Squaring the Triangle

"What, you have something valuable in there?" the Turkish boat crewman said to Matheus as he removed his passport from his suitcase before leaving it with the "checked" baggage. Matheus said "no" and headed to the stairs to the upper deck of the ferry.

"That was kinda' creepy," I said to Matheus who agreed.

"I'll keep my ass on your bag," the man then shouted. 

"That was even more creepy," I said softly. But what was there to do?

We were boarding our second ferry of the day – this one from Samos, Greece to Kusadasi, Turkey. The line to get on the ferry had been crazy and Meander Travel, the Turkish company that runs many of the ferries between Turkey and the Greek Dodecanese somehow forgot to put our name on the ship's registry, which made it so the lazy Greek boarding agent on the Samos side had to manually add us – which she didn't want to do. So she tried to save us until the end of boarding, making us wait with the kids in the hot sun outside the customs terminal even though we had already waited and made it to the front of the line. After Emily got a police officer to inquire as to why the boat was not boarding a paid, ticketed family – the agent acquiesced, though her attitude remained.

The Kusadasi Express was the first Turkish vessel we boarded and there was a clear cultural shift as we did – from the mishap to the unfriendly boarding agent to the creepy suitcase-ass-sitting crew member. Our first ferry of the day, the Anek line's Nissos Kalymnos (the same ship Emily and I took from Patmos to Samos in 2010) went very smoothly, even if the ship was far from as attractive as the Blue Star 1 we took from Athens to Patmos and the crew was efficient, but agnostic about customer service. As has become our tradition, we bought spinach and cheese pies before the ferry which brightened the kids' disposition and then we let them watch all the TV shows they wanted on the iPad while aboard the trip that should have taken three but somehow took almost four hours (for no reason that we can account for). 

Getting off the boat in Samos was an immediate shock – mainly for the sheet size. Pythagoria, the town where we landed – and named for Pythagorus its most famous resident of all-time – itself is as big of Skala and it is one of many towns on the island and certainly not the largest. Samos is big and sprawling, with Greek, forested mountains and rocky cliffs. It produces wine and ouzo and even claims its own version of Sangria. It has a small airport and a proper hospital. Samos is a giant compared to Patmos – albeit a very mellow, picturesque one.

We had only four hours between ferries and therefore no plans to go beyond the Pythagorean marina. Instead we dragged our backpacks and selves in search of the restaurant where I had my 33rd birthday lunch – one of my most memorable meals. We found the restaurant and they still had the mezze sampler platter I loved, although the presentation was not what it once was (but they did improve the chairs and linens…). We had a long, leisurely late lunch while Ailyn curled up and napped in her chair. Eventually, she awoke, had a little lunch, but wanted to leave to go to the playground Sennen had spotted near the marina. We have never seen a playground surrounded by water before – the children of Samos have absolutely the best view of any park-going kids in the world.

By the time the kids had gotten some energy out and Matheus has explored the town a little, it was time to head to the ferry pier to get in line for what we expected to be a slow process. It turned out that not only was it so slow the our boat left 20 minutes late, but the passport control at the ferry terminal on the Kusadasi side was also extremely slow. So, everyone pushed and shoved their way off the ferry just to line up again. Luckily, we had an incredible sunset over a beautiful harbor to distract us and there was enough room for the kids to play while waiting.

Once we cleared passport control and customs, we thought the evening would involve a relaxed late dinner and evening, but things got stranger. We found a taxi and showed him the address of our apartment-hotel. We knew the hotel was new, so I wasn't surprised the driver didn't recognize the hotel by name, but he also couldn't figure out where it was based on the address I showed him. Then I remembered we had more than one occasion in Istanbul with taxi drivers who didn't know where they were going, were possibly illiterate, and would ask other drivers for help. So, I called the hotel and let the driver speak to the owner who answered. The driver had a loud, animated call and when he got off, he said, "They are coming to pick you up. Wait."

About 12 minutes later, a very nice man about our age pulled up in a fairly sizable Fiat sedan and waived to us. He knew my name as we had spoken twice before. He jumped out, helped with our bags, called Ailyn "Princess" and whisked us away to our hotel. We still haven't gotten his name, but we learned how he has two daughters ages 4 and 8 who are Irish because his wife is Irish which may account for his very good English. He told us about where the hotel was located in relation to the major points of interest of Kusadasi, showed us the swimming pool, got us checked in and carried our bags up to our apartment/room.

Before going on, let's note a few things. First, Emily and I had in mind that we would do a side-trip/excursion at least once, if not twice during our two months in Greece just to take the kids to somewhere bigger – the kind of place we could see a movie and find other things to do that Patmos doesn't provide. A change of pace. Second, we had booked a very nice three-bedroom, two-bath Airbnb which canceled on us just this past Sunday – three days before our trip. We scrambled to rebook, choosing an apartment-hotel with a two bedroom, two bath apartment with swimming pool, close to the town-center. It promised TWO king beds in each bedroom, two sofa beds in the living room, a dining room/area, and of course air conditioning. A two-bedroom isn't our first choice as we like Matheus to have his own room as well as the kids. But we all felt we could make do.

The very kind man led us to an apartment that had air-conditioning, but only in the living room – not the bedrooms. There were two twin beds per room that can be configured as one king bed per room. We discovered that he thought this meant he had two king beds per room. The sofas actually covered to beds in a cool way and that seemed to make things workable. Until we discovered the toilet in one bathroom leaked from the tank and flooded the bathroom when flushed. The kind owner was aghast and promised to have it fixed first thing in the morning and could we possibly get by with one working toilet for one night?  We decided we could.  There were also problems with the electricity in one bedroom making it so the main light switch didn't work and he had to turn lights on and off by plugging something in to the wall. Okay… We were also missing toilet paper, sheets for the sofa bed and soap of any kind. Luckily Emily brought soap and shampoo. The nice man promised to get us our needed supplies ASAP and to give us a ride to an area where we could grab dinner. He opened the hotel in May and was clearly trying his hardest to make things right.

When we returned after a kebab dinner and Turkish, chewy ice cream dessert, We quickly learned that one of the showers was no sealed and flooded the bathroom when used. Unfortunately, this was the bathroom with the only working toilet. So, we have one bathroom for using the toilet and one for showering – and that drain has a hair clog and runs slow. Plus, when we returned we still didn't have the toilet paper or sheets. Yadda yadda yadda…. the owner came back to the hotel after having gone home for the night, brought the missing items himself, apologized profusely and will be moving us tomorrow morning to a better unit. He admitted this was the first time they booked and used this apartment and he feels terrible it was not in the condition he thought it was.

We'll give the new room a chance tomorrow, but I'm looking into other options just in case.

Meanwhile our very tired children who loved dinner near the city center and discussing how Turkey feels compared to Greece and Patmos didn't care what was going on with the bathrooms, they wanted sleep. Ailyn is on the sleeper sofa with Emily while Sennen is bunking on the other twin bed in Matheus' room. It has become sort of a hotel-campout situation.

In any case, we're all in Kusadasi safe and sound and have three days to enjoy a Mediterranean Turkish town before heading back to Samos Sunday morning and Patmos Monday morning. Everyone agreed there is more energy among the people of Turkey and we're all looking forward to enjoying it while exploring Kusadasi's old town, bazaars, waterfronts, hammams and hopefully, a working hotel room.