering omiyage, getting over a cold, and cleaned up the house.  Now it is time to get back to what people call ‘reality’.

Luckily the summer weather pretty much wilted away when we returned from Europe, and I have been enjoying life without an air conditioner.  We have been sleeping soundly, and it reminds me how hard it is going to be getting out of bed once winter rolls around.

This month we have a few events on our social calendar, and Kuniko is excited to try making some tapas that we discovered during our trip.  Our first test will be this Saturday.  Hopefully she’ll have enough time to make some – she has returned to work with a vengeance.

As for my work, I’ll wrap up the term at the end of this month.  Normally I’d start a new group lesson with the new employees, but some recent events have called that plan into question.  It’s just a few weeks before the next term, and there is talk of changing up our process and system for teaching at the company.  I am only getting this info second-hand, however.  My guess is that I’ll get more information in the next week or so.  That’s cool – I’m flexible.

Well, we’re back from our trip and we had a great time!  I’m working as fast as I can to blog the experience and I’ll try to post one day at a time.  I’m also working through 1500 pictures, so it might take a while.  For now you can see the pictures from Turkey in the usual place.

Look for new posts below this space!

I woke up in the morning from perhaps the best sleep I have ever had.  The kind of deep, rich sleep that you experience only on holiday.  Where it is possible to get up, but you don’t really have to.  It was pretty hard to roll out of bed, but we managed to do it, and go downstairs have a light breakfast in the hotel dining room.  The hotel had an interesting feeling.  It was an older building but not old – maybe a popular destination in the 50s and 60s.  The decorations were a little dated, there were little cracks in the cement here and there, but it was absolutely clean and the service was top notch.  I couldn’t explain it – a little bit of a lonely feeling, but also comfortable.  We certainly couldn’t complain about the location – soon we were walking up to the entrance of the Acropolis area.  We were there right at opening time, and there were already some tour groups assembling.  A tour group went in first ahead of us – about 50 people, and then we went in next.  Other tours were still getting organized down the hill, so it was just us and the tour ahead of us.  They stopped soon after entering so the guide could explain something, so we jetted past them and we were officially the first (and only) people on the Acropolis.  Good morning, Parthenon!

I’ve always wanted to see the real deal, especially after working at Glen Ellen and Benziger wineries for so long.  At the top the sun was just coming up, and it illuminated the structures in a pretty dramatic way.  I went crazy with the camera, and I didn’t have to worry about waiting for tourists to move out of the way.  It was a good way to experience that area.  I finally stopped taking pictures and instead just kind of breathed it all in.  The hillside had a beautiful panoramic view of all of Athens – the Greeks who built the Parthenon had picked a great location.  Up there we also bumped into a lot of cats who had made homes among the ruins.  So cute!  As we left there was a flag-raising ceremony attended by some Greek soldiers.  I guess it is a daily event, but I think we were the only ones to observe it that day.

Our next stop was to journey across town to see the NationalArchaeologicalMuseum.  We decided again to walk it instead of taking the subway, and again it was a good idea.  The streets and neighborhoods were a little dirty, a little old, and full of flavor.  I stopped now and then in shoe stores but still, no luck.  We walked by huge street market filled with vendors who looked like they had never seen a tourist.  I took pictures of graffiti and we both stood outside bakeries and oohed and ahhed at all the delicious breads.  I bought a Fanta flavor that was apparently an Orangina rip off, but it was refreshing.

Finally, we made it to the museum, and after an initial wrong turn we found the entrance and went inside.  The museum was much more interesting than I expected.  There are way too many museums in Athens, and we decided to try to narrow it down to one visit. I’m glad we picked this one.  It was quite large.  We walked through several wings, each divided into different periods of Greek history.  We couldn’t cover all of it, but it was very entertaining, and really a beautiful collection.  It made me want to re-watch the movie ‘Clash of the Titans’.

After a quick toilet break (no seats!) we walked all the way back to our hotel, and had lunch at a small café nearby.  Fried cheese, souvlaki, meatballs, and some ice cold Mythos beer.  Again, sitting in the café spacing out was one of our primary activities.   We wrapped things up at the café, and went back to the hotel where Kuniko did an excellent job packing our suitcase for the last time.  Our secret was that our suitcase contained an empty duffel bag, so we put all our smelly dirty clothes in there, and used the suitcase to protect our souvenirs and other valuables.

