She said:

In case we haven't said it before, it's near impossible to get from Greece to Croatia . Sure, you can fly, but the flights are very expensive and certainly not for those traveling on any sort of budget. We stayed in Santorini one extra night in order to figure this out, and it seemed that after purchasing our high speed ferry tickets back to Athens, all plans from there fell apart. First though, let me talk about the ferry back to Athens...

In case you've never been to Greece, there are slow, bigger boats to and from the islands, and there are fast, smaller boats (sometimes hydrofoils, usually more pricey). We chose the fast boat to make better transportation connections in Athens, and also because the cheaper seats on the slow boat were sold out (I was pretty happy I didn't have to sleep on deck again, it was a fun experience...one time!). A point of mention before I get further into the boats that we only touched on in previous blogs, is the wind in Greece. In August especially, the winds can get pretty crazy, and many times, these faster boats are cancelled . The winds prevented us from taking an excursion to the volcano and hot springs two days in a row, in fact. So, on the day of departure, the winds were whipping almost to the point where we were concerned our boat wouldn't be running. In my opinion, it probably shouldn't have been.

Free piece of advice for those who get seasick, DO NOT TAKE A HIGH SPEED FERRY IN AUGUST. I have never seen waves like this in a boat going so fast. The windows were soaked from the splash, and we literally caught air on more than 10 occasions. Needless to say, I was pretty happy to hit dry land in Athens five hours later. That is until a homeless man began to follow us.

It seems he didn't like the way Chad looked at him as we exited the ferry, and he proceeded to follow us for five or six blocks until we ducked into a travel agency (mostly to ask a question, but also for some help). He followed us into the travel agency where we proceeded to tell the agent that he had followed us from the ferry. In his drunken slur, he inquired in Greek about us. The travel agent laughed and translated to us, "He wants to know if you have a problem with him". Yes, we have a problem with him following us!!!!! The agent kindly escorted him out, and we hung out there until he was gone. I am pretty sure this is the part of Athens that didn't get the "Olympic makeover".

Ok, back to the "travel day" story . When we arrived to the train station with the plan to go to a town in northern Greece called Thessaloniki, Chad decided that he now didn't like this plan and maybe we should stay in Greece one more day and sort it out. I had had just about enough of sorting out travel plans, as we spent two days in Santorini trying to figure this out and was sure there was no better plan, despite how complicated this one was going to be. Since I was having a small scale meltdown at the fact that he was not only wavering on the plan we put in place, but also because he had no better plan in mind! Responding poorly to my response (communication breakdown?), Chad threw up his hands, and without a map or guidebook at my disposal, decided I was now in charge of the travel plans. I will fast forward past the bickering part and just say that in the end, we stuck to the plan and bought our tickets for the overnight train to Thessaloniki.

The train. Trains in Greece are pretty undesirable to say the least . I think they concentrate too much on ferries and neglect their trains. This being said, we opted out of "couchettes" (as we were under the impression that those were reclining seats and not beds), and just bought regular tickets. Big mistake! There were two trains leaving within an hour of each other, ours was the later train. The first train was the "couchette" train and we quickly noticed that this was not only the train with beds (couchette=bed), but it was also the less crowded train. Our train was packed and it ended up that we were sitting in an eight person per room car, for the night! Why would you do that, why? (that was for you Sherry Speizer). Most people wouldn't?!

Our car was almost at capacity, and Chad and I were forced to like each other again in order to lean on each other to get any sleep. We slept on and off and were so excited when Jen texted us the Gator scores. Of course, the beeping of the text woke up all of our roommates, but who cares, we won! I am pretty sure that's when Chad's homesickness began to sink it ...

We arrived in Thessaloniki early the next morning and headed straight for a hotel. The first place on our list told us it was too early, so we proceeded to the second. We got lucky, and he let us check in early. We immediately showered and took a long, well-needed nap. This was the day of the championship Greece basketball game, apparently a very big deal. We decided we would wake up in time to watch the game and hopefully watch a grand celebration. But, unfortunately, Greece didn't win, and the celebrations were limited to those who drank enough not to care whether they came in first or second. It seems they did a little too much celebrating when they beat the USA...Whelp, they made their bed!

For the rest of the day, we walked around town to see what it had to offer. The streets were pretty empty, as is standard for most cities on Sunday, and people were out enjoying the beautiful day. The street along the water was lined with coffee shop after coffee shop, all filled to capacity with game watchers . Greece has wonderful ice coffee, so we stopped and joined the masses for afternoon refreshments by the water.

That evening, we went in search of our final Greek meal. You would think we'd be sick of gyros, tzatziki, and Greek salads by now. Not quite; we had an authentic Greek meal and went to bed in preparation for what was supposed to be a 24 hour train.

He Said:

It was nice to hear via Jen's text messages that the Gators won, because I was literally biting my nails and staring out the train window until I knew the score. And it was only Southern Miss...

But this year, at least for now, the Gators are all about basketball. And apparently, so are the Greeks. Upon seeing our U.S. passports, the desk clerk at our hotel immediately let us know who was playing in the World Basketball Championship finals later that day and who wasn't. I tried to explain that I, too, was happy for Greece and that Americans really don't pay attention, but he didn't speak English and didn't understand.

It's truly amazing how, over the course of the tournament, the entire nation of Greece rallied behind their national team. And it's hard not to be caught up in the craze. In the States, only the diehard basketball fans probably even knew the tournament was going on. Basketball in Greece assumes more national pride than it does at home, and I think that the era of the greedy, me-first NBA players has sort of turned people off. In Greece, though, the playground courts are all lined internationally, people carry and wave their national colors through the streets before and after every World Basketball Championship game, and the entire nation literally shuts down to watch the action. When the desk clerk said that the whole city would celebrate at Thessaloniki's landmark White Tower after Greece won, Alli and I were both ready to party with them. I donned my tiki shirt because of its blue and white colors, and we joined the locals to watch the game.

It turns out that Greece probably forgot they still had one more game to play after beating the U.S. in the semifinals, and they, excuse my language, got their asses kicked by Spain. Old men were cursing at the television during the game, but afterwards, people were still honking horns and waving the Greek flag all afternoon, always proud to have a group that played together as a team while truly reveling in the opportunity to represent their country. Believe me when I say that the Greeks take their basketball very, very seriously. They watched this tournament with a level of national-team enthusiasm that probably hasn't been matched in the States since the Dream Team or the 1980 Olympic hockey team.

After the game, Alli and I walked along the waterfront promenade and enjoyed Thessaloniki's vibrant café scene. Throughout Greece, Alli has been like a satiated crackhead with the ice coffees, so we decided to grab a seat amongst the locals and partake in the café scene for a while. Then, we casually strolled Thessaloniki's grid streets and were impressed by its tolerant history. Within a few blocks of each other stood a Greek Orthodox church, a synagogue, and a mosque, prompting me to wonder if, somewhere, there was a punch line.

We ended our stay in Greece in a classic, outdoor Thessaloniki staple, eating gyros, Greek salads, two plates of tzatziki, and a couple of Mythos beers. By this point, Alli had happily relinquished her brief title as coordinator for the traveling sector, and we returned to get our hotel key from the disappointed desk clerk in order to rest up for our day-long train journey the next day.