"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."
Ernest Hemingway
We were sitting in the travel agency after hefty meal of adana kebaps, turkish bread and apple tea. Bulent was booking our flights to Izmir, I was scrolling through photos on my digital camera and Rene was nonchalantly flipping through her passport.
"oh shit. Shit! Shit Shit!" Bulent and I looked overat Rene. She glanced at the calender. "Oh no.I made a mistake. My visa expires in"..... Rene checked her watch. "... three hours!"
The next half an hour was spent with us brainstorming ideas of how to get Rene's Turkish visa renewed in the next three hours, but it was of no use. "Honey!" Bulent admonished her. "You just have to pay the fine and hopefully you can get a new visa. The problem is, you touched their eyes! They are going to see you have been coming and going from Turkey on a tourist visa for a few years now!"
Long after I went to bed, my sister sat up and read horror stories of people who were banned from entering Turkey for months or even years. Needless to say, I woke up bright and early to an exhausted and stressed-out sister. I tried to reassure her it was going to be fine, but the truth is, I had no idea. It really depended on who we met at the border in Kusadasi. In our past travels, we have dealt with missed planes, plane crashes (thankfully not ours), earthquakes, typhoons, lost passports, lost tickets,lost traveller's cheques, and once we had to get the janitor of our workplace in Taiwan to open the school at 3 am so Rene could retrieve her forgotten passport before we caught our 8 am flight to Bangkok. But overstaying a visa... this was a new one.
At Ataturk Airport we held our breath as the check-in counter photocopied our passports to allow us on the plane. Whew. No one noticed. We took a minivan from Izmir to Kusadasi and bought our ferry tickets that would take over to the Greek Island of Samos in less than two hours. Our passports were taken again, photocopied, passed around and eventually handed back to us, closed, but containing a cherry red boarding pass for a trip that would (God-willing) take me for the very first time into the European Union.
Needless to say our waiting to go through customs was one of those experiences that we wished we had somehow already gone through, so we would already know the outcome. The waiting was gruelling. "You go first," I said to Rene. "That way if there is a problem, I haven't gone through yet."
Rene boldly passed the red line and produced her passport and tried to act as nonchalant as possible. The customs officer, a stern looking blonde woman with football player shoulders leafed through paper work and glanced at a computer screen with a stern look. I might even have been holding my breath. But two excruciating minutes later, The passport was stamped and Rene was let through. She couldn't contain her smile of relief as she waited for me next to the duty free shop.
I was giving her a look of relief and a giggle as football shoulders leafed through my passport and glanced at her screen. "hmmmf!" all of a sudden football shoulders stood up and left her cubicle, taking my passport with her. She must have realised she made a mistake with Rene was was going to look for her. "Run! Run! Go!" I mouthed at Rene and she did what a good sister should and ran into the aisles of duty free and hid behind the vodka display. Then she flipped open her passport and saw MY smiling face looking up at her.
When she came back to the customs desk fifteen seconds later, football shoulders was coming back with the head of customs police, and I had caught on to my imminent arrest and future in shackles. I pointed at Rene and said, "Sorry, it's her passport, not mine. That's not me. We switched passports by mistake back in the ticket office!" We traded passports and both of us went to the border police office with the line of other Greece-bound passengers looking our way.
In the office, we all had a good laugh about it. Rene apologised and said, "I'm sorry! I made a mistake." over and over again in Turkish, and handed over the required 99 Turkish lira fine. The officer flipped through her passport, eyed her numerous Turkish visas and said in broken English, "You very love Turkiye ya?" they laughed, Rene pretended to cry as he took her money, he shook it in the air and kissed it like he had won the lottery. They shook hands and three minutes later we were free to go, and my sister went through customs for the second time, and I waited for her next to the vodka display in Duty Free.
"By the way," Rene chided as were settled in our cold metal seats on the top outside deck of the ferry, "You certainly gave me up in a hurry. "It's not me! It's not me! It's her! It's her! Take her to jail! Don't take me! Good one! You wouldn't take a hit for your sister after all I've done for you? A little trip to Turkish border jail on behalf of your favourite sibling?" I laughed. "Next time, I promise."
Our Ferry to Samos from the Greek side, along with our fellow passengers who like us, sustained cold Eastern Aegean Sea wind for two hours.
We didn't know a thing about Samos other than it was close to Kusadasi, therefore relatively cheap to get to and that it is the jump off island from the Turkish mainland to the rest of the Greek Islands. Since then, I have learned that Samos is, the birthplace of the mathematician Pythagoras, and Aesop from Aesop's Fables, and the Greek Philosopher Epicurus. Samos is famous for being the home of the greatest Temple ever built to Hera, (now largely gone except for one lonely and dismal column that is even missing it's capital) and one of the most ancient masterpieces of engineering: Eupalino's subterranean1,036-metre aquaduct which is now protected by UNESCO.
Our first view of the harbour on the island of Samos. Ahhhh. Samos, I think I love you.
One giant Greek Orthodox Church and a bell tower from another church down the road. After all the mosques of Edirne, this was a refreshing change, though I am still a mosque-o-phile.
Greek Orthodox Church doors. I love the paintings of saints: inside the church, outside the church, on the ceiling of the church, on every square inch of the church.
Candles for lighting in prayer, giving off a burnt waxy smell in the church and a nice holy glow as they burned in a giant brass bowl filled with sand.