We cleaned ourselves up, and then went downstairs to check out.  Our stay in Athens was over, and even though we had less time here than we had originally planned, I think we both felt like it was the right amount.

The taxi ride to the airport was pretty long, nearly 40 minutes.  It was a flat rate, since it was arranged by the hotel they probably got a kick-back for setting it up.  Once we left downtown Athens the scenery really changed – it was much cleaner, and I think we were traveling through the high rent district.  We passed the US embassy among others, and there was a dramatic drop-off in the amount of graffiti.  At the airport we had to kill about four hours, so we did that by patronizing a bar and drinking plenty of white wine.  Once you kill 12 hours doing nothing, 4 hours is a piece of cake.

When we finally checked in there were all kinds of problems in the line.  A guy in our line had eight or nine big heavy cardboard boxes that we wanted to ship as luggage, and that took forever to process. There was a big Chinese tour group checking in, and they were loud and pushy, and littering everywhere.  A little kid from the group apparently had to go to the bathroom, but his mother didn’t want to leave the line, so she sent him over to piss in the wastepaper basket near the desk.  American tourists – maybe I was being too rough on you earlier.

Finally we got through the security gates, did some final souvenir shopping at duty-free, and made it on our plane.  It was a short hop to Istanbul, but apparently there was some kind of problem at the Istanbul airport.  Our plane took forever to taxi in, and then we took a bus ride all the way to the terminal, went through security, and then took another bus ride to our connecting flight to Osaka.  We barely made it – and I was sure at that point that we’d never see our luggage again.  But remarkably, they made it through this leg just fine.

The flight was very smooth to Osaka, and we breezed through immigration and customs, caught a bus right away to Sannomiya, caught the next train to Nishi Akashi, and we were sipping sparkling wine and eating cheese and crackers right after we arrived.

This trip was definitely the longest and most ambitious yet.  Every day was fun, and we could only laugh at the few problems that we had run into.  At some points it felt like we took three separate trips back to back – it didn’t feel like one cohesive journey at all.  Maybe because we used airplanes so often.  It was a great trip for both of us, and the last long journey for a while.  I can’t wait to start planning the next one.

The shower was probably the second best shower I have ever taken in my life.  I stayed in there and really enjoyed the hot water and soap.  I’m sure it wouldn’t have been nearly as good an experience if this whole travel disaster hadn’t happened.  After we were both showered and changed into clean clothes, we decided to hit the town and see the immediate neighborhood.  We were tired from the overnighter, but more excited to be in a new city.

We knew from the beginning of the trip that Athens would probably be the hottest city that we would visit, but actually it wasn’t much different from everywhere else we were.  As usual, as long as we walked in the shade it was very comfortable.  We started off by walking around the Acropolis hill, which was just a block from our hotel.  Kuniko had selected well, and the location turned out to be perfect for sightseeing.  We figured that tomorrow we’d do some serious sightseeing, so today we’d just get the lay of the land.  There were already hordes of tour buses parked in the nearby parking lot, and tours were lined up to go up to the top of the hill and see the Parthenon.

One place that didn’t seem to be so busy was the Ancient Agora, the ruins of a some famous temples and public buildings.  We bought a ticket book there that allowed us entry into the other famous sightseeing places that was good for four days, so we were all set for the next day of adventures.  Ancient Agora was just what I had expected when visiting Athens – pillars, columns, statues of Greek gods, and temples.  It was nice to walk around, and there was this terrific sense of freedom without having to worry about our suitcase.

From there we walked back towards our hotel.  Along the way we frequently saw some tourist “trains” – small tourist trams full of tourists who didn’t want to walk.  The train was decorated like something out of Traintown USA, and I thought it would be a little hard on my dignity to end up on one of those.  But we saw them all over the place during our stay, and most of them were full.

