When I last left you I was planning to day-trip. This did not happen as I drank to excess on Wednesday night and therefore had a hellish hangover Thursday morning. I did however manage to drag myself out of bed by 10AM to go and visit the Fortress and several of the town's churches. I resolutely did not go on the Sound of Music tour nor did I contribute to the coffers of Mozart. That night I drank not at all.

So Friday morning I got on the 9:05 train to Munich to see what all the hoopla was with Oktoberfest. I was stunned by the size of the thing and the rampant commercialism - I was expecting like a few tents in a wooded park, what I saw was an amusement park with a main avenue of "tents" the size of warehouses, each capable of seating over 2500 people, serving beer by the liter and of course livened by the inevitable polka band. I sat down with a couple of American girls that I had met there and we had two of the beers at the Lowenbrau tent before moving on to the Hofbrauhaus where I had another. It amazed me that so many people were completely piss-drunk at 3 in the afternoon. Well saw that I needed to go while I still had the chance, so I went to call Patricia to see what was going on in India. We decided that my risk of actual infection with pneumonic plague was small, but that the risk that I might be quarantined upon leaving India was unacceptable. So we scratched out India and now I have four more weeks in Europe. I took the train back to Salzburg and fell soundly asleep.

Today I went out and bought another camera and made plans to head South, eventually going into Greece and Turkey.

I caught the 9:05 to Innsbruck on Sunday morning. Innsbruck was unspectacular, possessing the normal pedestrian streets of the well-bred tourist town. While struggling with the train station lockers I managed to waste almost $3 by accidently locking the locker when it empty not once, but twice, which evoked form my depths a gargantuan cry of "f*** ME!", which turned a few heads.

Monday morning I hopped the 8:39 train for Milan. Walked around in Milan a bit (even saw a museum!) and then got back in the train at around 8PM for the overnight to Brindisi. After a horrible sleep on a row of seats, I arrived in Brindisi at 8AM. I walked to the boat terminal and asked what time the next ferry for Greece left. That man said, "Ten." I said, "Great," and hefted my bag to walk up to the terminal. He stopped me and said, "No, no, ten at night."

That was a hellish day - Brindisi is a town whose whole economy is based on getting out. It is absolutley the armpit of Europe. From a sign tacked up to the front of a boarded-up tourist information kiosk outside of the port:

We arrived in Corfu at 7AM local time, to be greeted by the Pink Palace Parade of Cabs, which ferried us to the Pink Palace, about a 20min. drive from Corfu Town. Thus I was visiting the Fifth Infamous Youth Hostel in Europe. When we arrived at the sprawling array of the Palace, we were brought in to the Upper Hall to be received, starting the morning with a fresh shot of 90-proof pink Ouzo. Well. No need to brush your teeth after that! But one quickly learns to regard Ouzo here as almost a separate currency, a reward for good deeds (and a punishment, but I'll get to that in a moment...). Well, because of the cleaning ladies I had to wait a bit before getting a room, and when I entered at around 10AM I was into the shower right off and out of those daggy clothes that I had been sporting for two days in the elements now. Then I had about a four-hour nap to recuperate from the ferry ride. After that I laid out on the beach for a good while, rented some snorkeling equipment and went out to the raft in the bay and back. Then I witnessed (and later participated in) some truly funny games of volleyball. According to the Pink Palace rulebook, any ball which goes off the court but is returned by a spectator is still in play. Also, anyone (usually male) making an exceptionally stupid blunder such as mooning people or accidentally knocking over a beer is labelled a "wanker" and has to pay penance to the ref. This penance usually involves liberal shots of Ouzo combined with an embarassing physical act, such as jogging in your underpants or drinking beer out of a bottle being held between someone else's legs. If a team was doing particularly badly it was possible to get "catch-up points" by doing something even more embarassing. For instance, I was made to lie flat on my back while a beautiful blonde team-mate ate ice cream from a cone that was in between my legs. I probably should have gotten her phone number. Oh well.

Yesterday I slept rather late, but woke in time to rent a moped. Didn't crash it, but it pissed down rain all afternoon so I'm not sure I got the full enjoyment of it. Last night was a fairly lame night scene (the night before they had Greek dancers running around smashing plates over out heads) but tonight's should be back up to par.

