Greece

I had two reasons for going to Greece. The first is that, for those of you who don’t know, I study historical European fighting and am a member of the ARMA (Association of Renaissance Martial Arts). There is an ARMA study group in Athens who hosted a training event. (This means that part of my luggage was my four-foot practice longsword.) The second reason is because I really needed a vacation and, come on, it’s Greece!

My adventure to Greece began on Friday, September 27. I taught two classes at the middle school then went home to collect my bags before heading to the bus station. My bus was scheduled to leave at noon and it would take me seven and a half hours to reach Beijing. No problem, I had a book to read: Erica (God bless you!) sent me Twilight. The bus was destined for West Station, a hub for the trains and busses crossing China. My plan was to meet up with another fencer who lives in Beijing so we could do some sparring then I had a hotel reservation at a place near the airport.

While I was preparing Tuza’s ten-day food supply, which looked like it could feed a herd of elephants, I got a call from Fairy. I had asked her to call the train station to find out how I could get back to Taian once my returning flight landed in Beijing. She gave me some bad news: the train from Beijing to Anshan left at 11:00 pm and arrived at Anshan at 9:00 am. I was already missing three days of classes and if I took this option I would be missing a fourth. From what I could gather, the bus would be my best option but there was no way for us to get the ticket ahead of time. There was really nothing I could do but assess the situation when I got to Beijing—not really a comfortable option for a planner like me.

The bus ride was uneventful except for the part when we stopped at some station and everyone gave their ID card to a police officer for inspection. I wasn’t really sure of the purpose of this but it seemed like they were keeping tabs on who was traveling where—just another example of the freedoms US citizens take for granted. When they got to me, the best I could produce for them was my passport. They were trying to ask me questions but I didn’t understand them so, although they didn’t look all that comfortable with it, they moved on.

When I got to Beijing, the bus decided not to go to West Station, much to my annoyance, but just stopped on the side of a street, booted me and my bags off, and a man pointed down the street and then made a right hook with his finger. I guessed he was telling me the station was that way. I did find it but I wasn’t anticipating how big it was. It took me a much longer time to find the fencer than I had anticipated. When we finally did find each other, we discovered that the park we had intended to go to was closed so we ended up sparring in a grassy spot near an intersection. Luckily, some trees offered at least a little privacy or we might have attracted too much attention. After we finished we had dinner together (I’ll let you guess where we ate) and I asked him the best way to get to the hotel. He said there was a subway that ran from the city to the airport and then I could take a taxi. Sounded like a plan to me. He got me to the subway station and we said good-bye then I continued on to find the train. Except for a few employees, the station was abandoned and I shortly found out why: the trains had stopped running for the night (it was about 11:00 by this time). I found my way back out to the street and hailed a cab. I had the name of the hotel written in Chinese so I showed it to him. He just looked at me and said something in Chinese. I didn’t understand—it gets really annoying—but I guessed he didn’t know where to go. Luckily, I had also written down the number of the hotel so I called them and handed the phone to the driver. Eventually, he figured it out and got me there (it was past midnight). Exhausted and relieved, I go to check in only to discover that the hotel did not have my reservation. They offered me a room but at 140 RMB more than the room I had reserved. I talked them down 100 RMB before giving in.

It was a 10 hour flight from Beijing to Amsterdam, where I caught a 3 hour connecting flight to Athens. By the time I boarded the plane in Beijing I only had a quarter of my book left to read so finding a book store in Amsterdam was a priority. I was elated that I found one with two more books in the Twilight series in English. Some good luck at last!

I arrived in Athens at 1:00 am, which is a horrible time to be arriving in the first place but made worse because I had a ferry ticket to the island of Milos scheduled to leave at 1:00 pm that same day. It seemed like such a waste of money to get a hotel room for a few hours so my plan was to find a corner of the airport to rest before heading down to the docks. My second piece of luck changed that plan. One of the ARMA members from Athens, Stefanos, was meeting me at the airport to take my fencing equipment so I wouldn’t have to carry to the island with me. He felt so bad about leaving me there that he offered to take me around the city on his motorcycle. I actually wasn’t feeling that tired so it sounded like fun to me. We left my bags with a friend of his and did a night-tour of Athens. Since the hostel I had booked required me to book the room, not just the bed, I ended up paying for two beds and asked Stefanos if he would like to come to Milos with me. I was delighted that he was able to because it was so nice to have an English-speaker around (and he could translate for me to those who did NOT speak English) and I think you can get the best flavor for a place when you travel with a local. As a bonus, Stefanos brought his motorcycle to the island, which turned out to be very useful.

The island itself was everything I’d hoped it would be: quaint, quiet, beautiful, with a touch of history. Everything seemed so wonderful to me, I had to laugh at myself. Taian is constantly full of the sounds of construction, barking dogs, and honking horns. Even as I write this, that is exactly what I hear. On Milos, the only sound I could hear in the morning was a couple of birds singing. We went to a bakery and I ate a cookie that was so good I almost cried for missing baked goods. The untouched, wild countryside, though scrubby by comparison still seemed so lush when contrasted to the carefully planted farms that fill my temporary home. When we visited a serene bay, there was a heard of goats nearby. Each one was wearing a bell so when they moved it sounded like a tribal band. The old and ancient structures were so clean in their lines and colors, especially compared to the bright and flashy styles preferred by the Chinese. I had a wonderful time just BEING there. Unfortunately, I finished the second book and discovered to my horror that I possessed the fourth and was missing the third. Stefanos promised me that we would look in Athens and, by some miracle, we were successful in finding a bookstore that carried it in English. Another disaster avoided.

Of course, one cannot visit Greece without touring the Acropolis. Impressive seems too inadequate a word but that is what I remember feeling standing amongst the ancient pillars. There was something commanding about the buildings like they radiated wisdom from the things they had seen—ancient, old, and modern. I did find it odd, however, that they seemed to be agonizing over the preservation and/or restoration of the structures but I witnessed a stray dog taking a leak on them.

The ARMA Hellas group is about 20 members strong. The weekend of the training event, we were joined by three guys from ARMA Poland and two guys, who are also friends of mine, from the States. It was so good to see some familiar faces, I can’t even put it into words. The weekend passed in a blur of good food, good wine, and good company—my three favorite things! Our Greek hosts were so extremely accommodating and generous it was almost embarrassing.

The end of my trip also went more smoothly than I had expected. I had called Fairy before leaving Beijing and told her that I was not successful in procuring a ticket home but I told her I had an idea. I have a student whose mother lives in Beijing and I knew this student would jump at the chance to help me out so I asked Fairy to ask Ricky to ask this student to ask her mother if she could help me out when I got back to Beijing. I was a bit nervous about this going through so many people but Fairy sent me an email with this the mother’s phone number in it saying to call her when I arrived. I thought she went a bit overboard because not only did she meet me at the airport but she paid for the taxi to the bus station, bought my ticket, treated me to lunch, got me some snacks for the road, put me on the right bus then called her friend in Taian to pick me up since, once again, the bus would be stopping roadside rather than going into town. I tried refusing her generosity but the Chinese don’t take “no” very easily.

The funny thing is, when I got back to Taian and saw the plastic, lit-up palm trees that look like some warped imitation of Vegas style, I felt like I was home. I guess this place with all of its quirks has grown on me more than I realized.