Day 14, Saturday, July 4, 2015

Happy Birthday, USA! It’s weird not being in the United States for the Fourth of July. I think I’ve missed it for the last two or three years in a row. I met a guy from Italy, briefly, with an American flag tattooed on his bicep. Go figure. Made me feel right at home.

I had my own little mini adventure today. Sadly, I had to leave Naxos; I had really grown to like that place, and loved my location within walking distance to a great beach and to town. But since I could not take the chance the ferries to Athens wouldn’t be canceled due to high winds, which would make me miss my plane to Russia, I took a ferry to Mykonos to stay one night and fly to Athens from there the next day. Some people had told me to avoid Mykonos, and others had said if I had the chance I should check it out at least, just to see the wild scene.

So I took the bus from Avia Ana into the port of Naxos, had souvlaki for lunch, which was really good, and discovered that the ferry was delayed for an hour. When it finally arrived, ¾ of the way to our destination it pulled into a small cove off a deserted island close to Minos. An announcement came on that they were making a repair (sheltered from the big waves, I presume) and would be on our way again in 15 minutes. An hour later we still had not left the cove.

Finally, we were on our way again and, when we docked at Mykonos, to give you an idea of the rocking the ferry was undergoing in the big waves caused by the big wind, if one did not grip the banister tightly on the way down three flights of stairs, one would have been thrown into the banister, then thrown to the other side against the wall, then thrown back to the banister, and so forth. It was pretty wild. In fact, when we got off the ferry, we had to be careful because the waves were crashing over the dock some.

Then I had to find where the Germanos Studios were, in which I was staying. All it had for an address was “School of Art.” I asked if anyone had heard of this place, and someone told me to take a bus to Fabrika. So I found the bus to Fabrika, and when I got off I asked in a coffee shop if anyone had heard of this place, and I got directions to walk up a big hill. Of course I got lost, so I stopped into another hotel and asked. The woman told me it was too far to walk with my heavy pack, so she called them for me, and I had to wait awhile but they picked me up.

Once I dumped my heavy pack, it was now about 5:00 PM, and things hadn’t even gotten started on Mykonos yet. To give you an idea of what this place is like, I saw two T-shirts. One of them said, “Good girls go to heaven; Bad girls go to Mykonos,” the other said, “Save a lollipop, suck a…” [I’ll leave you to guess what, but it rhymes with stick].

Okay, what have I gotten myself into here? So I thought I would grab my beach stuff, even at this late hour, and head to the world-famous Paradise Beach. The bus let me off at Paraga Beach. I inquired. The bus driver said, “No Paradise, Paraga.” I could’ve sworn somebody told me to get onto that particular bus. So I went to the ticket office at Paraga Beach, and I asked, “Is there any way to get to Paradise Beach from here?” She said, “yes you go over this little trail at a blue gate and takes you there”.

Oh. I must say the island of Mykonos is very beautiful, and it must have been a gorgeous place to be before the partiers took it over, such as when the hippies famously discovered it in the 60s.

When I came over the rise and saw Paradise Beach, or, rather, heard it before I got there, I was appalled. It was wall-to-wall lounge chairs and umbrellas. There was barely a place to walk. This was late in the day, so they weren’t many sunbathers and swimmers out, and even then it was the most crowded beach I think I’ve ever been to, and that’s with only a few people on it. Where the people were, and there were many of them, was in the disco bars, and each one seemed to be competing with the other for loudness of music.

So I tried to get as far away from all that is possible, but it was not a long beach; I couldn’t get away from the pounding dance music, every song seemingly the same beat. But I did manage to lie out on the beach and read my book; it seemed too late to go swimming.

I saw an Indian restaurant up on the hill, so I ate dinner and I paid an outrageous amount for a mediocre meal. I decided to leave Paradise as soon as I could.

So I walked back through the party scene—I witnessed two couples practically making love out in the open, and the night had not even started yet. So I walked back over the hill to Paraga, and they said the bus would not be there for another hour, but at Paradise the bus left every half hour. I didn’t know a bus went directly to Paradise. So I walked back over the hill back down to the beach, couldn’t find the bus stop, but two young women were also looking for it and we found it together. But we had just missed this bus, which turned out to be the last bus on the half hour slots, so I still had to wait until 9:30 PM to get the bus back.

I met two friendly young women from Arkansas who were happy to meet another American on the Fourth of July. I did more talking in the next 15 minutes than I had with anyone over the last four days. They made me give them the name of my book (Somebody Should Have Told Us!) so they could order it. Fat chance; they were already a little tipsy. Once the bus got back to Fabrika I had to trudge back up the hill in the dark. I got lost once briefly, but again asked someone and found my way.