Today I had a pretty simple agenda: sun. Mmmm mmm. Am staying till Monday morn, at the latest. Got my free t-shirt today and I may use up my free moped ride soon.

After a couple more nights of debauchery I left the Pink Palace.

On Monday morning at 4:30 we were roused from our beds, having been asleep for three hours, so that we could catch our ferry which was to leave port at 7:30 or so. So we were at the port by around 5:30 to get tickets and just generally to be early. Well, it was around 9:30 when our ferry finally pulled into port and exchanged one group of weary backpackers for another. The ship pulled out with all due haste and we were on our way to Patras, the closest port to Athens on that side of Greece. It was to be another 9-hour ride. However this nine-hour ride was fully during the daytime and it was hellish, for the simple reason that it was an Italian ship. Whose clocks all displayed Italian time. Whose shops and bars only took Italian money, when in fact we at no time left Greece's territorial waters. Whose exchange was only open twice during the trip, and then only for ten-minute periods. Oooh, this was certainly a model of efficiency.

Anyway we got into Patras spot-on 7PM, just in time to see the last train to Athens pull out of the station. D'oh! I hooked up with two Canucks, Chuck and Scott, and we headed off for the hostel in Patras. Soon I had about 15 other students behind me, and I felt like I was leading a tour group. We had a nice dinner in Patras (which incidentally is about a million times nicer than Brindisi as a port town) and I ran into the beautiful Australian girl whom I had met in Salzburg.

We woke up to catch a 9:19 train which ended up leaving at 10:00, and we were off on the way to Athens. We were to have arrived at Athens at 1:30, while in reality we got there at 4PM. We were definitely on Greek time at this point. On the way in we were apalled at how badly the landscape had been mauled, and at how many unfinished buildings were laying about. Apparently the idea is just to build until you run out of money, and then build again when you have some more money. Also, as long as the bulding is "under construction", you don't have to pay property taxes. This is why you see so many perfectly habitable houses with rusting I-beams and steel rods sticking up out of the roofs; each year the occupants can claim that they are in the process of adding another story on.

Upon reaching Athens we gave in to one of the touts and settled in at a hostel in the middle of town. I discovered that most everything I had been told about Athens was true: that it was basically just another big city, except with ruins. As it happens, the Acropolis was closed due to a worker strike, so we headed off to an early slumber, to awaken at 6:30AM Wednesday to catch the ferry to Mykonos in the Cycladic Islands, a six hour cruise.

The ferry ride was interesting, as it was a windy day and there whitecaps all over the Aegean. We were all just settling down into our habitual ferry nap when the ship lurched and we heard a "crump", followed close behind by a sheet of water flying across the two open deck levels and getting everyone and their gear slightly damp. Chuck and I went forward to see what was happening - apparently we had just hit a rather large wave. There were more to come. We went to the upper deck just abreast of the bridge and observed as the bow plunged through two- and three-meter waves, enough to give the ferry a bit of a pitch. As we watched, the ship hit a fairly large wave in exactly the wrong way, and Chuck and I watched, frozen, as a sheet of water plowed up the side of the ship in front of us, towering over us and crashing down on the crow's nest, before slamming us up against the side of the bridge and absolutely drenching the living sh** out of us. We were slightly embarassed.

We pulled into port in Mykonos, and yet again we followed a tout to a nice "hotel" about three minutes out of the main town. We got a nice room for three with its own private washroom and a cool balcony for about $6 a night.

For three nights we stayed in Mykonos - one night we were even sober! I must agree with the Let's Go guide when it says that to come to Mykonos to see indigenous Greek life borders on the ridiculous. Mykonos town is charming, with its active waterfront and its myriad winding streets. It's a little tourist heaven. It was not long before we got on Greek Time: Wake up at 11AM, have "lunch", wander around for a while or take in some sun at the beach, come back to nap at 4PM, wake at 8PM, dinner at 9PM, coffee at 10:30, then at 11 or midnight you hit the bar scene (and at this point in the season there really was only one bar to hit - The Scandinavian Bar & Disco). At about 1AM the bar scene is really hot. Then at 3:30 or 4 in the morning you are kicked out of the bars and left to fend for yourself. Then you wake up at 11 and repeat the whole process.