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Given the fact that we only spent three days in Greece, there isn't a heck of a lot I can say about it.Our days were lazy and went like this: We woke up, threw our clothes on, went in search for some coffee and breakfast. We usually found a nice little cafe with uber-expensive coffee and croissants, and we would sit at a little table and watch passersby meander along the quaint little Greek streets. No one bothered with us and admittedly, the service usually sucked. The cashier's behind the counter would give us an indifferent once over, and a, "what?!?" that you would expect in downtown New Jersey. After our morning injection of caffeine, we would wander and look in store windows and chat, looking into supermarkets, kitchen stores and churches alike on our Greek invasion. Then we would drink more coffee, eat Greek yogurt with nuts and honey (oh why oh why does greek yogurt taste like angel dust on lusciously smooth pillows of heaven?) and wander some more. Neither of us expected Greece to be so different from Turkey, and it wandering it's alleyways and soaking up life on the beach was a unsuspected and pleasant surprise. Dinner usually included dining on scrumptous souvlaki and greek salad, and we'd eat even when we weren't super hungry just because it was about that time and we could justify eating again. When we weren't eating, we were chatting. after all, we only had sixteen days together so we had to use the time effectively and talk fast! |
Inside of one of Churches on Samos. There was so much stuff in there is was hard to know what to look at or what to photograph. It was like organised religious visual chaos. But loved the frescoes and how they actually made the ceiling look like the sky. I felt like going home and painting a picture of Jesus.
I'm guessing this little reproduction is of a well known priest? It was propped up upon a marble wall and metal shelf. This next picture is an example of a saint in metal, of which we saw many.
We were confused by these little tags that could be imprinted with people or body parts, and tied to a depiction of some sort of saint. Later I found out that the tags were little a mini prayer to the saint in question, asking for help with a certain body part (we saw legs, arms and even an ear) or for something else from that saint. Perhaps the tags with the imprinted girls is for help with a young family member?
Some Church paintings. Mary goes solid gold!
This old lady was watching the donations box. But obviously not too closely. She would wake up from time to time, give us a kind smile and drift slowly back into slumber. The only thing we stole from under her unwatchful eye were a few photos.
From the mosques of Edirne, we jumped to the greek Orthodox churches of Samos. The first thing we noticed is just the sheer amount of stuff in the churches. Paintings of saints, candle holders, tables, chairs,hanging lamps chandeliers, and more paintings and decoration, a few statues and more guilt framed things than I ever imagined could fit into such a space. Forgive me for saying this, but it seemed like a religious junk shop that had lost it's inventory. It was a serious change from the austere and empty Ottoman mosques we had been in a few days previously, but it was still very cool and we spent hours checking out churches. We popped in one night and sat behind the senior citizen crowd of Samos and listened to a priest recite words in a strange language that drifted over the crowd and echoed high into the domes painted with depictions of Christ with outstretched arms.
Sadly, the churches of Samos were not filled with young people as the mosques of Turkey were. I have often heard that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Could this be why? The Europen populations are getting older and older and the Muslim countries are having several children each, populating mosques with young, energetic followers. Sadly, the only occupant of the one church we visited in Kokari contained a drunk German woman, who staggered around the church, gave slobbery kisses to the pictures of saints and told me, "I'm so lucky to be here. Every other time I tried to get in, the door has been locked. I'm so lucky to be here." Over and over again.
A walk through the graveyard above town produced these photos. A well maintained yard, we saw a few people tending to the graves and making sure the candle in the middle of the glass display case was happily burning. Lots of the graves had fresh flowers like this lady did. Maybe gone, but certainly not forgotten, not even for a day. Can you feel the love?
Heaven on a spoon!
Having had to give up a chunk of money to the Turkish border police, we decided to live cheaply and self-catered lunch from the supermarket. But we ate like queens, I tell you! Lemon yogurt (see above note about luscious pillows of heaven), taramasalata (my favourite!) Tzatziki made from again,luscious pillows of heaven, fresh strong green apples and greek yummy dark chocolate shared on the beach for desert. The only thing that wasn't so good was the yellow corn bread that tasted somewhere between a sponge mixed with paste and a little bit of dirt. In the land of the Greeks- Where was the pita? Never found it! Next meal we opted for dry baguette slices out of a bag. Yum!
The bus to Kokari. Check out this guy's rearview mirror bling!
The next day we headed cross-island by bus to Kokari. We had no idea what was over there, but we were pleasantly surprised. Kokari was the quintessential Greek beach town. A beautiful sunny day, not to hot, we continued our wandering and chatting along little hillside alleyways white washed in blue and white paint, and ate our self-catered lunch next to water so turquoise it glowed in the sunlight.
Ahhhh. Kokari, you are a Greek Island dream.
Heaven with a boat on top.
Alleyways of Kokari. Hello Kitty! Ahhh. the stereotype of Greece I had in my mind doesn't need to be vanquished afterall.
Sealife of Samos. These washed up dead fish were numerous and were easy pickins for seagull scavengers. This guy was scrubbing his catch of octopus on the rocks- Rene guessed he was probably trying to get the ink out. Later the octopus was hung on a line to dry.
Ahhh. Scooters and a little yoga on the side of a church.Can life be more perfect? The only way this could be better is if that were my scooter and I had an international driving liscence. Oh well! next time. Oh yeah. And lots of time and money to continue the journey onward.
Boys and a few girls playing soccer in the square at night, with not a parent to be seen for miles. A sign of a safe place.
After we returned from Kokari, we ate gyros in the town square and watched a group of kids kick a football around. They made a goal out of some rancid garbage bags, which the old women of Samos were not too happy about. We watched several old women come over, pick up the bag and put it in the public rubbish bin, only to be fished out three minutes later to continue the serious game going on.
The square came alive at night: the cafes lining the edges were bustling with families, children, football fans watching the latest game on an outside TV and lovers intertwined, lost in their own little world. And us: two sisters who were content to sit in the moment and bask in the light of each others' company.
Hey Greece! Listen up! We'll be back again someday soon!
Melanie