FROM SERRES TO SIDIROKASTRO

July 21, 1998 (continued) We arrive in Serres, where I will need to transfer to another bus for the ride to Sidirokastro.  I am dismayed to learn that my bus, after a long comfortable ride, will not stop in front of the station, but will drop me off at the corner instead.  I am now left to haul my two heavy bags about half a block uphill to the station. I am not thrilled about this turn of events, as my foot still smarts a lot and the day is surprisingly warm for a mountain village. I struggle along pulling the bags, while following another passenger who has also gotten off here, cursing to myself about bringing a suitcase full of clothes for my friend in Bulgaria along with my own stuff.  When the dance camp is over in Greece, I will take a bus to meet her in Sofia. Once inside the station, I discover that none of the clerks speaks English; the second language of choice in the north is German!  (I assume this is because of tourism.)  The passenger I followed strikes up a conversation with me, a good-looking young man who is in the army.  He had been on holiday in Athens, but now is returning to his assignment somewhere near Sidirokastro. He is not too thrilled about it, either, as apparently Sidirokastro is pretty much a one-horse town.  He apologizes for his rusty (but good) English, which he apparently picked up attending college in Florida! 

     Waiting at the station for the next bus, I have my first encounter with rustic plumbing.  My father, in an effort to discourage me from taking the trip, had harangued me over all the inconveniences I would have to face, including such hole-in-the-floor facilities, so I knew to expect it eventually!  Once on the Sidirokastro bus, my new friend and I chat about whether or not Athens will be ready in time for the Olympics.  They are constructing part of the Olympic Village near his home in Athens, and he says that the athletes will no doubt fly in to the new state-of-the-art airport, although he doesn't say where this is being built.  It's good thing, since the Athens Airport is a joke!

     Once in Sidirokastro, I learn that the Loutra, the hot springs resort where we will stay while we study with Yvonne, is not far away, but would be a difficult trek with two heavy bags.  Once again, I have to negotiate with a taxi driver who doesn't speak English, or German. Even if he did speak German, my skills at that language are too low to help me much anyway. Somehow, we figure out where I need to go, he doesn't take advantage of me when it's time to pay the fare, and even carries the bags into the spa for me!

HEADING TO SERRES

July 20,1998  I have left Athens for Serres Prefecture.  I checked out of the lovely hotel, and got into a taxi the desk called to deliver me to the bus station to catch that bus heading north.  I completely expected to be "taken" by the cab driver, who charged me more than the fare I was told I should anticipate by the hotel staff, just as I had been overcharged by the taxi driver from the airport.  That driver had stopped at the corner instead of in front of the hotel and asked to be paid.  I found out later that it was now supposedly illegal for taxi drivers to do this with tourists, as so many of them used this opportunity to overcharge tourists who didn't speak Greek. (The desk clerk at the Hotel Philippos told me that in the future, I should make the driver come into the hotel with me before I paid his fare.)  I am more concerned about finding the right bus than whether or not I will get fleeced again.

     As the bus reaches the outer edge of Athens, I can see a lot of new construction, in stark contrast to the grungy area I passed through on the way to the Hotel Philippos.  There are bigger, nice-looking apartments- no single family homes as one might find in the States. Like any large city, there are some dingy areas and some like pearls of many colors in the sun.  How amazing to walk on sidewalk made of marble blocks! The landscape is both dry and lush, but not over-cultivated.  I am struck by how much English is printed everywhere, not just Latin script translations of signs.  American cultural "icons" are everywhere- McDonald's, Pepsi, Coke.  As we move further north, though, there are fewer and fewer signs in English.

     I spend part of the long trip recalling my arrival at the Athens Airport.  As the British Airways jet glided in over the water, I could see the ocean and the ships on it, a beautiful sight.  The airport, on the other hand, was anything but attractive.  It is a very unsecured area with few passenger amenities.  People were almost fighting over the small number of luggage trolleys as our baggage is unloaded. Surprisingly (or not), taxis are not close by, either! I have no idea what will await me in Serres, but I do know that I will have to take another taxi to get to Sidirokatro! Oh, joy! My injured foot begins to throb.

