Rhodes - A Long Update

It has been a few days since I updated this huh?

I left off after my first full day in Athens where I had dinner with the girls from my room and enjoyed a quiet night in. We had planned to hit the Acropolis first thing in the morning, as it is free on Sundays, and maybe the Acropolis museum. Well, that didn’t quite happen. I got up early that morning to wish Eddie good luck on his race before he went to bed on Saturday and while I was up discovered that it was pouring rain outside. At 7, when we had planned to get up, the rain hadn’t let up so we opted to sleep in and do the Acropolis another day.

Around 11 the rain stopped and so one of the girls and I headed downtown to do some shopping. She was going back to Albania and needed to get some souvenirs. The other girl left at the same time to catch a bus to an island where she would be working on an Olive/Fig farm for two months. At 1 we were back at the hostel and my friend left for Albania and I hung out at the hostel waiting for time to pass before catching my 7pm ferry to Rhodes.

I made it to the port on time and everything went much more smoothly than it did when I ferried from Greece from Italy. I had a seat this time instead of a cabin, but it wasn’t terrible. I mean I didn’t sleep all that great and there were some interesting characters there, but it wasn’t horrible. I will only have to do it one more time and I can easily handle that. In the middle of the night I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep and then got sucked into a cheesy made for tv movie that was playing on the ship. It was an American movie that took place in Portland (the Sunset area for you P-Towners) and was subtitled in Greek. Finally at 4am I could fall back asleep only to wake up 3 ½ hours later.

When I arrived in Rhodes at 11am I got off the ferry and was exhausted. A taxi driver said he would bring me to the center for 5 euro. I asked him how far it was, and he said 2km, so I said I could walk. Hahaha. On my way walking a man on a moped with a girl on the back asked me if I needed a room. He said it was 10 euro and there was free internet. I said ok. He sped off with the girl to bring her to the pension and then said he would return for me. I had just about found his place when he found me and guided me back to the location.

I am glad I had my wits about me and told him I only wanted to confirm for one night instead of saying all three, because wow. The place was dirty and sketch and I know that many of you (who will remain unnamed) would not have lasted 2 minutes there. I didn’t feel unsafe, but it was gross. I did take advantage of the free Wi-Fi though and got to talk to Eddie quite a bit and get the update on how his race went. (He killed it by the way! I’m so proud of him. :D)

The other girl who was staying at the pension had a worse room than I did and she ended up finding a hotel in town that offered her a better room for the same price. She told me about it and invited me to come with her. This morning she gave me directions and I said I would consider it if my other two options did not work out. The first place I went to was nice, but it was a shared room for 15 euro and no internet. I knew that the hotel option was 15 euro and a private room, so I passed on the first location. The second one was a hostel/bar. I knocked on the door (at 11:30) and it turns out that I ended up waking the owner up. He came to the door and said he would show me to the room. It was 15 euro, marked down from 20, but was a private room with a kitchen in the room.

When I asked him about dorm rooms for 10 euro and internet access he said that since I was the only person he didn’t have the dorms open and that there was no internet access but he could show me where in town to go. He said that if I wanted a kitchen I had to have the private room. There was a washing machine in the bathroom so I asked if I could use it and that’s when things turned. He got upset with me for asking and started going off about how I wanted a room for 10 euro, but saying how I wanted all these other things along with it and that he was a business man and couldn’t just give rooms away. I told him that I understood and I wasn’t trying to take advantage of him but was just asking for information. He then started throwing up his arms and asking me if I was going to stay or not.

At that moment I decided that even if he did let me have everything I wanted I didn’t want to stay there. He was making me nervous and I did not want to stay somewhere where the owner was angry with me. I told him I was going to go and thanked him for his time. As I walked down the three flights of stairs from the room he had shown me he called after me, “Do not come back and waste my time again. I hope you never wake me again in my life.” I was glad to be rid of him.

I ended up at the hotel that the other girl from the first place had told me about. The lady was SUPER kind and I now have a private room with a double bed that has clean sheets and towels. I have a window with a fun view of an old church and a TV and refrigerator in the room. The rooms normally go for over 20 euro/night but because the other girl and I had come from such deplorable conditions she felt bad for us and gave us the rooms for 15 euro. I am excited to spend the next two nights here. The only down side is that there is no internet as their computer is broken and the Wi-Fi seems to not work without it. I can't seem to find a place to "buy" internet time from, so I am currently sitting on a bench on the side of the street using an unsecured connection that only has one bar of signal. :-\

It’s not the end of the world by any means, it just means that instead of spending my after dark evening surfing the web, I will be watching some Greek TV and reading through some travel books that I found in the common room at the hotel.

Today was a good day, especially once I get to the hotel. After I was settled in I went to the Archeology Museum and then to the Palace of the Grand Master. As I was walking around town I noticed that there were a lot more tourists around today compared to yesterday, then I saw the boat in the port. A Royal Caribbean cruise ship was in town and its contents had spilled into town. While I was at the Archeology Museum I heard some people speaking English and asked them if they were on the ship and where they were from. It turns out that they are form Steilacoom and are just beginning their trip. We chatted for a good while and I told them about my trip. They were very nice people but I forgot to ask their names! Oops! They asked for my blog address, so if they are reading this – it was wonderful to meet you!

I spent most of my afternoon browsing the streets and the shops. I bought a charm for Rhodes and found a few souvenirs I want to buy, but think I will wait until Thursday to buy them.

Tomorrow I am planning to take a bus to Lindos, a town in the more southern part of Rhodes. There is an Acropolis there that is supposed to be beautiful! I am excited to go. I will come back to town and I think I will climb up to the Acropolis here in Rhodes Town in the evening to watch the sunset. Thursday my ferry doesn’t leave until 11pm. I am thinking that I will spend that day at the beach just kind of “chilling.” I figure that if my hotel will not allow me to leave my bag here after check-out I can just haul it to the beach with me and sit there with it all day.

So, that is the scoop with me. I arrive into Santorini on Friday at 1:30 and my hotel is picking me up at the port. I will stay there for two nights and I am excited about that hotel as well. They have a swimming pool and are close to the main town. I have heard that Santorini is pretty cheap because it is the low season and there aren’t many tourists around. My hotel room is once again 15 euro, but it is advertised at 15, not a special rate just for me. Hopefully it will not disappoint in the cost department. :)

I probably will not post again until I am in Santorini and may not be able to get pictures posted for awhile, so hopefully this will tide you over until Friday or Saturday when I get a chance to blog again. Have a great week everyone!