As far as he beach scene goes on Mykonos, they are beautiful, but we were in for a surprise. It is one thing to hear, "Mykonos has a large gay population" - it is quite another thing to walk around the bend of a beach and see forty nude gay men looking up at you. I thought that I was pretty nonchalant about it, but I'll tell you right now that I felt a bit uncomfortable. You may tell yourself that you're liberal, but there iron tests, and this was one of them. Suffice it to say that for a moment there I turned slightly to the right of Genghis Khan and got the hell out. C'est la vie.

After a while we decided that nothing was to be gained by a further stay in Mykonos and we pushed off for Santorini on the 20-meter "Mykonos Express" in 3-meter seas. Luvely. After a harrowing night we arrived in Santorini.

For three days we stayed on Santorini, sampling the wonders both geological and archaeological, but skimping on the cultural as the island was drying up people-wise. We kept saying, "Boy, this place would be great in the summer..."

Finally I pushed off in the direction of Turkey, with an overnight stay in Paros, another island which was completely dead at the time. I hooked up with four women who were also headed to Turkey and we stayed at a little dump in Parikia, Paros' main village. Woke the next day and had until 10PM to wait for the ferry, a situation which brought Brindisi quickly to mind.

We arrived at the Greek island of Samos, bordering Turkey, at 6AM.

Seljuk- saw cool ruins at Ephesus, Mary's house, Grotto of Seven Sleepers, St. John's Basilica, went tooling around with guy from Pension and two turkish girls, New Zealand Pension, bought carpet nasty bus ride Istanbul - sh**hole outside, inside not so bad, saw movie, visited palace, blue mosque, red mosque, Grand Bazaar, turkish bath, hawkers "Hello - where are you from" - sick when leaving

As I came out of the airport terminal it became clear to me that something I ate was beginning seriously to disagree with me. I hailed a cab and we set out directly for the same hostel in which I had stayed my last time in Athens (the Hotel Lozzani). Upon my arrival I did a cursory check-in and head straight for the bathroom, where it became apparent that this was not going to be a "regular" day. This worried me somewhat, as I had a mere 48 hours before I was to depart for Nepal.

I stayed in bed all day, aside from the multiple restroom visits, and it was not until 1AM that I was violently ill in the bedroom sink. Uh-oh. It looked as if my fears of food poisoning had just been confirmed. I was awake until 4AM, spewing out of both ends, and decided that I must do something about it straight away in the morning.

At around 9AM I gathered enough strength to make it down to the reception, to inform them that I was going to a hospital. A longish cab ride later (with a helpful cabbie) and I was in the Laiko Hospital, a run-down sort of place with way too many patients and not enough staff. I waited to be seen in misery. Finally I was ushered in at around 11AM.

I should make it clear that the other time that I had food poisoning (in Spring 1994) I was in and out of the University medical building in an afternoon. However, after a series of tests and the usual array of "symptom" questions, the doctors of the Hospital Laiko informed me that I was to be taken in for 2 or three days. Hell, I thought, I guess I'm not catching the 7AM flight to Frankfurt. During the course of the day my fever rose to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and I had so many IVs pumped into me that I lost count. Despite my repeated pleas to use the telephone, the nurses would have nothing of it. So I went to sleep despite that fact that I had been in bed more or less for the last day-and-a-half.

I awoke feeling quite a bit better (no nausea) and finally managed to convince one of the nurses to go downstairs and purchase for me a phone card. I called my hotel and asked them to bring some of my stuff over (I was starting to go insane with boredom) and that they should go ahead and charge me for the days that the rest of my stuff would be hanging around. The woman on the other line said "Sure, I'll have someone bring it over as soon as possible." That was at 10AM. So I waited both for my things and for the clock to advance to the point where it was a decent time to ring home.