We stopped at a small café for some cold beer and a snack (a vegetarian Greek sandwich) and also tried to find a supermarket to do some shopping for later.  Unfortunately we couldn’t find the supermarket, but we did get a good look at the streets outside of the main tourist areas.  The parts we saw looked a little depressed, and I was struck by how much graffiti there was.  On our taxi ride into town we noticed an unusually high ratio of sex shops, and I guess all of these things point to some economic problems.  We always felt safe when we walked around Athens, though.  Right now tourists are their most precious commodity.

Back at the hotel we took a two hour nap.  We could have slept a lot more, but we set the alarm and got ourselves out of bed.  The bed felt like the most comfortable bed ever, and it was a big challenge to get out of it.  We managed to escape its siren call, and headed back out to another shopping district to take a crack at finding me some business shoes.  My shoes back in Japan were about ready to die, and I have only one emergency pair left in reserve.  Unfortunately we couldn’t find any shoes that fit, and it seemed like the ones that they were selling would fall apart in a few days.  We also were finally able to find a supermarket (we asked two Greek policemen carrying assault rifles) and we could do a little shopping there.

For dinner we stopped at a restaurant that was advertised all over Athens, the “Smile Café”.  Despite the cheesy name they served some excellent gyros.  It was Kuniko’s first gyro in a restaurant, and I think she really enjoyed it.  We got so caught up in the meal that when we left we forgot our groceries, but the server chased us down and gave it back to us.  Maybe a bit of the exhaustion creeping in…

In the evening we did a lot of souvenir shopping, as our vacation was kind of drawing to a close.  There were plenty of tourist shops near our hotel, and we found everything we needed and more fairly quickly.

Lastly, around the corner from our hotel was a wine bar, and so we thought we’d drop in for a glass of wine before bed.  We found out that the place had just opened a few weeks ago, and they served only Greek wines.  Since we had been so impressed with the wines on Santorini, we decided to opt for their tasting.  We each paid 12 euros, and the staff served us a flight of six wines.  They poured heavy, and they also served a generous plate of meat, cheese and breads.  It was a really good deal.

We explained that we had just come from Santorini, and asked for a survey of some of the other regions of Greece, and the server did a great job of introducing some of Greece’s best offerings.  I had no idea that Greek wines had progressed so much.  Each wine we tried was very well made, and two wines (a red and a white) stood out as something I would want to cellar and drink in the future.

After six glasses of wine each, it was definitely time to wrap up the day.  We walked by the Acropolis hill on the way home and admired the Parthenon illuminated at night.  Around the area were street performers, students and tourists, and street vendors in kind of a festival-type mood.  The neighborhood was starting to wake up and come alive, but we were pretty much going the other direction.

Warning – this one is a very long (and possibly depressing) post.  Plan your reading accordingly!

On paper, it seemed like an easy enough day.  We’d sleep in until 9 am, catch a taxi from the hotel in time to catch our short domestic flight to Athens at 11:20.  The first sign of trouble occurred at about 8:30 am.  I was up a little earlier while Kuniko was still sleeping, and suddenly our power went out.  The sun was already out, so it didn’t really make much of a difference, and there was still plenty of hot water.  I thought it was curious, but since we were leaving soon I didn’t think much more about it.  We brought our suitcase upstairs to reception and I found out that our room was not the only place without power – apparently the whole island was blacked out.  But I figured that it was part of being on a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea.

We handed over our credit card to pay for our room, and the hotel owner told us that since the power was out they couldn’t run our card.  Instead he brought out an old machine that made an impression of the credit card on carbon paper.  It was clear that he hadn’t used it for more than twenty years, and it was an absolute comedy of errors to watch the old guy trying every orientation of the card and the carbon paper.  My card info was always in the wrong place, or backwards, or upside down.  As he struggled I thought through the possible combinations – four different orientations of the card, four for the carbon paper, plus the front side and back side… how many more times, do you think?  Luckily the pressure of the arriving taxi sped things up, and when we left he at least had written down my credit card numbers and expiration date, so one way or another he’d get paid.

