Life Abroad: Week Eight

Thinking of You

It’s Sunday morning, and I’m in the Athens airport. Yes Pearl, Reena, and Naomi, I am living our level 4 spring break dream- I wish you were here with me to experience it all. My flight back to Madrid is at 1pm. Typing out “Week Eight” gives me the Sunday scaries because this actually means halfway time till I go home- how does time always slip like sand through our fingers?

When I was young, I was always excited to travel to the airport. My dad traveled every week for work so he was an expert in my eyes. I never knew how to navigate the moving parts of traveling: security check in, customs, dragging my bag along to the bathroom, keeping my passport secure. But my dad always knew the right thing to do. He had access to the business lounges and premium benefits because of how frequently he traveled, so I felt like the daughter of a celebrity whenever we’d stop by one. I’d ask for Sprite or Coke (Ginger Ale if I was feeling “healthy” but I rarely drank soda so it was a luxury to be offered it). I would nibble on the biscuits and pretzels and stretch my legs out while my dad would drink wine and my brother would charge his iPod and play online chess with strangers.

My mom was always the worrier. She traveled with much less frequency and almost always with another person. She won’t drive to Ann Arbor alone, if that gives you more context (it’s a 2 hour drive from Grand Rapids). I saw this as a sign of weakness, of dependency. I’d get annoyed when she forced us to go the airport 2 hours earlier than needed, when she demanded I use the restroom one more time before we boarded our flight. She wears two pairs of socks on the plane and three layers on top, at least.

I’m almost 21 years old. My mom was engaged, married and moved to the US at 22, and had my brother at 23.

I’m sitting in gate B11 just thinking about her and my family. A constant theme of this trip has been how much I wish my parents could’ve gotten to do this too, specifically my mother. My dad has been able to travel all over from Germany to Singapore, my brother solo-backpacked across Eastern Europe for 6 weeks after graduation. But my mother has always been waiting for us patiently to return at home.

I think about her sacrifice often. I wrote one of my college essays about this:

“Engineers are artists. Both of my parents got their Bachelor’s in engineering; however, my mother ended up going to a community college after immigrating to pursue a career in preschool education. My father traveled for work, so my mother decided it was best to choose a career that allowed her time to raise her children. She sacrificed her entire career for her family- an act of love that defies all definitions.

My cousin and uncle and brother and father code on their screens like Picasso, each keystroke effortlessly overlapping another to create a intellectual work of art. I only wish my mother held a paintbrush too.”

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This week was the taste of home and love that I had been craving. Sree, Josie, Jajoo and I traveled to Greece from Tuesday to Sunday- it was a movie, to put it in colloquial terms. Tuesday night we landed in Athens and took a taxi back to Pagrati, the area we were staying in. This introduces Taxi Man to our story. Taxi Man is the driver Josie uses to get to and from the Athens airport when she travels, and he is a sweet old man who is warm and chatty. He drove us to our hotel and talked to us about his son, who is getting his post-doc at MIT. Fun fact, Taxi Man also has a PhD in Biomolecular engineering, so he is one smart taxi man. Another crazy wild fun fact: Taxi man is the taxi driver for Kavita Krishnamurthy. For my Indian readers, she sang Bole Chudiyan, Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast, and Nimbooda, to name a few famous songs. The boys did not enjoy Taxi man because he tended to exaggerate the truth a bit much but really, Josie and I love him because he is so jovial. After unloading our belongings, we raced out the door because Greek food was on the docket and I was ready for something delicious. Josie brought us to To Pikantiko where we ate scrumptious gyros that cost 2.60 euros each. We also ran into Emily and Genevieve from UMich- the world is small, but I’ve been telling you this every week now.

Wednesday we boarded a plane to Chania, a city on the island of Crete. Getting through an airport in Europe takes significantly less time than going through one in the US, so we arrived at the airport (courtesy of Taxi man, of course) with little time to spare. Luckily, we landed in Chania on schedule and found a less-optimistic taxi man to drive us to our Airbnb. Brothers Poseidon and Zeus must have been having a power struggle that day, because it was one of the more miserable rain/wind storms I’ve been in. There was really nothing else we could do because of the weather, so we did what Greek people do normally: eat food and nap, as Josie says. We spent 3.5 hours indulging at Tamum, a restaurant 500 meters from our Airbnb: local Chania wine with hints of citrus, appetizers with fluffy bread and milky cheese and olive oil- oregano potatoes, lamb burgers stuffed with juicy tomatoes and feta cheese, sides of tzatziki and lemon. If you need a sign to go to Greece, I hope that my description of the food is convincing enough.

We napped and played many card games. Jajoo and I won Kemps and then Josie won every round of Egyptian Ratscrew (the boys are sore losers). We went to the most divine place for dinner and brought our cards to play while we waited. The owner came over and showed us a bunch of magic tricks, so we promised we’d come back for dinner the next day (the food was that good). Josie and I fell in love with this vegetable pie appetizer and ordered it again the next day. She said, “I’ve never ate vegetables that tasted this good”. Charred and garlicky, their earthy freshness was bright on a tongue that had been numbed with all the prior meat and dairy I had consumed.

