If I were rich, owned a yacht, and had nothing but time on my hands, I think I would just sail the Greek Islands. If I were poor, but I knew how to play the accordion, I would just travel between the islands and beg for a living, but beg with a smile!
From the moment I stepped off the plane, it finally hit me: I'm on the other side of the world. Up until this point, everything has been almost like a dream, the feeling of unrealness being very heavy. It was like I was just traveling from one city to another, but still in the States and not too far away from home. But here, I know. And here is one of the first places that I am through and through excited to be at!
The drive from the airport to Kos City was very unexpected. The island's inner lands are so dry, I was instantly reminded of New Mexico. They even have the same short, hutch-like architecture, though Kos is much more of the white-and-blue coloring while Santa Fe was almost uniformly tan. Goats stared at us as we passed, uninterested in what we were altogether but just too lazy to turn away. It looked more like a desert's outskirts than an island.
But then we got to Kos City and flowers started showing up everywhere! I headed directly to the port and got my ferry tickets, which was a huge relief for me after having spent the last few nights stressing about if the ferry would be sold out by the time I got there. After that, I started hiking out to my hostel for the next few nights. The lady at the ticket shop reminded me so much of the actress from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," but I think that was only because she was Greek and working in a travel agency.
The walk to my hotel was amazing! Everywhere were beautiful, abundant flowers and these grand old trees. I wanted to just stop and hug them for some reason; their branches twisted in such a way that they looked like they were welcoming to the island with wide open arms. when I got to the hotel, there was a little old lady behind the counter who spoke maybe a dozen or two words of English. She had a great smile, though, and even though we didn't understand each other she immediately made me feel at home. I was too early to check in and the rooms weren't ready yet, but she showed me a place where I could change out of the warmer clothes I'd put on in Frankfurt to more beach-ready things. And by the time I'd changed, she'd rushed the cleaning lady to finish my room in particular and I got to leave my bag behind securely.
For the next few hours, I just wandered the city. It's very tiny, this little town, but they have their own acropolis, a few ruins, and of course the Hippocrates plane tree which the famous first physician is said to have planted himself and later used for shade as he taught medicine. It didn't take me too long at all to get fro one end to the other, or to see all the sights. The beaches were, for the most part, made of small rocks and pebbles, not good for laying on at all, and so I headed back to the hotel meaning to swim in their pool and take a short nap on their sun beds. I headed out again later to get some dinner and ended up ordering chocolate crepes! Delicious!
When I made it to the hotel again later, I ran into a group of three guys from Slovenia who we on the island for 10 days. One of them spoke the best English and we hit it off, chatting about traveling for nearly an hour before I headed up to my room. I'd gotten a private room for the price of a dorm and was really happy about having my own space again. The room even had a small TV and I turned it on as I got ready to sleep.
"Saving Private Ryan" was playing with Greek subtitles and I caught it just as it started. At some point, I drifted to sleep and woke up to some Greek news station playing.
The next morning, I opened the doors to my balcony, stepped outside, and just breathed in the smell of ocean air mingled with fresh roses. when I went down for breakfast, I ran into my Slovenian friend again and we talked about beaches. He told me about a stretch of sand that I could find not too far away. While I was checking out of the hotel, I noticed a free book exchange and grabbed something in English to read on the beach.
The rest of the afternoon, I lay out on my beach towel, drawn into a terribly predictable story but not quite able to quit it. Before I knew it, I'd finished the book and still had three hours before my ferry ride, so I went fo get something to eat and ran into a very drunk but very happy pair of couples, one from Italy and one from the island. I got to listen to them rant about young people, about what make the perfect couple, and about global politics for the next bit as I dug into a Greek gyro.
It's now 8pm, I've made it to the port to for my ferry to pull in. It's a massive, massive ship. I saw one pulling into the harbor yesterday and it's about 100x larger than what I expected! It'll be here sometime in the next half hour, and then off to Santorini, goodbye, beautiful lovely and peaceful Kos!
Location:Kos City, Kos, Greece
Kos sounds like it was just fun! I really liked the description about the goats, it made me laugh out loud and earn some strange looks from some associates that were walking by. That place really does sound like the Mediterranian fun that is associated with "the other side of the world". I seriously love their food--have you tried falafels? :)
ReplyDeleteI have tried the falafels. I didn't like em! I live the gyros so much better, they taste absolutely fabulous here, and their salads are freakishly fresh! I eaten a lot of their ice cream, too, which is really like biting into cold, fresh fruit. The cocunut ice cream is my fav so far!
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