Our taxi driver made lots of stops on the way to the airport to pick up other people (and pad his income) so by the time we arrived it was just an hour to go until our flight.  Once we got out of the taxi, we realized that we were in big trouble.  It was clear that the power outage was happening here, too, and there were hundreds of people lined up in two or three big lines outside the tiny airport.  There were no staff outside directing traffic, and no signs explaining where to line up.  I peeked inside and could understand that at least we needed to be lined up on the left side, but it looked like we were in for a long wait.

Later I realized that this is where we made our big mistake.  At that point we should have walked past all those people, found a ticket sales agent (instead of a check-in clerk) and probably they would have let us cut through all the mess.  But we didn’t – we waited in line like good customers.  The flight screens did have power, and I guess the airport had power for some systems, but our flight was listed but showed no status.  As we got close to the front I realized that the check-in signs didn’t show our flight anymore, so I left Kuniko in line and made the trip up to the Aegean ticket agent to ask what was going on.  She looked at me with surprise and said that our flight had already left.

What?  I looked at the time, and sure enough, it was 11:10 am.  They had taken off without us.  The agent said that they had been walking up and down the airport making announcements and trying to find us, but we had been there and either we didn’t notice or she was telling stories.  Anyway, we had missed our flight, so the agent started looking into other options.  Unfortunately there were no good ones.

Later that evening Aegean had another flight, at around 8 pm, but it was sold out.  We could try to get on stand-by for the flight, but we’d have to wait at the airport all day and maybe not even get on the plane.  We could try another airline, Olympus Airlines, but it turned out that their flights were sold out as well.  The next day there was only one flight out, and that was sold out as well.  Ugh.

I told the agent that I would look into other options at Olympus, and went to give Kuniko the bad news.  She was as shocked as I was – angry at the agent, and frustrated at the airport.  I didn’t blame her.  So we got out of line, set up on a bench, and plotted our next move.  It looked like if we were flying out it wouldn’t be for another day at the earliest, which meant we’d have to find some lodging at a hotel during high season.  I also knew that there was a port on the island, and so we considered whether it would be worth it to find a ship leaving today instead of a plane.  We went back to the agent, and she called the port and said there was a high speed ship leaving in 30 minutes with some space available, and if we hurried we might make it.  We rushed outside to get a ride to the port, wherever that was, but there was no transportation available and a huge taxi line.  Only 38 taxis on Santorini, you know.  When we went back inside to ask the ticket agent about another ship, she had pulled down the shutters and gone on break.  Smart lady.

It was pretty clear we weren’t going to make the next ship departure, but we decided that the airport was not going to work for us, at least today.  We made a stop at the ATM for some cash (this turned out to be a life-saver) and then got in line for a cab to take us to the port.  After waiting for a while we made it to the front of the line, and the guy working the taxi line was grouping together passengers into areas of the island to use the available taxis more efficiently.  We were assigned a taxi with two young women from Italy who were going to their hotel.  Their luggage completely filled the trunk of the taxi, so our suitcase was tied to the roof.  As we raced up and down the hillsides above the ocean, I could only envision our black suitcase tumbling over and over through the air towards the beautiful blue sea.  Our day was going like that, and I figured it was only a matter of time until the next disaster.

We talked a little with the women from Italy, and they said that they had heard that the power outage was all over Greece.  Apparently sometimes Greece doesn’t pay for the energy it imports from other countries, so the countries cut their power to try to induce them to pay.  What a mess!

First we dropped off the Italians at their place, and they wished us good luck.  Then we took a long, curving road from the top of the eastern side of the island all the way down to the area with the port.  As we arrived there were two huge ships in the harbor, with loads of people streaming off.  It seemed like we might have a chance to catch a ride from here after all, but our visit to the ticket office quickly dashed our hopes.  The next available ship to Athens was leaving that night at 1:30 in the morning.  It was a six hour voyage arriving in Athens tomorrow at 8 am.  That was it – nothing else available that day.  We didn’t really have any better options, so we went ahead and bought the tickets (which were quite cheap) and then found a café with internet to see how to kill the next twelve hours.

The port area was actually more active and lively than the airport.  There seemed to be a lot more foot traffic with people coming off the boats, and plenty of open-air restaurants and tourist shops nearby to arrange expeditions and such on the island.  The café we chose had some customers but it wasn’t overly busy, and we ordered some beers and some snacks and set up shop.

