The thing I’m wanting from Greece most … warmth. There’s no heating at all in the bathroom at the guesthouse I’ve been staying at and when in the shower this morning the water started to cool just after I’d applied shower gel to my body, it was then a frantic race to get as much of it off before I was pouring ice cold H2O all over my sen. Not fun.
So I’m just off to begin my trip to Athens via a bus to Skopje (that I’m still gutted I have to get), I’ll be picking up a big juicy burek on route to the station don’t you worry.
That was a bit scary. Only 5 minutes from the bus station in the centre of Ohrid the bus stopped and a moody looking policeman got on, I didn’t realise at first as I was busy making haunting synth music on Bebot, ahem. Anyway he was checking passports but mine was in my bag as I’m not going to be crossing a border on this leg of the journey.
To make me sweat a bit more he put some lad in handcuffs (behind his back too) before me, gulp. I showed him my driving license and asked if he wanted me to ask the driver to let me get to my bag, luckily he wasn’t really interested though.
Not so for the guy on the seats adjacent to me, who he handcuffed to felon number 1. In all he took 4 people off the bus, I presume they were immigrants of some kind, they did have a more eastern look to them than everyone else.
Currently we’re driving through the mountains and there’s snow and a thick mist everywhere, it just looks like a great white abyss to both sides of the road.
The album ‘Hold on now, Youngster‘ by Los Campesinos! has been listened to today. Its breezy indie-pop with elements of art-punk and there are some pretty good tunes, but ultimately it’s low on backbone and won’t hold your attention very long at all. This also applies to their mini-album ‘Sticking Fingers into Sockets’.
We’re in a bus depot in some town now and there’s a fat kid singing his heart out on a bench with very animated features. I’m still on the bus so I don’t know what he’s singing to (though if anything, I’d hazard a guess it’s one of the tunes I despise so much). He’s spotted me laughing at him and started laughing himself, highly amusing.
When I got to Skopje it was time to find the train station. It’s the mankiest, most decrepit, inaccessible, unhelpful station I’ve ever been at. It’s a good thing I didn’t get the later bus as I considered as that only left me an hour before the train out, it took me more than an hour to sort the ticket.
The ‘information’ desk was named poorly really. There was one of those little speaker-holes in the window bur the bloke on the other side was sat slouching and reading his paper about a metre away from it (as were the other 2 ‘workers’ in the room) so when he did bother to speak you couldn’t hear a word, not that it mattered as he didn’t speak English. I showed him the train(s) I wanted to book on my phone and said billet (French for ticket but I think they use a very similar word here) he just repeatedly said “Skopje, Thessaloniki, okay” and I couldn’t get anything else out of him. Thanks for that D’Artagnan.
I found a ticket office after a bit of wandering and the woman spoke a bit of English, eventually we got there and I got my ticket for about €27 with my ISIC but for a long time it was looking like I could only get a ticket to Thessaloniki which would be a problem as I wouldn’t have had time to get the ticket to Athens. Phew.
Then I had an hour or so to find some grub. Irish Pub St. Patrick (genius stuff naming wise) looked a good bet and the bacon cheese-burger and chips I got were proper beaut, the burger was massive as well. At under a fiver including a pint, it was just what the Doc ordered.
I also got to catch the last few minutes of the Villa vs Chelsea game (our draw at Villa Park looks even better now) and the first half hour of the Rags vs Wanderers game, what a flukey goal for Owen.
In an effort to rid myself of all Macedonian readies I just bought 5 croissants with a touch of cocoa in them. The brand being 7 Days, I’ve become addicted to them lately. That’s my brekkies sorted for the short-term.
When I get to Thessadonachie at 22:34 (in theory) I’ve got 24 minutes before the train I need to be on departs to Athens. By the law of sod I’ve just noticed on the screen that it’s already 15 minutes late. I’m on it now and considering it’s already late it doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to get going. It finally departed at 17:45 which puts me 6 minutes over the buffer I had right from the off. I hope the driver has a turbo button.
It did indeed transpire that I missed my train as we didn’t get in until about 23:15, 40 minutes or so late. Luckily there was another train at 23:33 but I had to pay an extra €11 as it was all couchette. I don’t know why you have to pay more though as there are 6 couchettes in a room and it’s 6 people to one of those rooms without the couchettes in anyway. So basically you are paying 11 Euros for a pillow, blanket and sheets. Though I couldn’t actually apply my sheets as I was on one of the highest bunks and I had about 2ft clearance between me and the roof. It was all pretty uncomfortable but I was that tired I still slept for 4 hours+ of the 6 hour journey (though it was closer to 7 hours in the end, not too reliable these Greek trains).
The hostel seems pretty good. Though I went in my room and there are lots of half-cut (by the smell of them) snoring men in there. I can’t figure out which is my bed as they’ve all just put their clothes on all of them. It’s 08:00am though so I’ll just do the stuff I need to on the internet and then sort it in a bit.
Expect lots of dodgy Greek references (like the Anchorman inspired post title) over the next few days.
Pic is from Ohrid.
Tags: Anchorman, Blogsherpa, Europe, Macedonia, Skopje, Bebot, Greece, Athens, Los Campesinos!, Willie Donachie, Irish Pub St. Patrick, 7 Days croissants, Student And Travellers Inn
