Later that afternoon I buy a ferry ticket on the ANEK ferry line the good ship LOTO to Hania, Chania, or what ever in Crete. The ferry starts loading about 5:00 and leaves about 7:30 PM, arriving at about 5:30 AM. For about $30 I get the ride and get to sleep in a 4 bed cabin (with 3 others). Damn it is hot - I decide to go to the ferry, it is supposed to be air conditioned. About 40 of us are wilting in the sun and heat. We creep (sneak??) about 30 minutes early, onto the auto deck of the ferry hoping that "they" will not throw us off, it is SO COOL in the boat. We are silent - we really do not want to be thrown off. The wonderful COOL air streams down an escalator. Soon an officer in white sees us, picks up the phone, the escalator starts, and we are beckoned into the main part of the vessel - into Heaven from the Hell outside. Just Wonderful. (Greece is in the middle of one of it's worst heat waves.)

There is almost no one else on the vessel - more workers than passengers. There are about 40 passengers and 10 cars. I feel sad that such a nice ship is so under-utilized and probably going broke.

I am shown to "my" cabin, pick a bunk. I hurry after the (bell hop?) that has shown me the room and ask for a key - he shrugs and hurries off. I go back to my room and bunk and go to sleep. I wake. The engines are running! The other 3 bunks contain sleeping men! I go out, there are people all over the place. Kids in the arcades playing video games, many people on the floor (deck) in sleeping bags, blankets, or just their street clothes. Lots of people snoozing in the TV theater like place. I find that I slept through the dinner period. They have removed the food and are just finishing cleaning the cafeteria. The vehicle hold seems completely full of autos, vans, and large trucks. Good, the large beautiful ship is full of people.

I get out the GPS, go to a forward deck just below the bridge, and play with it some more. We are almost half way to Hania, traveling towards it at 21.8 knots. It is a stunningly beautiful night, ideal temperature, slight breeze, no city lights, dark skies, a world full of stars.

We are off the ferry at dawn at Souda, the working port of Hania. Many people are getting of buses marked Xania - is that Hania or Chania - Yes - pay 320 drachmas (about $1.10) for the ride. We are moving, I am standing in the full bus. I want to see everything. I bend down to see more of the hills. A guy offers me his seat - what me? - I am embarrassed but thankful. I see a lot. In a little while I offer him his seat back. No, no - just fine.

Hania, like all of Crete, is historic. It was a thriving town before the "Golden Age" of the Greeks, it was old when the Macedonian "Alexander the Great" conquered the known civilized world (he did not seem to know about the Orient?). It has had so many conquerors that you need queue cards to keep them in order. The Creteans seem to gave given all of their conquerors fits (all except the Romans, no body seems to know why that relationship was peaceful.) The most recent were the Venitians and the Turks (the Germans recently were there for only about 4 years, a mere blink of the eye). Bloody times, terror and abduction to try to suppress the Creteans, terror and abduction right back at the captors.

I like to drive - but I was a little worried about driving in a "2nd world" country. I am used to the regimentation of the United States. You see a red stop sign, you stop, you wait, even if there are no cars as far as the eye can see - you wait - because the cops finds it easier and safer to hide and wait for you to sneak through that red light than to chase dangerous people.

There seems to be a different attitude in 2nd and 3rd world countries (what ever those numbers may mean). First, their is not enough money to put a stop light on every corner, so they have to cooperate a little. Second, stop lights work even more poorly in poor countries since a higher percentage of the traffic is motor scooters, bicycles, motor cycles, etc. which do not interact with stop light sensors reliably.

In any case, traffic flows more continuously in China and Crete than in the U.S.

So Sunday I rented a motor scooter to do initial searching for NAMFI locations. Oddly, It is almost 2/3 the price of a car. How to get to the airport - to start the search? I have not gotten the knack of finding street names in Hania. Street names are painted on the sides of buildings instead of being placed on signs on steel posts as in the U.S. I do not find any likely road, so I head in the general direction of northeast, up there on the high peninsula.

Down from the high peninsula to the port of Souda, grope for the main highway linking all of the cities on the north side of the island, fill the little gas tank of the Fiat Panda, and away I go.

This is a nice road - 2 wide lanes with nice wide shoulders. Slower traffic use the nice wide shoulders. I am tempted, I dream I am a Gran Prix driver. How fast can I go and not likely kill myself or someone else? Come on - I'm old enough to be a grand father, reactions not as quick and sure as in the past.