Our mental state at the time was not so great.  The biggest issue was that we had mentally finished with Santorini last night, and now it looked like we were going to have to stick around.  There was nothing else that we wanted to do here – we just wanted to leave.  But leaving was something that we couldn’t hurry up, no matter how much money we threw at the problem.  It kind of felt like we had lost control of our holiday – which is a feeling that we weren’t really used to.  In addition we were weighed down by our suitcase.  Anywhere we went we’d have to take it along or worry about it, and there was nobody around that we trusted to watch it for us.  The longer we stayed at the café, the more I worried that they’d be pressuring us to keep ordering or leave.  We sat and thought about our options, and while we watched the ships came and left port with passengers who had bought tickets before us, and soon the port was pretty empty.  It got lonely quickly, but the café staff didn’t seem to mind us sitting around nursing beers and staring at the ocean.

So with nothing to do but wait, we started waiting.  Twelve hours is a long time to sit around.  Kuniko played Sudoku.  I read books or surfed the web.  We both stared out at the ocean and watched ships sail by in the distance.  We ate and drank now and then.  Sometimes one of us would walk up and down the port side, while the other watched the luggage and held our seats.  The walk from one side of the port to the other took about two minutes, so it was a very short break.  We watched other customers and staff in the restaurant.  I gave each one a name in my head and tried to imagine their history.  How did they end up here?  How did we?  Being stranded on an island does wonders for your philosophical side.

After three hours or so of sitting around I was really worried that the staff would kick us out, but they seemed totally oblivious.  They were sitting around waiting for ships to come in, and if we ordered a beer once every couple of hours it was OK by them.  As long as nobody was sleeping we didn’t have any problems. The power seemed to be on here, but I wasn’t sure exactly when it had come back.  Small ships came in from the big cruise ship offshore, shuttling tourists who boarded a fleet of full size tour buses to take them off to the villages around the island.  We watched the tour guides eating a quick lunch before joining their groups onboard.

After five hours of sitting there the late afternoon sun started to slant across the front of the café, and the sunlight started to hit our table and legs.  It was surprisingly hot once the sun started shining on us, and we relocated to another table at the back of the restaurant, along with some other customers.  It was discouraging to hear that all the other customers were waiting for an 8 pm boat, and even after that boat arrived we’d still have to wait another five hours.  Often the boats arrived later than expected, so I was thinking that our departure could be even later than 1:30 am.  Ugh.

At seven hours I was officially sick of sitting around at this restaurant.  We decided to pay the bill and move on.  It was a good decision if only for the change in scenery.  We walked around a while to stretch our legs, and then found another restaurant very close to the departure area that was about half full.  I was thrilled that there were new faces to watch, new staff to name, and we celebrated by eating dinner there.  I had a cheeseburger, Kuniko had risotto that was actually just rice, and we had some water to try to balance all the beer from the afternoon.

Soon the 8 pm ship came in, the customers all disappeared, and we were the only people left.  It was a very lonely feeling.  All the shops were empty, and some of the shops were closing.  The guy running our restaurant said that he was staying open until our ship came in, so we were welcome to sit around, and he also said we didn’t need to order anything.  We thanked him by ordering some Greek frozen yogurt, but otherwise we just held the spot for the next four hours.  The sun went down.  Some stray dogs ran back and forth.  If there was tumbleweed on the island it would have blown by right then.

Kuniko and I tried to maintain our sanity by playing word games, doing quizzes, practicing using English and Japanese and English again.  At nearly midnight, we saw some people slowly start to appear.  From our position we could see every time a car’s headlights came down the long winding road.  Friends of the shop owner came by with a sleepy kid and they put him to sleep on a bench near us.  Still we sat and waited and waited.

Finally around 1 am we decided to move into the departure area.  The departure area was inside a long room that was air conditioned at full power, so before long we were pretty cold.  Kuniko and I hadn’t dressed for a cold evening – but I had a long sleeve dress shirt in our suitcase that I lent to Kuniko.  I made do with shorts and T-shirt.  It was still summer, after all.

