OCTOBER 8, THURSDAY

THE WINE DARK SEA, THE AEGEAN

Susie arrived three hours late caused partly by an overbooking on her American Airlines flight from New York to Athens. To pass the time I ordered calamari, squid, and this time it was laid out whole with a flat

tale and sucker covered tentacles. I didn’t know if it was all edible or if parts were poisonous but ate every, more than chewy, bite. I don’t know it was the sight of the squid or the squidiness of the squid, but, maybe by coincidence, my travel caused extreme constipation has turned into violent diarrhea after eating the squid, which reminds me that on student trips to Sri Lanka and India that in the morning the first thing we would ask each other was the state of each other’s bowels, unfortunately one of the side effects of travel stress and new exotic foods. We left immediately for Piräus and got there in plenty of time even though we had been told to book ahead, without knowing how, and told to visit an Attica office on arriving in Piräus, which we couldn’t find.

The ferry is enormous at least ten stories high with a first class that we didn’t check out and a large economy area with a couple of restaurants and a couple of bars. It rained in Piräus but we sat on the back open

deck covered by a roof and were able to watched Piräus and Athens fade into the distance. We passed island after island that were bathed in the misty glow of the sunset. The huge roiling white wake stretched behind us into the distance. Just to be crossing the Mediterranean was

exhilarating. And then it became dark and we moved indoors. Where outdoors it was windy and chilly enough to need jackets, indoors in huge, wide larger than airplane seats with more legroom it was warm and cozy. The trip form Piräus to Paros is a five hour trip. We got to Paros at 10:30 last night and managed to snag a taxi with many others around us trying to do the same thing and arrived at Efi’s Place in Naousa at 11 p.m. In the morning we start the next stage of our adventure.