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| The Greek port of Patras |
| Glenn's Positano Journals 5-14-02 Today we had a chance to sleep in but check out was 10:00 am. We awoke around 9:00 am, as the other young lady we shared the room with was off to start a new day, we changed, repacked and checked out of the hostel. (We skipped showers this morning as the facilities left more than something to be desired. We determined that we would be cleaner staying dirty than showering in the facilities offered.) We quickly checked out, thanked the gentleman at reception for the beds and headed out to find breakfast. We knew what time the boats were leaving so we had most of the day before we needed to buy tickets. We found a local bakery and purchased some bread for me and danish for Erin. We then found a local shop to buy some juice and water for the day. We ate breakfast sitting in a beautiful park area along the port. The smaller, more local boats were moored here. We checked out the fish and crabs while watching some of the locals prepare their boats for the day at sea. After breakfast we went to the nearest ticket agent and purchased our boat tickets to include dormitory style sleeping with bathrooms and showers. The boat was leaving at 6:00 pm and arriving in Bari around 8:00 am the next morning. We opted to spend a little more to get a good night's sleep and a hot shower in the morning. (It was well worth it!!!) After buying the tickets we went to look for an internet cafe. We figured that with time to kill we could work on the website that we hadn't had much luck working on in Crete. The internet cafe was a local bar that had 3 computers that were not much faster than the machines we had seen in Crete. We checked emails and went on our way. The rest of the day was spent having lunch, walking around the town, and otherwise waiting for 4:00 pm, which is when we were told to show up for check in prior to the 6:00 pm departure. We arrived at 4:00 pm, watched another Superfast Ferry unload (it's amazing what they fit on these huge boats) and found our way to our boat. We had to take another detour over to the Superfast Ferry office to turn in our tickets for boarding passes. Once we had completed this task we were on our way to getting on the boat. Once on the boat we found our dormitories (men separate from women, but only by a door that was open the whole time) and left our backpacks on the storage area near our beds. The dormitories were interesting as they slept 9 people in every 8 x 8 space. (Can you imagine sleeping 9 people in every cubicle at work!!!) Just behind us entering the dormitory area were Dave and Marile. We kicked off the usual discussion about our journeys and found ourselves hanging out together until the following Monday. (We'll talk about those adventures as the days go by.) We ended the evening around 11:00 pm and climbed into our beds for an amazingly restful evening. The plan for tomorrow was basically to find our way to the Amalfi coast. |