At 1:30 am there were a lot more people walking around, and they started to crowd into the departure area.  Late at night people were tired, stressed, and not in a good mood.  Combine that with close quarters and the stress of trying to get a seat once we entered the boat – some bad situations were bound to occur.  There was a crazy lady that thought everyone was cutting in front of her, and kept pushing people ahead of her.  Some people had crying babies, some had barking dogs.  Some stray dogs were interested in the domesticated dogs, and it got a little dicey for a while.  Then the ship came in.

In front of the passengers was a big parking lot, and the lot was full of trucks and cars waiting to drive on to the ferry.  By now the passengers had made a huge crowd inside the freezing building, and they opened just one door at the end to let people through.  They weren’t checking tickets at all, just metering people in to make sure there wasn’t a mad rush.  Once we made it through the gate, passengers with luggage had to store it below decks, and others could go inside and find seats.  We split up here, and I brought the suitcase to an area where the crew directed.  I locked up the suitcase just in case, but there really wasn’t anything more exciting than dirty underwear.  Everyone was hurrying to get done as quickly as possible, because they wanted to get a comfortable place to sleep during the overnight trip.  Pressure, pressure!

When I went above to the passenger area, I was surprised at the interior.  They had designed the ferry to be much like a floating hotel.  Some private cabins (all reserved previously) were upstairs, and otherwise people tried to sit where they could.  I could tell right away that there weren’t many comfortable places.  Soon, I spotted my wife – Kuniko had grabbed two chairs in hallway leading to the main seating area.  People were starting to fight over the remaining chairs, and if I hadn’t arrived Kuniko might have had to beat some people up to keep my seat.  I’ll never forget the look on her face when I saw her holding those spots.  Worry, relief, determination.  This is the woman I love.

Once we settled into our chairs, we ventured out inside the ship to see if we were missing anything better.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else.  In the main seating area many people had reserved empty seats for themselves so that they could stretch out later, and that had other customers mad enough to shout at the staff to do something.  For a while it seemed like we were on the edge of a riot, but cooler heads finally prevailed.  We were lucky to get our seats, and we set about trying to get as comfortable as possible.

The ferry was huge, and so there was absolutely no sense of motion.  We were in a hallway with no windows, and outside was pitch black anyway, so I think we might have departed soon afterwards, but I wasn’t sure.  There wasn’t anything to do here but continue waiting.  The chairs were better than the floor but certainly not comfortable enough to sleep in.  We took turns drifting off during the night, but I didn’t get much rest.  People walked back and forth through the hallway in front of us, so that kept me entertained for part of the trip.  There was a snack bar where we could buy coffee and a croissant, and that helped pass the time as well.

We drifted in and out of sleep for the next couple of hours, and eventually I figured I should see if I could get to the top of the ship and see what was going on.  I went upstairs, and was surprised to find that the sun was coming up outside.  The view from the ship was just water – I couldn’t see any land anywhere – but I was relieved to confirm that we had indeed been moving the entire time.

Downstairs we woke up with a couple of hot coffees, and after another hour or so the engine noise made a change, and we figured we were getting close.  By chance our position was quite good for disembarking from the ferry, but we still had to stand in line for another hour before they properly docked.  Our suitcase was undisturbed below decks (I had nightmares of it being soaking wet), and we joined everyone else in getting off at the port in Athens.  We made a beeline to the taxi stand, and caught a taxi right away before others could get there.

The taxi driver had no idea where our hotel was, so we gave him the address, and with shaking hands he pulled out an old map and figured things out.  I was a little concerned about the shaking hands, but he turned out to be a decent driver.  After 30 minutes or so we arrived at our hotel.  Back at the port on Santorini we had used the café’s WiFi to send an email to the hotel when we learned we wouldn’t make it that night.  We still had to pay for the night we missed, but the good news was the room was empty and waiting for us even at 9 am.  The clerk was professional and provided us with everything we needed.  Right then, mainly we needed a shower and a nap.

So we went upstairs, entered our hotel room and locked the door, and we could finally decompress.  It was an unexpected journey, but we had finally made it to Athens, and we had only lost a day in the process.  It was time to rest up a bit and then get back to enjoying our holiday.

