European Concerts - First Stop: Greece!

[Tawmass]

Once I get back from our Alaska Trip, I'll be going to Europe to the ISDE in Greece, then wander aimlessly throughout Europe. I will chronicle my updates and pictures whenever possible as they happen!
-Tom

Oh, that trip ought to be epic.......

<grin> E-Ticket

You know, we should all say a prayer for pour Tawm ass...
the dude won't even know how to speak with the lasses
only ONE way can that hapless rider can communicate
and I do not suppose it will be "on the film at eleven"...
Wha Wha
you go Thomas...

PS. you might have to resort to
"feeling your way along"

You lucky dude

HEY, don't get so comfortable overt there
that you don't come back, OK

We still need some slithering "single slather" alonge a canal
after a slime clime

(checkin my CO2 footfrrint)

awl yours , bin Rydin...

I dropped him off at the airport a couple days ago, no updates yet. Where's Tawm?

I dropped him off at the airport a couple days ago, no updates yet. Where's Tawm?

The Greek Police are holding him on a general suspicion of being a possible troublemaker.
Who'd thought that the Canuks and Greece shared border info... eh?

My guess is that he's going 200 mph taking pics of all team bikes, impounds, and lead-up hoopla and hasn't had a chance yet to find an internet connection. I'm betting his first report/pics are off the hook... <g>

Cheers! E-Ticket

Tawm????? You there????

Well, he must have made it there ok.

He's got pictures posted on his Smugmug site:
http://tawmn.smugmug.com/gallery/5844351_iYxZM#362651981_euMAN

I bet he's just so dang busy he hasn't had time to write anything up

Jim

Thanks for the link, Jim!

Tawm just logged in and has started his Greece trip thread at:

2008 ISDE, Serres, Greece - GO TEAM USA!
http://www.blackdogdualsport.com/forum/ ... .php?t=557

Cheers! - RandyB

[Tawmass]

The ISDE is officially done (great job by all the USA Riders!), so now I'm back on vacation again, and here's the next segment, starting with...

Greece

NOTE: most all my pix of Greece are posted HERE.

Well, I left Serres, Greece, did a marathon, insane-high-speed, six-hour, rental-car thrash to Athens (cruising at 150kph for 20-minute stretches - that's 90~100mph to you back home! My poor Opel rental hates me!) and met Fred Hoess (ISDE rider extraordinare) and his Mom at a seedy hotel called Omega in Athens. I already lost 75 Euros to a hooker scam (no, I didn't have sex, but was threatened with violence - long story - I'm innocent!), and got a 40 Euro parking ticket. Dammit, I need to get out of Athens! Fred and I are supposed to ferry to Santorini Island tomorrow for a couple days, meet up with Annel and Brian, then I'll take him to the airport in Athens, then I'll get the Hell out of this quagmire. The history here is very rich though! There are ruins everywhere! Fred, his Mom and I went to the Acropolis today, and then went to the big Museum. Was pretty cool, but we're all suffering from TMI! I'll say it again, the women are stunningly beautiful. Must be the sun and olive oil? I'm currently at an internet cafe, since wireless doesn't work at our roach hotel. We did check for bedbugs, and fortunately it was clean. At least the air conditioning works there, although the elevator doesn't, and we're on the 7th floor! On the positive side, I did finally find a money belt (thanks Dive), the Acropolis was way cool, as was the Museum! How did they do all that stuff way back then?

I of course took many pix, but am afraid to insert my USB thumb drive [with pictures] into this internet cafe PC without getting a virii! Gotta practice safe hex!
-Tom
Our killer dinner, although we missed the big ISDE party.

Ferral cats and dogs are everywhere!

On the beach at Kavala with friends, Kevin & Shanna, Patty (a sweetheart!), Tim (Jack Nicholson's twin!), Mason, Sean and Rory.



Haulin' ass to Athens!

The Acropolis at night and an Athens cop rig.



The next morning...



These two, banged out some nice African tunage. The guitarist was playing a funky style with a pick and fingers - I need to try that. I miss my guitar!

