Two weeks ago I packed my suitcase and said farewell to inhibitions and logic. Two days ago I said farewell to Greece. The last two weeks I was one part of “A” couple of girls abroad. We were so embarrassingly young, embarrassingly American. And yet, it was very empowering and refreshing to feel caught between the “ages.” This was my first trip abroad without an academic program telling me where to eat and sleep. I flew 11 hours to navigate myself through metros, airports and train stations. During the beginning of my trip, while visiting a museum of archeology and religious art I was looking at a painting of a female saint. A Greek man came up to me and looked at me and then the painting and said “You are no saint, but a goddess, but indeed not a goddess of grace.” I spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out what he meant by that…
By day I saw all the sites, did all the tours, and by night forgot about sleep and wore dark eye make up. One day our eyes would eat all the Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, and Gucci one could take, the next our mouths would taste different salts of the sea near the commercial port with the large ships and the petit bateaus. Our first night after being tired from our flight and getting lost we found a hostel my friend had chosen and booked. I had never stayed in a hostel, but my friend swore it would be okay. Exhausted and crabby I went up to our room and to my surprise there were four other people in the room! There was no toilet paper, sheets, towels, and barely had running water. It looked like a prison. My friend and I walked out immediately—we got about 2 blocks and saw windows of pink colored plush couches, beautiful light fixtures and a loaded bar. The next thing I knew we were checking in and I was drowning in a bathtub of bubbles with a small grin on my face.
Our last night in Greece we wanted to go dancing and so between glasses of cheap room service wine and beer from a newspaper stand we made up our night time faces. Unfortunately, the metro stopped at midnight and so we decided since we had to leave at 5 AM to catch our flight we would go to a local pub. The small amount of wine already flowing in my veins and the lip gloss on my lips was not going to waste! To our dismay all we found was an all-night McDonalds, and despite honestly considering ordering a number 1 and calling it a night—there was the dim blue luminosity, lighting up a dark and damp alley. The blue light was traced back to a small bar—sketchy, yes. Did we follow the blue light, yes. The bar owner, an old man with an apron said to us “You American girls like Greek music?” We said: “Oh yeah, sure…” We were welcomed in with native eyes of curiosity. Since it was near the end of our trip we were low on cash and decided on a humble glass of wine. I excused myself to the bathroom and when I returned there was a beautiful bottle of red wine on our table. I was like “Umm, where did this come from?” The bar owner had came over and said it was sent to us from a man in a three-piece suit across the bar, a very wealthy man in the shipping industry of Athens. He invited us over to sit at his table with his executives and my friend said to me “Well we can’t say no? So we went, were wined and dined, fed exotic fruits with cinnamon sprinkled on top. The music consisted of a band of drums, guitar strings and a female vocalist; the dancing consisted of holding hands in a circle, scuffing the floor with the soles of our shoes and people throwing carnations creating a garden on the dance floor. It was a much better experience than a normal bump and grind club with bad techno music. At one point in the night, I stopped and noticed I had been smiling the entire time. I took the whole night piece by piece, glass of wine after glass of wine. By the end of the night the wealthy ship man was hitting on my friend and a younger man was motioning me to the door as means of an escape. I grabbed my purse and my friend and said “Thank you,” and “good bye.” The wealthy man followed us out and tried to take my friend home, but the younger man fought with him and helped us into his car. We drove around for an hour lost. I was worried that the young man was trying to get us lost on purpose; I was trying desperately to sober up; I was trying to hail down cabs who ignored me or told me they wouldn’t take us; I was trying to be strong. At one point I saw an English man and begged him to help me, but he flat out said he wouldn’t help us! I was near tears, feeling defeated thinking I was super woman. My friend had gotten sick in the back seat of the young man’s car and had put up with so much that when we finally found our hotel I trusted him to help me carry her upstairs. When we got up to our room she was fighting me (drunk) and I threw her clothes off and into the shower. I washed her clothes and got her ready for bed all the while there was a strange German man in our hotel room… He tried making moves and I threw him out abruptly! The rest of the night I sat near my friend’s bedside to make sure she was okay. An hour later I was rushing around the hotel room trying to pack both of our things and get to the airport. She was still drunk and confused at what I was doing and why I was hurrying. That was the last straw. I yelled “BECAUSE WE NEED TO GO, GET YOUR ASS GOING, NOW!”
So that was that, Greece was a fading memory and I was flying above the clouds back to Paris. I spent the remainder of the trip alone. I walked and shopped alone down the Champs Elysess and got a hotel for the night. I watched some CNN and wrote in my journal. I went down to the lobby and enjoyed an expensive dinner and read Le Monde. I didn’t sleep, but fancied the idea of it possibly being romantic spending the night alone in Paris.
During my six different flights I met some interesting people. I met a sales representative from Ryder. We talked for an hour about logistics, operations management, supply chains and the advancing technology in distribution companies. I got his card. I also met a woman, maybe 20 years older, who had also gone on a trip with one of her girlfriends. She was bringing a jar of French mustard home for her husband and gifts for her 7 year-old niece. I was bringing home a recollection of sinful nights full of spilled wine and smeared lipstick—I was no saint. I was bringing home future day-dreams about marble ceilings and arches, fresh exotic fruits, and visits to the Acropolis and the Parthenon—goddess-like indeed.
