I Go In Search Of My Roots

I am spending this spring break in search of my Roots, in Greece. Architects Virginia and Emily have come with me to the Aegean Area to try and seek out our ancestors. And we're taking a cruise to do so.

It's an EasyCruise. Yes - this is the same company that runs EasyJet, a gigantic EasyJest, the Dollar Tree form of travel. These are the same people who turned me away from my flight to Lyon, but I'm a forgiving type of person, and forgiving in this sense can be interpreted as a synonym of poor. Yes, I'm a poor type of person, and to my type of person, EasyCruise, which is nothing more than a floating hostel, appeals. (In EasyCruise's defense, there is an inhouse deejay, DJ George, who laces international tracks seven days a week in the designated party center, the Sun Moon Bar. His audience is mostly grandmothers.)

Yesterday we ported (I love that word) in Kiato, a very small town, from which my party of three took a series of very confusing buses and by the Grace of God ended up in Mycenae, which was Agammemnon's seat. There was the Tomb of Atreus and the Lion's Gate, both behemoths in size and weight, but what interested me more were the surrounding mountains, which looked as if they had been quickly hewn out of a solid block of stone and hastily covered with moss. They looked as if they were in the process of creation.

I will say a word for the Greek peoples: they are much more gracious than I would be. I often say, when asked, that Ancient Greek is eight times removed from Modern Greek as Shakespeare is to Amerlish. In truth, it is even farther. The only thing I retain, and am able to convey, are the prepositions. Even so, I have picked up one word along the way (thank you, which is IFXAPISTO), and use it as often as possible. The Greek peoples, who look as if they are all retired, as if they have taken all the youngsters and put them in the back rooms of tourism, have nevertheless been great hosts, and have taken care of my group in our ignorance. In fact, one beratement by a transportation official aside, I have had a humorous, if not smooth, time communicating.

Today we ported (I love it!) in Ithica, the island of Odysseus. We did not raid the town's stores and carry off the women, as I had suspected (before getting on the EasyCruiseOne, our boat, I had thought it might be a pirate ship, and the patrons might be forced into a life of buccaneering; this did not happen, and I almost regret it). I will relate the spoils of my journey further on.

I Am Shocked And Slightly Embarrassed

This morning I saw the leaving mother and sister off on their train to Fiumincino, the Roman international airport, then I got on a train headed to Ciampino, the Roman airport that exclusively services jalopies, lemons, and the Wright Brothers. In such a position, as to catering mainly to pre-World War II aircraft and backpackers with little to no money, Ciampino is not very efficient. And it does not care.

I was headed to Lyon, France for the weekend. Unable to afford a flight to Paris, I picked Lyon because it was cheaper and French, which, once again, when not used as an insult, equals magic in fiction. And since I consider my life to be one overly wordy piece of fiction, I anticipated fireworks for me in Lyon.

I will not attempt to relate the series of very bad mistakes that all happened at once, but I will cut to the end of the chase (which is much easier than cutting to the chase - for what is worse than coming into a story midstride, rather than at the end, when the object being chased is apprehended?), and say that I missed the check-in for the flight to Lyon. I learned this by proxy, overhearing the indignant cries of a group of Frenchmen who, too, had missed the check-in. I followed hot on their heels (okay, so maybe I did not cut to the end of the chase), all the way to the Easy Jet ticket counter.

Yes, I was to fly an airline named Easy Jet. And yes, I realize this sounds roughly equal to purchasing anything off of Craig's List, but it's cheap.

All Frenchmen are very svelte; at least I assume this from the cross section of the race I hung around with. They were all so trim that their veins did not have to work very hard to surface and expand when filled with blood. The furious Frenchmen and I formed what I liked to think of as Le Resistance, fighting the ubiquitous Easy Jet conglomerate with all tools of guerrilla warfare. We had a de facto leader, whose veins pulsated much faster than everyone else's, a scout, who always knew where to go next, and a token American cowboy, caught in a tempest of languages he did not understand.

After much combat with the Easy Jet receptionists, Fredrick, the only one who could speak English, and whom I deemed the demolitions specialist (because there is always one, in every movie; in musicals, he sings bass, in sports shows, he the biggest guy on the team, and in war stories, he handles the dynamite), told me that there was no hope of getting to Lyon with anything short of two flights, a bus, and a camel.

We all rode back to Rome together, and parted ways. I became a casualty of war and returned to my apartment, whereas the rest of Le Resistance, Fredrick included, continued to fight, so that I would not have missed my flight in vain. When I asked, he told me his plan to get to Lyon before morning, which was more ridiculous than most fictions I come up with. I asked him what was so pressing, that he had to return to Lyon this instance, and he said it was a kid's soccer team in need of a coach.

Not even his kids. Fredrick would go on to spend two hundred plus extra euros in order to be at a children's soccer match in time. How good of a man is that?