On the way, and at, the Acropolis with Barb and Fred.



Catherine from Calgary, Canada.

Didn't get her name, but sure would've liked to.











A Freddocino! I'm jealous - I've never found a Tommocino.


I kept pimping up Fred to all the ladies that he was a world-famous enduro racer from America (Hey, he is!) and that they should get their pic taken with him. They all of course obliged!

The Athens Museum - massive amounts of history! I got 'the whistle' for using a strobe in the first shot and, as you can plainly see, I didn't use a flash afterwards, so the pictures were extremely difficult to get anything, due to the low lighting. Wonder what he was doing with his hand? And the second one - like a horse.




Barb and The Marathon Boy. She's a marathoner, so had to get her pic next to him, although she also got 'the whistle' for almost touching!







The Big Man, Zeus!

More interesting graffiti.

The lovely Sara from Ethiopia who ran the internet biz. She was beautiful AND friendly!

Our waiter Thomas became our friend and gave us great tips and suggestions on where/what to do. He's a big Moto GP junky, and even showed us his sweet Honda.

The next morning, milling around the meat market by the hotel. Crazy stuff.

And so young Obi-Wan's yurapeein education continues....

Rock on, Tawm! And don't take any wooden zlotkis!

Cheers! - RandyB

[Tawmass]

Heh, wooden zlotkes.

Fred's Mom, Barb, (funny lady!) got out of Athens yesterday morning early, then Fred and I walked around a bit, found a travel agency and booked a flight to the Greek island of Santorini. It was more than we wanted to spend, but Fred has to fly out of Athens at 11am on Friday, so time is of the essence. We were a bit stressed getting to the plane because the traffic out of Athens is insane! Thank God for the GPS and me having the current auto-route maps (thanks Rob!)! The plane was bloody hot (I haven't stopped sweating since I hit Thessoloniki!), but when we finally landed it was great with the ocean breezes. Upon landing, we got a very nice condo with an ocean view and - we rented SCOOTERS! Fred was bummed that he already sent his Team USA 'skunk hat' home! After dark, we went to some fish restaurant and I had these island-sized shrimp, Fred had 'sea bream' fish, we hit the store and snagged some good tequila (hard to find in Greece - imagine that!) and OJ and headed back to the villa and had a couple drinks. Fred was bushed and sacked out, so I fired up the hawg and went for a midnight, 20-mile cruise along the beach - it was awesome! I helped some older ladies get out of the sand (they got their car stuck badly), came back and hit the hay (actually the rock-hard bed). It's morning, we're having the typical local coffee of Nescafe (what's up with that?) and plans are to cruise the entire island today as scooter punks (only about 40 miles of tarmac). Oh yeah, Fred said some woman with a cat came into our room last night about 1:30am, said "Some woman will be sleeping in here!", then left. It totally freaked Fred out, and how is it I didn't hear a thing (Mr. Light Sleeper)?! Maybe it was a ghost!

No wireless internet and this is the villa's PC, so I will try to upload pix later in the day. With all the beautiful women here, we've decided people in Greece are not that friendly, unless they directly make money off you. We still haven't seen one shower with a bonafide curtain, so you end up spraying water all over the floor. Our 'water closet' here has a sign saying "Do not put paper down the toilet", so I guess you put all your used mountain money in the waste basket - ewwww. It's still awesome here though, and there's a great breeze - I haven't started sweating yet this morning - yes!
-Tom
We finally make it to Santorini and stay at the Stevro Villa (Steve's Village). The poor ladies were so stuck, and the local in the Suzuki 4wd tied on his rope and just gunned it - he kept yanking parts off the car - crazy!

Dirt riding - Santorini style! Sure hope the owner doesn't see these scooter-punk pix!


Bath time for Fred.


Then up the wild, cobblestone, zig-zag road to the ancient city ruins of Thira!






Underground cisterns for storing rainwater. When did it ever rain?

Fred checks out the hiking trail down the other side and says, "We can do it, I know we can!" I agree, but talk him out of us spending a night in the Santorini jail!


Look close and you can see the phoenominal road that snakes up to Thira.

