This is just not grabbing me!

Somehow when you travel, unless its to an island, you become an avid student of culture, visiting museums and galleries and holy sites.  The very places you would never waste time at in your home country.  You go there and stand before paintings of a minimalist black square and say intelligent things like, "Oh the realism in this work is striking.  The Artist's tremendous anguish really permeates the whole room.  In those dark brush strokes you can visualise him battling his inner self doubt while conceptualising life metamorphosis ."  

These are the kinds of things I heard in Europe.  It sounded impressive when people interpreted art in this way and so I looked again, but all I could see were old wrecks.  Ok, Europe has been around for a long time, and of course there would be some wear and tear on stuff, but almost nothing was in great shape.  It was mostly smashed out of shape.

We went to an ancient library in Athens, which was built thousands of years before.  From the gates outside I looked down upon what I thought was a cemetery.  No building had a roof.  In fact there were no buildings.  There was a wall here and there.  Pieces of wall, I mean.  The whole thing was surrounded by a tennis court fence.  And as you stood at that fence, next to other tourists, and gazed in for free at the wreckage and broken pieces of old stone, you thought, why, will anything be served by paying two euros to enter now?

The ascent to the Acropolis involved climbing over wreckage and broken rocks strategically placed along the way.  All that was missing was a burnt out car.  It was a jolly pleasant morning hike with a few obstacles for fun.  Up top was the famous Acropolis with a few idle cranes resting nearby that suggested everything would be up and running perfectly just as soon as you arrived home.  There were also dogs and cats.  Now why on earth were they there?  They drifted around, relieved themselves shamelessly, and slid in and out of nooks and crannies off limits to everybody else.

 And yet the tourists loved this old junk and wreckage.  They couldn't get enough or of it like they had been craving it their whole lives.  Or pay enough to go and see it.  The Greek politicians must be scratching their heads and saying, now why can't we do the same with our bonds, fellas?

In Italy you found yourself corralled towards museums, galleries, and cathedrals.  Places that house smaller pieces of wrecked stuff rather than buildings of it.  

The tourists generally loved it.  One lady at a museum was either an archaeologist or a CSI.  She entered each room with her camera, religiously took a photo of every picture or piece of art that was in there, and moved on.  I'm just glad she didn't ask to see the bottom of my shoe or ask for a swab of my mouth because I hadn't showered or brushed my teeth.

Another few people were not as excited as her, even though I thought they were looking at the better stuff.  In a Florence gallery, a man went into an exhibit room with a stroller, glanced at the pictures for a nanosecond, and then turned his stroller right out.  "Ahh, just another annunciation in there," he said to his wife.  While I was in a very impressive Cathedral, that had all its four walls and roof intact, and its ceiling nicely painted, an old lady stormed out.  "This just isn't grabbing me," she said to her companion.

A lot of the stuff, the statues especially, were wrecks.  They had hands, or noses, or penises missing that made you wonder, now what gesture would this gentleman be making if I could see all of him?  Hardly any statues were intact.  My original thought was that over hundreds or thousands of years, there must have been erosion or vandalism.  But then I realised that in hundreds or thousands of years, there had been a lot of moves.  I have moved house fifteen times in only the last ten years.  And even I know whenever you have to move something awkward like a door, or perhaps, say, a statue of naked David, there are so few things that a hand can really get a good grip of. 

My mate George

"When you will arrive in Santorini Airport you will see the driver," went the email from George, the owner of the hotel we planned to stay at, "he will keep a sign with your name and hotels name." Not only did the driver do no such thing, he didn't arrive in the first place. We had to make our own way to town by bus as Jin looked out the window and stopped talking to me.

George and I had been communicating via email in the lead up to the trip. I had been building him up for weeks as our hero of Santorini, given that our relationship had progressed quickly via the web all the way from strangers to old friends. "Don't worry about Santorini, baby," I said, "George is gonna fix everything up for us." I got a hold of George via email once we made it to town and asked him what the hell happened. You just don't let old friends down in that way. "Give me a call from town," he said without apology, "and I'll come get you."

Greece had dished out small disappointments like that one. Not huge tourist rip offs, or anything like a deal breaker that would make you say, "never again." No. I'd return in a heartbeat. But just tiny infractions.

We had made it to within 200 meters of the last hotel in Athens but couldn't find it. It was like a stray sock you knew was in your room somewhere nearby and yet you just couldn't locate it and get it on your foot. I asked 4 locals and got 4 different answers. One vendor, an older man who must have been an old neighbor of the hotel, listened intently to my query from the entrance of his store. I handed him my hotel reservation, which had the address on it in plain Greek. He looked at it long and thoughtfully in a way that brought Socrates and Plato to life much more than any exhibit would. He took a big puff on a cheap cigarette whose smoke had already filled the space between us. 'Hurry up,' I thought. Before long I would no longer be able to see him. He eventually nodded to himself, as though a light bulb had gone off in his head, and looked up, exhaling all the cigarette smoke he had idling in his lungs in my face. "It's a this way," he said, pointing with the hand that still held the cigarette, which only brought it inches from my face. If I was a smoker I would have only had to lean forward a bit and I'd have had a puff, hands free. "Little bit up on right," he said waving the hand slightly, teasing me.

Normally I'd reply with an insult of my own, or derision, or at least a look of disdain, but on this day I just nodded in complacency. 'No trouble at all sir, I don't mind a bit. Do whatever you need to do.' Being stranded, i realised, is a lot like being guilty of something. You become much more accommodating of things and willing to turn the other cheek. And in this case I was glad to turn the other cheek so that I could get some fresh air. I wish I had known at the time that his directions lead in the exact opposite direction to the hotel. Then I would have turned my cheek his way and opened my mouth real wide.

We followed the line of his cigarette ash and ended up at a museum we didn't know was even there and went in since we were already there. It turned out to be the best thing in Athens, more interesting than the Acropolis.

We took stock of things in Santorini, my friendship with George was now in tatters, and I tried to shift the focus to the good things. "Look how nice it is here, Honey," i said valiantly, "i mean, who needs a hotel right away when you're in a paradise like this." We walked in an uncomfortable silence in the direction of the famed Santorini caldera, in search of somewhere to stay, where the view is sublime but probably beyond our means. Most of the villas were closed, their owners probably at the baccarat tables in Vegas for winter. And then we came upon an open one with a name that pretty much summed up our situation - anti-thesis. They took us in like long lost friends and surprise surprise charged much less than George.

George had been all planned, and secured to perfection. His lodgings were very modern, albeit inland without a view. He came recommended. Trusted. The antithesis was a walk-in, it was unplanned, like many a good TV pregnancy. It was unknown. An 18th century cave. And we went with it.

We found out to our surprise that the anti thesis is much better than the thesis. Misadventure had put us onto the scent of something new and much more wondrous. As I ponder this from the deck of the anti thesis I look out at the Aegean sea from the heart of the caldera, with a stunning view, a cup of wine and many thanks to George for letting us down.