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I
WOKE UP with a start at and looked at my watch—7 a.m., and our
flight was at 8:40! Still drunk, I woke up Joy in a panic and ran to the
bathroom. My forehead felt strange, and I was shocked to find it caked
with blood, with a tiny gash under my right eyebrow, and the green
linoleum bathroom floor covered with dollar-size blood splashes. I
vaguely recalled getting up in the middle of the night to use the
toilet, smashing my head into something then stumbling back to bed, not
realizing I had cut my skin. They say drunks feel no pain, and I can
vouch for that!
Joy,
who was still dazed as well, also had an episode better forgotten. She
had come back to the room with me after our drinking bout with the
waiter, but instead of going to bed she changed clothes and went disco
dancing in the hotel club which was full of pilots and stewardesses, and
in her inebriated state preached the Urantia Book to them, being the
last to leave when the place closed down at 4 a.m.
Both
of us had passed out with our clothes on, so we were dressed and ready
albeit my jeans had several blood splashes on the leg. I had
no time to clean the bathroom floor and cannot imagine what the hotel
maids must have thought when they came in to do the room.
The world class Avia
Hotel, where we will never return!
Late
for our flight, we sped out of the hotel parking lot and immediately got
lost, both of us pig-headedly thinking we knew the way and bickering
about it as we made one wrong turn after another. From the hotel to Ben
Gurion Airport was five kilometers. Somehow we found the entrance to the
rental car return, which was somewhere between the hotel and the
airport, and with the minutes ticking away we dropped off the car and
were rushed to the terminal in a special vehicle. At check-in we were
reprimanded by the official for being late and were hurriedly whisked
through, the last ones to take our seats on the plane for a flight that
was a blur for both of us. Not only did I have a cut above my eye, but
Joy remarked that my eye was beginning to turn black and blue. What a
way to end our wonderful trip to Israel!
In
Athens we stored our extra bags in a locker at the airport and took a
bus to Pireaus, where we booked ourselves on a ferry to the legendary island of
Santorini, leaving that evening.
With
a day to kill, we sat at an outdoor café along the harbor, talking,
eating, drinking (not a drop of alcohol!) and watching humanity
pass by, until we finally came to our senses. In some ways it was one of
our best days together, and I will always have fond memories of us
laughing ourselves silly over our debacle of the night before as well as
many other humiliating episodes we recalled from our respective pasts.
* *
*
It
was an overnight ferry to Santorini, and we had taken the cheapest cabin
without a window or shower or toilet, way down in the bowels of the
boat, just to have a private place to lie down. Joy immediately fell
into a deep sleep but I lay wide awake suffering from acute
claustrophobia once we closed and locked our door. It was like being
inside a stalled elevator, and I couldn’t take it. After an hour I got
up, went to the purser's office and paid the difference, and switched
our cabin for first-class accommodations on a top deck and with a
porthole. (Joy was not happy that I woke her up and forced her to move!)
The ferry vibrated so much all night that it was impossible for me to
sleep, and each time it pulled into a new port I wondered if this were
Santorini and if we had missed getting off the boat.
I needn't
have worried!
*
* *
CLICK
HERE TO RETURN TO CALENDAR
or
read on by clicking on any of the following
links:
1.
From Los Angeles to Amsterdam
2. The Flight to Greece
3. Ancient
Corinth
4. The
Citadel
5. To Piraeus
6. Hania on
Crete
7. A
Day in Limbo
8. Back
to Athens
9. From
Athens to Cairo
10. Cairo
11. The Pyramids
12. The Bus to Israel
13. Jerusalem
14. Bethany and Bethpage
15. An Old Palestinian Hotel
16. The Drive to Galilee
17. Capernaum and Environs
18. The Ancient Boat and Nazareth
19. The Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon
20. The Eastern Shore and Scythiopolis
21. Mount of the Beatitudes
22. Ptolemais and Caesarea
23. A Day in Piraeusthis
page
24. Santorini
25. A Rainy Day
26. An Eventful Day in Athens
27. Return to Amsterdam
28. Going Home
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