It has a sandy beach too for the tourists.

Fira overlooks what's left of a major volcano, sort of like Crater Lake, but different.



From the bay, looking up at Oia.

Views from the charming village of Oia!











Fred decided to get a haircut and met Vicky, who also came from New Jersey.

[Tawmass]

Our poor Piaggio scooters didn't even know what hit them! Fred and I have been flogging those poor things all day, and with only about 2~3" of suspension, they are a handfull off road! We had to fill them up twice! I hope nobody saw us on them - you know that saying about scooters being fun to ride, but you don't want to be seen on one. Santorini Island is spectacularly beautiful and incredibly rich with amazing history. There are remains here from 1600BC - read that again - almost four-thousand years ago! I took so many awesome photos of everything today (including our dirt-riding journeys!) and we're getting 28 hours into 24. Santorini is for lovers and is so incredibly romantic - I wish I had a S.O.! It can be unbelievably expensive (@$1500/night) or cheap (ours is $40/night for two) depending on where you stay.). We plan on meeting one of the locals, Vicky, in downtown Firo for drinks tonight. She cut Fred's hair today and it turns out she's from New Jersey, same as Fred (about 10 minutes away) - small world! People drive EVERYTHING here: scooters, midget and smart cars, ATVs, and even some contraption that was powered by a Honda rototiller! I was so stunned, I couldn't pull out the camera fast enough on the scooter to get it though. Fred got the hot-rod scooter and I got the wimpy one. Mine barely did 50kph (around 32mph), but scoots are the BEST way to see everything on the island. Oh, and there are some gnarly cobblestone roads here. We even hit a nude beach! BTW, scooters don't do so well going UP steps, but they cross up well over jumps!

Our flight back to Athens is around 7am tomorrow (Fred flies out around 11am), then I plan on driving up the West side of Greece, and snag a ferry to Italia (22 damn hours - oof!).
Auferistol,
-Tom
Leaving Oia to the shores. Here's a pick of two asses (just kidding, Fred!).


Love this shot!

The nude beach, with no nudies.

This guy just got done scuba diving. We walked up and I took this photo and scared the bejeezus out of him - he didn't know we were there. I liked his shirt.



Andy & Ra from New Zealand - great people!

Fira sunset.



Baby got back!

We hung with the incredibly cute Nella from Melbourne, Australia.

What, don't flush your TP down the toilet?

[Tawmass]

* September 13, Itea, Greece: After staying up until 2:30am or so, Fred and I were awakened at 5:30am by my rude cellphone alarm. We dropped off the scooters, slid their keys under the door for the owner, and Stevro hauled us to the airport to a huge line of people also on our flight back to Athens. We barely made it and settled in for the 1.5 hour trip to Athens. Fred snagged his checked luggage and had plenty of time (three hours) to catch his flight home. We bid farewell and I hit the Greek freeway. Toll booth, after toll booth greeted me. I must've spent 20+ Euros (Fred calls them 'Whizzers') by the time I got out of the city! One section had three tolls within about five miles - sheesh! I finally got off the freeway, drove through Thiva, bought a couple more USB memory sticks (can you actually believe I'm taking so many pix that my eight megs of memory cards are almost filled up?) and pointed west towards the next ocean.

I got to Livadia, became THOROUGHLY lost driving through the narrow, chaotic streets and finally found my way out of town after confirming with a local. Cities in Greece are not for the faint-of-heart types of drivers! I consider it fun, but getting lost is very easy. I drove for a ways and turned off the main highway in search of a monestary, but never found it, due to the directional signs vanishing. Plus my GPS only has the main roads, and not the smaller types. One hill I crested had a huge tribute to some military dealio, as far as I could tell, since everything is written in Greek. And what is it with everyone throwing their trash everywhere? I'm driving along and see drivers pitching their cups, bags, whatever out the window - and they dump their home garbage at any roadside point on the highway - argh. The next city I came to worth mentioning was Delphi - another incredibly historic place. These old ruins are way up at the base of the rock mountains and they had gymnasiums, theaters, squares, etc. I've decided that the old Greeks loved to hike way up in the mountains and stack rocks. Rock walls are quite literally everywhere! Occasionally they'd build a city. At the Delphi road stop, the local police were randomly stopping people and checking their license, passports, etc., but I was fortunately not pulled over. I was so tired that I just drove down into the first bay to the city of Itea, snagged a hotel and fell asleep. It's morning now and I'm still tired, so I just may chill out here for another day. It's a nice place (Hotel Trokadero), quiet, clean and not zillions of people. The only people I hear are the ones swimming in the gorgeous bay.
-Tom


