Midnight Express (Standing Room Only)

Sated with our last Turkish meal, a Pide Doner made by our favorite street vendor, myself and my menagerie boarded a late night sleeper train shooting us from Sirkecki Train Station in Istanbul to the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Although, shoot is a verb conotating a degree of speed or swiftness. We made frequent stops initially; Sam's and mine sleeper car was over an axle and so our room was filled with the clank clank clatter of each rairoal tie. A roughness that was smoothed noticeable as we entered the more maintained Greek railway system. We arrived having the impression that the ‘excellent waterfronts’ of Thessaloniki entailed the sandy white Mediterranean beaches of fame. We found instead an excellent concrete water walk. Without beaches we were without plans for the duration of our stay that day and choose a shady park to nap and play cards in with the old Greek men and stray dogs digging holes to sleep curled up in to escape from the 34 degree sweltering heat (Celsius of course). Arriving early Sunday the city was a virtual ghost town, the majority of the populace packed in countless Greek Orthodox Churches for their three hour services. Spilling into the streets with a singular joyous exhalation of freedom the writhing mass of Greek families steadily filled waterfront cafes and their frivolities mingled into a musical cacophony beauty of laughter and eating, living and talking together under the heavy sun of the Aegean as salt laden breezes tantalizingly cool, at least momentarily, the sweat on the brow of our hurrying Greek waiter laying down our first gyro to taste and also soothes the foreheads of all the swirling mass of people in Thessaloniki. And so with our expected plans falling through, a phenomenon I should begin to rely on, we saw our fortunes turn from boredom to sensory delight. Our brief experience of Thessaloniki proved a great first taste of Greece. Whatever pleasure I found in contemplating the irony of great experiences deriving from misfortune and failure of plans was quickly smashed as we boarded the night train to Athens. A seven hour train ride through the body of Greece, this time in reclining seats, I had happy thoughts of a restful night when we boarded early. Soon the train began filling and we soon realized that we had been sold standing room only tickets, leaving it up to chance and good fortune to place you anywhere other than the ground for the 7 hour ride. Procuring a single seat for the five in our group, we stoically took hour long turns to sleep. Eyes red and legs sore bleary eyes searching through the sigma theta omega epsilon confusion of Greek letters at the train station to find our new home. Emerging a short block from the National Garden, like seasoned soldiers on long marches, we wordlessly shouldered heavy bags and walked through the garden as the sun rose over Athens on our first day