Brindisi to Igoumenitsa

Breakfast happened in Angelo’s kitchen. The first question of the day was coffee or tea? The second was Italian coffee or American coffee? The answer was obvious. When an old man named Angelo is holding a moka pot and asks you if you want Italian coffee, you say ‘si Grazie’.

I walked Brindisi’s main drag to the water. This is a small port city, reminiscent of Santa Barbara with actual seafaring and regular people or a small Long Beach with clean streets. Take your pick. I walked to the water and read, watching the water taxi drop people off.

The way out 

After a grocery run and bus ride, it was time to check in and board my ferry. This boat is huge, while I checked in I was watching this thing swallow semi trucks whole. We have a simple coastline in the US and this very few ferries. We have even fewer car ferries and I don’t know of any that can take an eighteen wheeler. On this nine hour journey the truckers will drink beer and rest in their cabins before driving off in Greece. My original plan was to take this as an in seat sleeper but changing schedules so quickly altered my plans. The crew is trilingual; Italian, Greek, and English. I’m starting to stray from the beaten path and interfacing with people is getting more labored for them. A security guard even used Google Translate to tell me to wait for a bus. I have not seen that happen yet.

The view of the way out

The game now is how to kill time, especially without the internet. Luckily for me there is plenty to do. First of all, napping. The boat is full of old people passed out in benches, rows of chairs, and even the floor. I’ve never seen so many people just sleeping in public before. Blissfully, there is also a bar. A beer and sleep mask kill an hour of my time and refresh me. Next up is the news, I may be on vacation but the world is still turning. Then my books, I’ve finished the book on The Man Who Broke the Bank of Monte Carlo (book is the same name) and have presently moved on to 2001 A Space Odyssey. Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrick wrote a novel in parallel with their screenplay. The book is helping to flesh out details of the movie I missed or that missed the Final Cut. Lots to learn. Finally there is the game of searching for a cell signal. The boat passes through a straight between some islands and the Albanian/Greek coast. Guessing which side will have the better reception, if you can get it at all, can easily zap away an hour or two. 

Taking photos also kills time

After a short eternity we arrived in port in Greece. Igoumenitsa isn’t much to look at over night. In fact, the walk from the port to my hotel skeeved me out so much that I did it double time. I’ve been told that Greeks start dinner late and run for hours, I didn’t see one open restaurant on my walk over. 

I realized on my walk that this country presents a new challenge for me. It has been over a decade since the last time I was in a country that did not use the Latin character set for its language. That country was Israel and Greece seems like it will be more difficult. English isn’t as widely or well spoken here. Greek may have more cognates but I wouldn’t know, more of these letters are Greek to me. I can read Hebrew lettering which is only good for deciphering proper nouns. I guess that gives you place names which can be handy. Here I have nothing. New experience.