No, I have no idea why Bugs Bunny's face would grace the outside of a water-storage container plant's exterior!

A redwood-sized military tribute of some sort. It's all Greek to me!


Trash everywhere, blemishing an otherwise beautiful country.



Delphi Ruins and the birthplace of Western Civilization.








The modern city of Delphi.

The view from my hotel at dusk. Sabbaticals rock.

[Tawmass]

* September 13, 2008, evening, Itea, Greece: Saturday was a completely lazy day for me. I had breakfast, napped a few times, went out for a walk, took some photos, watched some Greek TV and was generally lethargic, especially after going WFO for two weeks. Methinks I needed it. Since I was so lazy today, I made a few notes about things here. It’s very interesting watching the contrast of cultures. The majority of people start work around 9am or somewhere thereabouts, bang their doors at 2:30pm (with minimal exceptions) and open back up at around 5pm. You must time your day around that. They also stay open until around midnight or later. Such a contrast for me, however the idea of napping during the hottest part of the day sounds admirable to me. In the evenings, families and friends park their chairs outside on porches or the sidewalk and just visit. Good family bonding. It’s Saturday night and I asked the hotel clerk why he wasn’t out partying and he said that would happen after midnight, just like so many others have said - night owls! Shopping at the super markets (all are small) is a challenge, since I can only look at pictures. Dark chocolate and juices aren’t a problem really, but I tried to score some zip-lock bags and I got some sort of freezer wrap I think. With so many scooters everywhere, some of the kids are sporting loud pipes on their machines to be bad - too funny. I’ll say it again, Europe gets all the cool bikes! Even some of the scooters look like GP bikes.

There are no ice machines except generally one in the hotel bar or kitchen. You have to ask (I’m getting good at it) for ice to make drinks in your room. And water, if you ask for water while out, they will bring you bottled water - of course it shows up on your check. They kind of roll their eyes if you request tap water. They also automatically bring you bread and will charge you for it if you touch it. Don’t touch it, and you won’t be billed. So many ways to get us tourists! I’m starting to make a conscious effort at making breakfast or a picnic-style lunch my big meal for the day. Speaking of breakfast, it’s seems quite common in Greece to have the following: coffee, juice, boiled eggs, assorted breads (hard and soft) with cheese and ham slices, plain yogurt (add honey - I’m hooked), pastry breads (like pound cake, but not as sweet), and cold cereal/milk. That pretty much covers it. It’s not bad at all, just different!

Things aren’t really cheap here, although everyone says that Greece is one of the least costly countries. Everything appears to be about the same price (or more) as back home, once you figure in the pathetic exchange rate (about 1.5 dollars equals 1 Euro) A Euro here, three Euros there, and it really adds up! Once I get to Switzerland, I hear it’s so expensive that I will have to eat out of dumpsters!

I’m gong to continue my way up the west side of the Greek shores, return the poor Opel rental (you can’t take a rental car outside of Greece - odd!) back to Hertz, and jump a ferry to Ancona, Italy. Probably snag another car there. Then I need to call a place in Florence that appears to rent older KTM 640 dualsport bikes for a reasonable price. I’d love to finish out my adventure on a bike. I still have my Eurail Pass, but prefer the option of going whenever/wherever I want. I’ve already heard some stories about how different Italy is compared to Greece. It’s all just part of the adventure!
-Tom

Thanks for great pisc and iteniary, Tawm!
You just helped lay out my first leg of the trip when I get back over to Yurp! <grin>

E-Ticket