Thursday morning we woke up ready to seize our first sunny day in Chania! I had a midterm for one of my classes in the morning (lol), so after this we left and got breakfast. You already know the food is going to be delicious, so instead let me tell you about my other reason why I loved Greece so much. The people are an absolute delight. When speaking English, they say things like “Yes, of course” and “My pleasure” when asking for water at a restaurant. They were so hospitable towards us and with EVERY SINGLE MEAL we ate, they gave us free shots of Greek liquor and dessert at the end. According to Josie, Greek people love American tourists and visitors (we do also help their economy survive) but dislike foreigners who settle down in Greece because they are very nationalist.

We rented a car for Thursday and drove along the coast of Crete. Our plan was to drive to Kissamos to get to Falassarna Beach where we’d have a picnic and watch the sunset. The rental lady told us the roads to the beach should be fine even though we would be driving down a mountain; we just had to be back before it got dark because there are no lights along the road. So on we went. Using Apple Maps (important detail), we were routed towards an unpaved fork in the road with a wooden sign labeled “Bad Road”.

We took “Bad Road”: this was a bad idea. We presumed this was the road the rental car lady was talking about, so we persisted through the rocky terrain and prayed that no scratches or flat tires would result. Sree kept getting out of the car to move big rocks out of the way. It was one of the scariest drives I’ve ever been on and there was no signal for us to re-route because we were up in the mountains. There was no one else on this path either. It got to the point where we finally passed some type of habitation with roosters and goats so we stopped the car to try and ask for help. We walked to a small building complex where we encountered two Greek men driving, but when we called for help, they told us to leave in broken English. So we were alone, in the middle of a random mountain in a small island of Greece, with no one around us to help. We tried to turn around and move the car back up the mountain, but there was no way it was going to work. It was frightening and honestly one of the closest near death experiences I think I’ve had.

Then, a moment of fortunate serendipity happened. A local man and his little son were walking along the road and saw us trying to get back up the mountain. Neither knew any English but they drew out directions for us to get to the beach using a stick in the dirt. With the help of Google translate, they saved us and we managed to find the paved road down to the beach. These people were seriously angels and we got so so lucky to run into them because there was absolutely no one else walking on that path. We finally reached the beach and Sree and I watched one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve seen on this trip. It was a sweet end to our stressful afternoon, making it all worth the hassle.

Friday was a slow day because Sree was feeling sick, so I just wrote my blog post and walked around. We flew back to Athens in the evening, got picked up by Taxi Man (who was late), and had souvlaki (basically meat kebabs) at Elvis which was banging. We also got mysterious dry ice cocktails at a Mixology bar which made me feel like I was in Gossip Girl, but I don’t think I liked that feeling much. I was also feeling under the weather, but it really didn’t hit me until Saturday.

Saturday morning was our last day and only full day in Athens, Josie’s study abroad home. We got breakfast and shopped and then went to one of coolest historical monuments I’ve ever seen: the Acropolis. The Pathenon is so magnificent in person and the views of Athens from above are breathtaking. Being here makes me want to re-read the Percy Jackson books because all the connections to the Greek gods would’ve been even cooler if I remembered more. Unfortuntately, I think I was running a fever and felt quite ill, so Sree and I went back to nap for the afternoon. Our last night in Athens, and our last night together, Sree and I enjoyed another gyro dinner at To Pikantiko and had some silly conversation and dancing. It’s sad because just as soon as I was fully able to grasp that he was here and we were together again, he had to leave. Alas, another two months until we reunite.

Overall, Greece is a must visit. Things to note:

• Because the country is so old, the plumbing is very ancient and you can’t flush toilet paper or everything gets messed up.

• On a similar note, the hot water is very unreliable even after turning the water heater on. I had a shower where I boiled water to bathe and some horrendously cold showers. I would rather not shower than have a cold shower, so it was not the most hygenic vacation unfortuntately (sorry if this is TMI).

• You can totally get by with just English. They’re not rude to you if you speak English either. Some key phrases we learned (thank you Josie): “Yassas” is hello, “Yammas” is cheers, “Kalimera” is Good morning, “Kalispera” is Good evening.

• Evil eyes are everywhere!

• The stray kitty cats are very cute and also everywhere

• ALWAYS USE GOOGLE MAPS (yes Sree you can say I told you so). The amount of times we got misdirected/wasted money on cabs/lost time etc. because we were using Apple maps instead of Google maps was too many to count. Google maps is more updated when it comes to places outside of the US

This week was the first that I spent every moment with people I love since coming here. When I say every moment, I mean every single moment: this is different than when Casey and I travel because we at least sleep in different beds.

So sitting in this Athens airport, I feel more alone than I usually do when I’m physically alone. And I can only think of my mother in this moment. No wonder she always wants me to sleep next to her when my dad is away for work.

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Four hours later, and I’m back in Madrid. I wore a turtleneck under my sweater for the plane ride. I’m all warm and cozy, and the Greek woman next to me on my flight home spoke to the flight attendant and made sure I got warm tea to soothe my throat. Even on this 4 hour airplane ride, 5,000 miles away, my mother shows up for me in every corner, every sphere of life.

Thank you all for reading, and happy living.

With love,

Rachel