ONE DAY TOUR OF ATHENS

July 22, 2014   I put closed shoes on my feet for the first time since my injury.  My broken toe was not happy, but I wore the shoes anyway.  When I broke the bone in my foot 16 years ago, I was not able to do even that.  I couldn't get the shoe on my swollen foot! I wound up taking the bus tour of Athens I booked through the Hotel Philippos, where I was staying, wearing a pair of thong sandals with ankle straps.  We visited one of the oldest Greek Orthodox Churches in Athens, Kapnikarea, located in a busy shopping district in Athens.  It is said to be built over a pagan Greek temple, possibly in the 11th century.  I discovered, to my horror, that I have bought the wrong size video tape, and it being Sunday in Athens, downtown stores are pretty much closed.  I did the best I could to conserve what film is left on a tape that was already in the video camera, and must rely on my paltry skills with a pocket-sized 35 mm camera.

Kapnikarea

     We visited the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, where several old yiayias scold tourists for entering wearing shorts, and taking photos while people worship. (I wore a long dress). I went inside to light a candle in memory of my sister Margaret, who passed into the next world on Valentine's Day.  

      The Acropolis was the highlight of this tour. It is a truly magnificent sight, despite the repair work being done to it, and the view of the city from there is impressive.  The patrons of the goddess Athena must have been very devoted to climb to the top of that hill, especially on a day like this day. The wind was blowing so hard that our petite tour guide could hardly remain upright!  Along with the Acropolis, we got to see a few of the finer parts of the city, including the Presidential Palace, Diplomatic Row, the National Gardens, the University of Athens.  Although I enjoyed seeing the city, I wondered if Athens could be ready for the Olympics in 2004.  There seemed to be graffiti everywhere!  The Athens Airport was a mess, but that's another story!  

ESCAPE

June 23, 1998  I am less than a month away from actually leaving on my trip of trips.  I am edgy, worrying about how I will pay for the whole thing without taking out a vacation loan from my credit union.  I could have taught summer school at the elementary school where I work- actually a reasonable idea. The pay would have covered the whole trip, but I didn't want to have to be at the south side location at 7:30 in the morning, or work in no air conditioning in what was turning out to be a particularly warm summer.  Thinking back through the school year, I mostly just want to get away.  It had been a school year full of confrontations with a staff member who wanted the job I had, but was not eligible to teach in my field.  It was not so much that he wants to teach my students, as that he wants to coach after school.  He particularly likes coaching girls sports and there were rumors about his real motives, as well as stories circulating among the staff about tasteless remarks he made to younger female teachers.  He was not liked by the other teachers, but the children like him, especially the girls he coaches, and he used that to his advantage with their parents, who seemed blissfully unaware that something might be wrong with the situation.  "The girls just love Mr.J____- he takes them to all kinds of tournaments, even on weekends! Sometimes he even invites them to his mother's house!" My escape had been to throw myself into dance when I could, which is how I wound up at International House for the famous Spring Folk Dance Festival. This Spring Festival featured Yvonne Hunt, researcher and folklorist who had lived in Greece and documented folk dancing there, particularly among the indigenous Romany population in Serres Prefecture.  She brought some of the musicians she knew from Serres with her to Chicago, and it is her folk dance camp, to be held in Sidirokastro, that I plan to attend.

TRAVELING WITH "GYPSIES"

ATHENS

June 20, 2014  I look at my left foot, vivid with color around my small toe.  I struck my foot, on the previous day, against a metal bar on one of the large costume racks I keep shifting from room to room of my little flat, cursing myself for not wearing slippers around the house. I realize now, that on this same day 16 years ago I did pretty much the same thing on my first night in Athens as I walked around my tiny hotel room barefoot!  Some people never learn! Back then I hit the side of my foot so hard, and it hurt so much, that I realized I must have broken a bone in the foot.  So there I was in Athens, leaving in two days for a folk dance camp in Serres Prefecture, where I would spend two weeks learning the dances of the indigenous Romany population of Northern Greece.  What to do- try to find an emergency room without travel insurance in a country where I didn't speak the language, or trust that it was a clean break and just ice the foot?  After all, I had broken the same bone on the other foot once, and my doctor in the States didn't even feel the need to cast it.  Of course, I had to wear hard soled flat shoes for 8 weeks when that happened: they acted as a splint while the bone mended.  Unfortunately, I didn't have anything quite like that in Greece, only a pair of white canvas Keds, and a pair of flat thong sandals. The dress sandals with the two inch heels certainly wouldn't do, either! What if a Greek doctor wanted to put a cast on my foot?  How would I walk around?  How would I dance? This was, after all, as my mother described it, the trip of a lifetime. I made up my mind; I called the front desk and asked for a bucket of ice.