Mykonos, Greece, July 20, 2015
We docked around one pm and a bunch of us set off into town around two. We got on a Blue Line bus without knowing if it was the right one. We figured we'd all be together, so it would be an adventure. The wind howled when we got off (in the right place) and blew my brand new camera right out of my hands. For a moment I felt defeated. The second camera in three days broken? And this one not even paid for yet?
By the time I recuperated from the nauseating feeling of failure, tested the camera, found out it still worked, and made my way toward town, everybody I knew had disappeared. As I walked along the water front, the little beach for the "commoners" some small shops and a few eateries I realized that this wasn't the area that attracted celebrities. It definitely wasn't the area the Kardashians had frequented in 2013. I had seen somewhere online that the Mayor of Mykonos had tried to pay them to stay away, but they came anyway. Well, they must have been in the "upper part."
Over the next couple of hours I covered the first layer of town, not really wanting to do a lot of climbing. What I wanted was right there, white houses, blue fences, a little church, some colorful flowering hedges. A cat. And lots and lots of people being pushed to the sides of narrow streets by impatient mini cars.
In following the cat I entered some of the less crowded side streets/alleys where old, worn and rustic no longer competed with modern and tourist compatible. It was, actually, at least to me, the real Mykonos, the one that fought an icy wind in the winter; where neighbors shouted from stoop to stoop, late in the afternoon, communicating their irritation with the European Union. It must be the place where old people, frustrated with modernity bemoaned the closing of banks and lack of groceries. Shifting my attention from old water faucet to tiny parking spaces, steep stair cases, and narrow balconies, I aimed my camera into every direction, before I reentered the shopping paradise and its eager patrons.
I enjoyed a brief sit down in front of one of the little churches and even considered buying a t-shirt, but dropped the idea when yet another small pick-up truck forced me to squeeze against a wall.
O.k. a few more pictures of vendors, anglers, and sun bathers along the sandy beach. Some distant landscapes, winding along the mountainous terrain. Then back to the ship. And this time I made sure the windshield of the bus displayed the typed message "Equinox shuttle."
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