Hitchiking on a fish truck to get back home - Saturday, September 7, 1991

Saturday, September 7, 1991

We finally boarded the ferry and we quickly fell asleep. We arrived at Refina and Anne and I, two gay guys she met, four British, three other Americans were stranded along with one Greek woman. It was almost 0400 and the people at the ticket office had lied to all of us. There were no taxis and the place was deserted. We went to this food stand and asked this kid to call a cab for all of us. He said it was pretty much impossible to get a cab to go to the airport at 0400. The cab drivers don’t want to drive that far. Everyone was complaining because the people at the ticket office had lied about the cabs, the travel time and easy access to the airport.

The Greek woman even tried calling a cab, but she seemed to strike a nerve because she was screaming at the guy and told us she couldn’t believe her people have done this to visitors of her country. She was just as mad as us and seemed to be embarrassed about the whole thing. We were all desperate so we were trying to convince anyone with a car to take us to the airport and we would pay them for the ride. Basically, we were hitchhiking at almost 0400 in the middle of nowhere!!!! The three Americans ran across the street and up one block to stop this car and they got a ride. I left Anne with the others and tried to do the same, but no go.

This guy in a pick-up truck came by and said that if we were still there in about 45 minutes he would take us. At about 0440, the guy in a pick-up truck stopped to get us. All of us, but the two gay guys made it. It was Anne and the two Brits in the back of the truck while the two British girls sat inside. He was driving like 60 mph and it was freezing. The back of the truck was full of packed ice with fish so it was all wet. We were dying to get to the freaken airport. I had visions of us flying across the road and getting killed. After 35 minutes which seemed like days passed, we got to the airport.

The place was packed. I had given the guy 3000 DR and kept 650 DR for the bags we had in storage. Anne went to check with LH and I went to go get the bags. I got there and it was actually 780 DR because it was six days not five. I had to go back to get money from Anne. She only had a $100 bill so to get change was the biggest hassle because we only wanted a couple hundred Drachma. I got the guy to change only $10 so it was fine.

LH said NO! We could only buy a student ticket. As I went to get all the bags, Anne tried with every airline (LH, KLM, BA, and TW) to at least get to London or Frankfurt. Finally, good ole Olympic Airways came to our rescue for the second time on this trip. They said we could buy an ID75 on their non-stop ATH to New York flight for about $200 each. We decided to just do it because the PA flight ATH-FRA-JFK on Sunday was completely booked and we would probably have to buy a ticket in FRA anyways. And if we waited, we would probably have to overnight in LON or FRA and it would costs us about $200.

We got on the flight at the last minute and left to the good ole U. S. of A! We were tired, but happy. Two nights without a bed. The flight was OA425 and it left at 1145 and arrived at JFK at 1430. The flight was good, but we had to sit in the smoking section and it smelled like shit. After we arrived, we went through customs with no problems and caught PA2157 to MIA at 1600. It’s 1710 and Ana wants to write something in MY journal.

“FORGET IT,” she writes in large kid-like letters.  We sat in the last row of non-smoking Coach class, which means you got all of the smokers right behind you! She’s pissed about the smoking section and she has the balls to be telling those around us not to smoke in a smoking section.

“We’re going home…we’re going home.”

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