In the meantime my financial worries grew:

• I had about $27 in cash on me and no traveler's cheques
• It was a national holiday and therefore impossible for me to phone American Express to see about the possibility of getting more cash or cheques
• I had just missed a flight with a prepaid ticket on an airline to which I had given no notice of cancellation, and therefore possibly had just thrown money down the drain, not to mention the troubles ahead in rescheduling the three consecutive flights which were to get me to Nepal; and most importantly
• Here I was in some damned hospital in Greece with no friends and no money and not knowing how much it was going to cost me.

And now it is 8PM and my heart is lighter: The Norwegian guy from the hostel came by with some of my stuff, let me know what was going on, informed me that my hospital stay was most likely going to be free, and even pointed me out the American Express teller machine on the map. A while after that I got a call from "a friend of a friend of a friend" of Lee's in Athens, asking if he could do anything for me. He talked to the nurses and apparently I'm to be released tommorrow. And he wants to get together with me to look over the papers they are going to give me. And the final bon morceau is that I called my travel agent back and she said that I was rescheduled for Tuesday with no loss to the pocket. I like it. Now if I only had a book...

Yep, that's right - I'm still in this damned hospital. They wanted to see how I did with food in me, and since they forgot to tell the food lady to give me lunch, I have to stay another night so that they can see what supper does for me. ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH! Words cannot express the frustration I feel with this pathetically inefficient pit of a third-world hospital! I am so friggin' fed up with their crap! How can an entire staff be so coordinated about ignoring you for two days and never giving you a straight answer about anything. This is the one damn thing I can't stand about the Greeks - you never get a straight answer.

Anyway, did some more calling around today, just to piss off the nurses (I try to get out of the room frequently just to remind them that I'm still here) and ran down and bought another phone card, dragging this damned IV around the whole time. Which begs the question: Why am I still on IV if I'm to be switching to regular food?

When supper arrived (an hour after everyone else's, by the way), I was looking forward to what everyone else had gotten, which was a nice hamburger steak and rice with a side of orange slices and a piece of bread. What I got was a bowl of ice-cold noodles in water with two halves of a lemon and a plastic cup of "tea". ARRRRRRRRRGHGGGGGGGHHHHH! I swear to God that if they tell me to stay a fourth night I am going to rip out the IV right in front of them and just walk out. I am so sick of this place I can taste it. Bitter? Me? Never...

They did actually attempt to keep me for a fourth night. My rebellion began when the nurse came in on Sunday morning to put in a new IV. "No," I said, much to her befuddlement, "I'm leaving today, and if you start me on a new bag I'l be here forever." She backed off and so I wandered around with the useless catheter sitting in my arm until around two in the afternoon, when the doctor came by. "You look like you are leaving," he said, and I confirmed this. "But we would like to keep you one more night for observation."

Well I had seen this coming and had thought about what I was going to say: "Listen - when I was admitted the doctor said I would be in here a couple of days. I have been here three nights, four days. I had a flight out on Friday that I missed and rescheduled to Tuesday. I have things I need to get done in Athens before I leave, and I need Monday to do them. You know that if you kept me one more night I wouldn't get out until mid-afternoon, and everything I need closes down at 4PM. So I need to get out of here today. I have not had diarrhea or thrown up for two days now, and I feel no weakness. I would like to leave now."

This did not make him happy, but he led me around to the nurses' station where I signed a statement saying that I was leaving the hospital on my own recognizance. I collected my bag without hesitation and was in the next cab going anywhere (as long as it had my hotel).

Monday was a shopping/task day - I stocked up on used paperbacks and magazines for the trip east, and mailed some stuff home for a ridiculous price. Went out for a movie and returned in due course to get what sleep I could before waking at 4:30AM Tuesday to catch the plane to Frankfurt. Getting to the airport was a comedy of errors: Missed the 5AM airport bus by about 2min; hailed a cab and asked how much to the airport - 1500 drs, he says. I tell him I have only 1100. Too bad, he says, and roars off. So I hike a kilometer to the bank teller that takes Amex and hail a cab from there with my newly acquired funds. Get to the airport and how much does he ask for? 1000. So now I have this nice clean crisp 5000 drachma note and I'm not in Greece anymore. Well, hellooo Mr. Change Man.

So I should be staying a day or so in Frankfurt before heading East.

When next I write I will be in Asia.