It is a beautiful day, good light and excellent seeing conditions. By now I have a feel for the Cretean way of driving - how they handle the mix of farm wagons, bicycles, motor scooters, motor cycles, autos, trucks, and buses on 2 wide lanes with wide shoulders.

They do not do it the American way which is:

1. do not drive on the shoulder or you will get a ticket
2. this is my lane and I drive in the center of it
3. never cross the double center line [no passing zone] or you will get a ticket.

1. slow traffic better drive on the wide shoulder
2. a car better keep its right wheel on the line dividing the main lane and the wide shoulder - this gives greater flexibility for
   * dodging cars that are passing over the center line
   * dodging slow traffic possibly passing on the wide shoulder
   
3. it is not friendly to have the center line of your car over the double line [no passing zone]

Then, about 15 km from my destination, I mis-judged a corner and did something like a 4 wheel drift much wider than anticipated. OK, Let's cool down and live to drive another day. I started following the local drivers who have driven there a long time. [On the way back, it was dark, I was not feeling sharp and I behaved myself.]

I got to the ruins of Knossos in plenty of time. There was plenty of parking. I paid the entrance fee and "hung out" watching people. Soon I found an English speaking guide leading a group that did not seem in a hurry. He seemed to know more than the tour book. I lurked about listening. Soon the group moved to a different spot. I asked the guide if I could join the group - the guide seemed relieved that he would not have an embarrassing lurker and happy at the prospect of another fee. The fee was twice the entrance fee - but seemed well worth it. We spent about 2.5 hours strolling about, talking comfortably, letting faster groups go through us. We had lots of questions, comments, and comparisons. There are not answers for all of the questions. I thought we got a wonderful tour. Most of us gave the guide generous tips.
[I then went to the car and drank a liter of water.]

I took some beautiful photos of Knossos. Great color, great detail, of 3,500 year old room paintings. I decided not to put them on this site as they are rather large (200 K bytes for low resolution .jpg) and not in the charter of this site. I suggest a trip to your local library for books that can provide much more that I can offer.

About 3 miles due north, in the town proper, is the museum where many of the recovered objects are displayed. It seemed a great museum, much reconstructed art, much explanation. Unfortunately, after about an hour, it was getting dusk and I had had a full day, and was getting concerned about the return trip. I left before being pushed out.

I spent a few more days in Crete, listening to Greek/Crete guitar music in a restaurant, sampling OUZO and METAXA, Hania Naval Museum - twice, walking about, watching the World Cup with REALLY interested fans, in general enjoying the good life.

I really felt safe, much safer than in my middle class suburban neighborhood. The Greeks complain about the illegal Albanian and Turks, but I did not feel threatened in the least. Everybody seemed attached to the world, everybody seemed to see you on the street, you could look anybody in the eye. The police presence seemed minimal, mostly to "show the flag". Their cars did not have the light show from outer space, just a little blue blinking light. (The guide book says don't mess with the police, they have wide and flexible authority.) Admittedly this was a town with a big tourist population, but women walked about in the evening with seemingly very little care. (These did not look like "ladies of the evening".) No one walked with a big dog. If I thought that I could learn Greek, and if they had a fast Internet access ... - I would be very tempted to stay a season or two to see how it went. (The major heat wave was leaving.)

Time to leave this near paradise. I had committed to a meeting in Athens on Monday. I bought a ticket to Athens on the Sunday night ferry (oddly, it costs about $3 more to leave Crete than to go to Crete). I took a bus to Souda arriving about 4 hours before the ferry departure time. I wanted to see how Crete life was in a less touristy situation. A small dusty town with more people and kids than work. A big naval dockyard and base takes up the east end of the town, but any sailors did not seem visible in the Sunday evening city square scene. I checked many of the gates of the naval facilities, but since I did not have a mission nor a letter, the guards were not interested in me nor I in them. Back to the town square and a dinner. The older residents taking the evening air at the outside restaurant tables, viewed me with some suspicion and distrust. I unsettled them. They were not out to sell things to tourists, this was their city - I was a definite outsider.

After an hour, more and more people came through the town square to the nearby ferry area. There was no "ferry terminal". The area was part of the navel base. A large faded sign that said to "Keep out", "Subject to Search" was totally ignored. I was sitting at "my" outdoor dinner table under trees about 75 meters away. I was feeling very self satisfied with arriving early and being comfortable watching others standing in the sun. But there was no ferry boat, and the boat should be leaving in a mere 45 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 15 minutes - there seemed to be a problem.