We slept in again today, and took our time getting up and running.  We started with a walk through town ahead of the tourist crowds, and then eventually found a bar/restaurant with a nice view where we could enjoy a brunch with some cold Greek beers.  The morning sun was heating up quickly, but as long as we could find shade it was very comfortable.

Reading this you might think that there was a lot of open time where we weren’t really doing anything, and that is true.  The views of the ocean were so dramatic that sometimes we’d just sit and stare out over the blue for a long, long time.  Nobody was pushy about moving on or ordering more, so time just kind of slipped by.  We sat at our table for probably an hour or more, but just shared an appetizer and a couple of beers.  Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t, but it was a very comfortable pace.

Our next adventure was to follow the steps down the western face of the mountain to a small fishing harbor.  The steps were long and steep, and it took a long time to get down to the water level.  As we walked down the steps we had to take care to avoid the donkey shit that was lying about.  Going down is no problem, but there are some donkeys that you can hire to climb back up the hill.  We weren’t really planning to ride the donkeys, but as we climbed down the steep steps in the sun I realized that somehow or another we were going to need to get back up them at some point.  I wasn’t really looking forward to climbing all that way in the heat of the afternoon.

When we finally reached the bottom of the steps we found ourselves at the edge of a small cove.  There was a boat landing, two or three restaurants with tables right on the water (you had to be careful), and a path that led around the hillside to the southern face of the island.  Initially we walked along the path, deliberately ignoring a falling rock warning that said nobody should proceed.  We walked a little ways enjoying the clear ocean water and we could see fishing boats tied up just offshore.  After a ways we started to see big boulders that had fallen right on the path, and the it started to look a little treacherous, so we walked back to the cove.  There we decided to sit at one of the tables on the edge of the pier and have a snack.  The staff turned out to be originally from Canada, so ordering was easy.  We had beers and some tomato fritters, which were apparently a local specialty.  I really liked the fritters, and that made us hungry for more.

We asked about fish, and she led us inside the restaurant where we could choose from today’s catch.  We settled on a fish called a ‘scorpion’, since we hadn’t seen that kind of fish before.  They cooked it in a little oil and garlic, and it tasted great.  A local cat came by to see if we were in the mood for sharing, and we did share a little bit.  At one point a restaurant worker threw out some old bread into the water, and after a few minutes the crystal clear water was jumping with tiny fish tearing into the pieces.  There were some very hungry fish in there.

As we wrapped up our lunch we asked the waitress if she could call a taxi for us so we didn’t have to climb up those hot steps.  She agreed, but she couldn’t seem to get through to any taxis by phone.  We waited for about a half hour and she still couldn’t find anyone to answer the phone, so I was starting to think about donkeys.  The waitress was pretty busy with customers on top of trying to get a cab for us, and I was starting to feel bad, so we said thanks anyway, and headed out to the nearest road to see if there were any taxis waiting around for customers.  As I said before, there aren’t many taxis on the island, so you either have to arrange or be very lucky.  There was no taxi waiting, so we asked a guy who worked at another restaurant to call, and he got right through.  After about ten minutes a taxi showed up, and took us up the hill for ten euros.  It was totally worth it – the donkey ride was five euros.

We spent the afternoon in and around the pool, taking naps, and avoiding the direct sun outside.  This was our last full day on Santorini so we wanted to get in the last of our relaxation time, and also to start to prepare for the next city, Athens.  We did some packing in the evening, and then went out in a different direction to a tavern that was a little off the beaten path.  It looked like they didn’t get much tourist business, and the staff were very shy speaking English, but were happy to speak Greek to us.  The table was too short, and I couldn’t fit my legs underneath it, which made it necessary to eat dinner facing 90 degrees away from Kuniko.  However, the food was excellent – the best in Greece so far.  Kuniko had a delicious moussaka, and I had a cheese stuffed hamburg kebab, both of which knocked our socks off.  We should have been eating here the whole time.

We bought a bottle of wine and a lot of olives on the way home, and enjoyed another mini-party on our terrace as the sun went down.  Our third bottle of Santorini wine was delicious, although I thought the bottle we bought from the wine shop the previous day was the best.  The little terrace in front of our villa got a lot of use while we were there, and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip to Santorini.