What Lies Beneath the Title Page

At the airport, YVR, I was warned I could possibly be deported in Turkey because I didn't have a return ticket home. This wouldn't even be so much of a problem except that I had no official papers saying I'd be going to the ship. I burst into tears. This was before I had to say goodbye to Dan, which had me crying for the past three days. I went though security and, as always, I had time to spare. 
 

 

On a whim, I opened up the laptop to see if I could steal some WiFi. Vancouver Airport actually has free Wifi. I Skyped Dan right away. I also checked Facebook. I saw that the boat was allegedly staying in Kiato, Greece. That's where I went last year. I burst into tears again. My flight was from Vancouver to Chicago, Chicago to Istanbul, Istanbul to Dalaman. Through tears, I explain this predicament to the ticket guy for the flight to Chicago. He gets me a ticket from Istanbul to Athens. The first flight he found was $3000. I told him my credit limit was 2. He eventually found one for about $200. 

 

By this point, I was exhausted. Traveling and me do not go well. On top of that, I was in agony over leaving Dan. 

I tried to call Dan from Chicago, but realized that I didn't have the calling card. I panicked, and burst into tears. Yet again. I frantically look around for someone who might have an American dollar coin. I had bills. Useless. No luck. I chase a guy down. I leave my passport and wallet on the phone shelf. He let me walk over to my stuff. I told Dan I'd call again in Athens. I barely made it to the terminal on time.

 

There was no-one beside me on the plane, so I took off my shoes and put my feet up. I tried to sleep for about 4 hours. I'd be surprised if I got a solid hour altogether.

 

I called from Istanbul.

 

I made it to Athens. Our plane was late, and was switched to a tiny propeller thing. Sketchy. I am not impressed with Olympic airlines on a whole. A few of the people were helpful and friendly, but the whole experience has been tainted largely by last year's transportation fiasco.

 

In about 3 hours, I can catch a train to someplace and from there get a train to Kiato. I should be there around 8 am local time.  It's 2 am now. 

 

This trip has been so stressful. I don't know why I panic and cry so easily. I know that God's hand was, and still is, over me in
my travels. I thought I was done crying, but I think I killed the power converter I bought for $50 before I left. I plugged it into my computer, the computer into the device, the device into the wall. I noticed a weird smell, then looked over and saw smoke. Dan said I may have just killed the 50 watt setting. I'll try the larger setting later, on the boat. He also informed me that I don't need the converter to run the computer. I'm sitting at the bar in a cafe, plugged into a regular old Euro-plug via the attachment for the converter.

 

What am I going to do without him? Become my own person, independent and confident. On my own. I need to be able to survive on my own. For me. I don't want to become a clingy co-dependent nut case. I want to become a confident nut case. 

 

(7am) In Athens, I think. On a bus to Kiato at any rate. I was given about 5 different sets of instructions on how I was supposed to get to Kiato. I will never again be sitting at a closed Metro station at 4:30 am. Not fun. I'd finished reading Job (I figured I could call that today's reading), and pulled out the laptop. Lo and behold, Omonia Square has its own free WiFi system. Woo! As I was looking at webcomics to keep myself entertained, some dude comes up to me where I'm sitting at this closed cafe/restaurant, We start chatting. I let him sit down. I explained a bit about what's going on, but nothing too specific in case he's a crazy kidnapping killer guy. Then he went to bum a cigarette from someone. I gathered my belongings closer, half expecting a couple of guys to leap out of the bushes and make off with something. Then I noticed the crowd gathered by the stairs above the entrace rustling and getting ready to descend. I moved over to join them. Creepy Dude says he wants to go sit down, and I tell him I want to get on the first train. "Me too," he said. I found the ticket booth. HE stood at the turnstiles, waiting for me. After asking for directions to Kiato, I decide to go with my feeling and let the ticket guy know I might have an unwanted follower. A security guard came to help me to the train, and Creepy Dude just said "bye". Disaster averted. Oddly enough, I was the most coherent during an actual crisis situation. I explode into tears over rerouting my flight, exploding my converter, and all manner of silly, easily solvable things. Yet stick me with a creep, and it's no problem. 

 

I made it!