26 Oct 1985, Posted by Scott An Chora in Travelogue, No Comments.

10/26 Athens, Greece

One irony in my life is that I had very few women friends.  Most relationships with women were always aimed toward romance and when that didn’t work out or when we experienced an obstacle that couldn’t be overcome, we’d move on.  Mostly I have had male friends, sharing common experience and growing up like all normal boys.  But I’ll have to admit, women make pretty good friends.  Once that it is understood that not everything is sexual, we get along wonderfully.  They make much better traveling companions, easier to agree with, better conversationalists, not as competitive, better sleeping arrangements; they attract a different type of crowd, and if there were benefits attached all the better.  Along the river I learned to open myself up and to utilize my experiences and understanding to enlarge conversation into the interesting topics.  Topics that help reveal and help me understand.  It seemed the greater the risk, the greater the reward.  You can’t fly a kite unless you go against the wind.  We hit up a couple of bars on our way back to a well deserved sleep.

It wasn’t exactly an early morning but much like the day before we each headed off in separate directions at different times.  I spent the majority of that day touring Athen’s museums but still managed to seek out the place where we ended up having lunch the previous afternoon.  Once you discovered gold, you keep coming back to the same location until the vain is gone.  Tony and I had planned on meeting that evening at a local hotel for cocktails.  Yesterday we had met a group of young ladies that were attending school in Europe for the summer and were in Athens on a field trip.  The company was good and I understood the meal in their hotel would be free.  Free has always been my favorite word in the English language.  There are very few sentences that the word ‘free’ doesn’t fit well in a positive way.  It seemed that our group was beginning to break up.  Sandra had left for Rhoads and Brad continued his moves and followed her.  Dawn had already boarded a plane for Crete which sounded like a pretty good idea to me.  After discussing options the rest of us began to search the streets for the cheapest fare to Crete.  It turned out that if we left Athens at four in the morning the fare would be cut in half.  After a short discussion we decided to make a late night of it and planned to sleep the next day on the sands of Crete.  We bought tickets and checked out of the hotel.  The hotel clerk was kind enough to watch our bags until it was time for us to head to the airport.

We regrouped at the school girl’s hotel for dinner.  At the dinner table we were joined by a couple of other gentlemen who appeared to be hitting on a couple of girls in the group.  I swear one guy looked exactly like Paul McCartney ten years ago.  The waiter that had served us drinks for the past two nights was pulled aside by one of two gentlemen that were dining with us and they proceeded to have an odd conversation in Greek.  I sat there watching their expressions and things just didn’t quite add up.  Then the waiter approached our group and asked if Tony and I had rooms in that hotel.  I explained we didn’t and the waiter then asked us to leave the premise.  I thought that was odd since it was a restaurant.  We inquired why and what made tonight different from the past two nights we drank there.  Once I gestured to the girls that we should all leave the gentlemen changed their position and tried to convince us to stay.  It was obvious to me that their priority was maintaining company with the girls.  That interaction and the fact that they kept suggesting that the girls go club hopping with them on the outskirts of town raised some concerns.  Even when the girls expressed reluctance they kept insisting that we should leave the city, “We know a really good place”.  That raised a red flag in my mind.  I pulled Tony aside and explained that we needed to be cautious about taking those young ladies into unknown areas of the city.  Apparently our conversation triggered his aggressive instincts.  Immediately when the two gentlemen came back into Tony’s view he entered their space.  Tony could be intimidating if he got in your face.  His aggressive stance and tone scared the living hell out of both men.  I noticed they were eyeing the exits just in case.  They backed away from the table faster than a cat being chased by a dog.  Understandably the girls were really upset since from their perspective we had insulted their guests.  The two gentlemen still insisted that we visit a disco, suggested a location, eventually flagged down a cab, gave the driver directions and we were off without our new acquaintances.  We arrived at what I would classify as “Disco Hell”.  I could hardly stand the music.  Add in an unprofessional light show and increase the price of drinks by five.  I was ready to go in minutes but we were struck there for the night.  At least it seemed that the girls were having fun.  They let their hair down and enjoyed the dancing.  All night I was casing the crowd as if I expected a kidnapping to take place.