The evening turned into night. About an hour after the scheduled leave time, a large ferry boat came and docked. There seemed to be a great deal of pushing and shoving at the front of the crowd. The cars and truck that were to get out were struggling to get through the people struggling to get onto the vessel. I noticed that this ship did not have the separate passenger loading ramp that the LOTTO had. And this ship was not the LOTTO that was on my ticket.

In the words of U.S. space flight "Houston, We may have a problem here." I quickly leave my comfortable superior chair, and with suitcase wheeling behind, hustle to the dock area. There is a rough shack with a guy sitting in it. I ask is this the ferry to Athens. "Yes - but a different ship, the other one had an acc - ah, had a problem." OK - no problem. I stand back from the struggling crowd - still feeling very superior. I notice a group that appears to be Ethiopians. They also are standing back from the struggling crowd observing quietly. Soon I ask myself "Why the struggle?" and ask the guy in the shack. He says that this ship is much smaller than the LOTTO and there might not be room for the Sunday night crowd. OH OH and I throw myself into the struggling crowd, all feelings of separate superiority suddenly departed.

It was madness. "Women and children first" may have been the motto for the Titanic, but not here. We struggled up the auto loading ramp. It had been a hot day out side, and it was definitely hotter in here. Once on the vehicle deck, our troubles were not over, just beginning. Auto fumes were everywhere, choking. We were all trying to get through that little door way over there. All these people through that little door - you gotta be kidding. After about 15-25-35 minutes, who is counting, I get through the little door. A new scene of madness greet me. This is the reception area. It is jammed with people trying to reach the only person on the ship that can make room assignments. They are all waving their 5" by 7" tickets at him trying to get him to take their ticket and give a room assignment. Another officer starts through the surging crowd and collects tickets. (These guys should get hazardous duty pay!)

The associate has my ticket. Any pretense of civilized behavior leaves me. I must not loose track of that ticket. It may be delivered to the room assignor at any time. I crash-through/fall-over a girl in violet, I sortof apologize without taking my eye off of the associate. (Thinking back she may have been on a similar mission, but I outweighed her by 60 pounds.) One of my suspenders pops loose, my glasses are steaming, I am careless of the welfare of others, I could have had my pocket picked a hundred times and not known it, I have no shame, and I am one of many others doing the same thing, we are a mob.

The assignor has my ticket! He looks up something, scribbles on my ticket, and hands my ticket to a room guide. We fight our way out of the reception area. People want the area that I was standing in and push me back into the space I am trying to leave. I fall over my suitcase but stay vertical - there is no place to fall. I gather my feet under me and pretend I am playing American football. Slowly the guide and I struggle our way out of the reception area.

The guide is not sure what is written on the ticket. I could be room 107 or 109. In fact there are other good possibilities. My guide confers with other guides returning to the reception area - they shug - pick one. I am led to 109. Which bunk? The guide thinks the ticket says "a", the guy in bunk "a" convinces the guide that the "a" is a "b". There is a guy in "b", I take bunk "d". I have a bed! I don't have to sleep on the floor!

Later I go out to take a look. The ship is peaceful. No one is sleeping on the floor. The vehicle deck is full of cars, tightly packed. All is quiet. The ship has successfully absorbed all of those struggling sweating people.

It is morning. I have an 11 A.M. appointment with an Internet journalist friend. The ship is going to dock at about 11 A.M. I must call him and delay the appointment. The movies show ship to shore phones, all the important people do it. Me to! I go to the reception area and ask. They call the radio room, and say to come back at 9:00. At 9:00 I present myself and am taken into the area marked "CREW ONLY". Hey, this is OK. We go up to the bridge deck and just behind the bridge is the radio room. The radio operator is making the phone connection for a frantic lady. There is a long frantic conversation. Finally the lady seems relieved and "hangs up" by releasing a switch on the hand set. The radio operator makes another phone call to get the charges and charges the lady ??? drachmas. My turn. I write the phone number and the radio operator pushes some buttons on the keypad, then enters the number I gave him. He explains that I must keep the switch on the hand set depressed until the phone conversation is done. My friend answers, we start to talk and a loud buzzing noise starts, and the connection is broken. The radio operator makes a call and apparently tells of the broken connection. Then he dials my friend again. This time the connection holds, and we defer the appointment till 2:00 P.M. I release the switch. The radio operator makes the call to get the charges and asks for 210 drachmas.