All By Myself

So, I'm back. And my trip to the Peloponnese was absolutely mind blowing. I mean, it was really just great. As soon as I get my pictures together and have some time, I will describe it to you at length. As it turns out, travelling alone is a lot more fun than I expected, though there are, of course, ups and downs:

The Bliss of Solitude

- Let's say you are in Athens at 1pm on a Saturday, in a group of twelve people. Eight of those twelve people will be hungry. Of those eight, two will want gyros, one will want pizza, one wants a big sit-down meal at an expensive taverna, one wants organic vegan soy products that were produced under fair trade laws, one refuses upon pain of death to eat anything that is not steak, white bread or from McDonald's, and one doesn't know what he wants, but is passionately committed to rejecting every other proposal put forth. Of the four that are not hungry, two want to go to the archeology museum, one wants to take fifty identical consecutive photos of the acropolis from various angles, and one wants to comparison shop for Zeus-shaped bottles of ouzo and classy T-shirts with pictures of topless sunbathers on them. When and if you finally decide on a plan of action, it will take several hours to walk each block, because two people have to pee, one has to purchase batteries, one has to call her boyfriend, and two have to take pictures of each other pretending to sprint in to the Panathenian stadium.
When you travel alone, you don't have to put up with any of that shit.

-Travelling with someone for two or three days is usually fun. However, when you travel with someone for more than 48 hours, there is always a risk involved. There is nothing that will make you hate a person more than travelling with them and discovering halfway through the trip that you have very different ideas about what constitutes a good trip. Sometimes you think someone is really cool and then she will go and throw a fit when it costs five Euros to see invaluable pieces of immortal artwork, or will routinely walk into shops and restaurants and screech "DOES ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH AROUND HERE?"*, as though talking loud will somehow transcend the language barrier.

*I have thankfully never traveled with anyone who does this. But a study-abroad friend of mine told me that her mother came to Thessaloniki for a visit and did it for about a week.

-There are always people to meet. In Nafplio, I met Howard from California, and had a great time eating pizza and chatting about travel, school and stuff. (Hi Howard!) I shared a cab from Epidaurus with study abroad student from Minneapolis and her family, and we swapped hotel advice and travel stories. In Sparti, I ordered souvlaki in broken Greek and was answered in perfect Canadian English by a Greek-Canadian who gave me his life history, a description of the current Spartan economy, and his business plans for the future. At the bus station I purchased a ticket to Monemvasia from a guy who told me that "Americans are good people, but bad government," and then sifted through all of the change in his register to give me a commemerative Olympic two-Euro coin "for your collection." On the bus in Athens I met an older man who told me all about travelling through the states and living in Puetro Rico, and warned me about five times that "Boys act nice, but they have other things in mind, so be careful!" Finally, in the youth hostel in Athens, I ended up sharing a room with three English majors from a small liberal arts college in Iowa. No kidding.

-There is something phenomenal about standing alone amidst the ruins of an ancient Byzantine city or an ancient palace. With someone else there, you have someone to share the wonder, but you always have a reminder of the present day right next to you. Alone, you can really try to move back seven hundred years, or three thousand, and imagine that you are about to watch an ancient comedy, or that you are looking for invaders over the hill, or that there are monks inside those brick walls, chanting hymns and going about their daily lives. And then, of course, a German school group will show up and shatter the reverie. But it's nice for a moment, anyway.

I Need Someone, Someone To Talk To....

-When you have half an hour to wait for a bus in the middle of nowhere, or five hours to get from place to place on said bus, or even ten minutes to kill before the metro shows up, it's nice to have someone to talk to. Being from New York, I have some impatience embedded in my nature, and I need something to do while I am waiting. It's nice having someone to talk to. It's even nicer over meals. And if I'm going to sleep on the bus, it's good if the person next to me is pleasant, and unsketchy, and doesn't mind if my head lands on their shoulder. It's even cool if the person is my sister and we can spend some time having a productive discussion about why my head is NOT allowed on her shoulder.

-When you hike all the way up to the top of the castle at Mystras, or Palamidi fortress at Nafplio, or the big rock at Monemvasia, it's good to have someone else to take your picture. It's really good if it's someone you know, just to be sure that they will not run off with your camera. (Although who can really run off with a camera at the top of a fortress?) I had to take pictures of myself for six days, and they were, well, as flattering as self-taken pictures usually are, which is to say, not very. But I saved them, just as proof, in case anyone accuses me of being a travel fraud.

-It's also nice to have someone to pay part the hotel bill. And part of the the restaurant bill. And to order some weird food that you don't want to order yourself, but you are curious about. In Nafplio, Howard ordered rabbit. I have adjusted to eating fish with heads, but haven't quite gotten comfortable with rabbit consumption. However, I did get to see what it looks like, which was educational. And according to Howard, it tastes like chicken.

-You know when you are sitting in the station surrounded by three large bags, ten minutes before your bus leaves for a five hour trip, and you want to go pee, but you want someone to watch your bags for you so you don't have to haul them into the bathroom stall with you? Well, when you are alone, there is nobody to do that. And it sucks.