Athens - Days 3&4

So that’s basically the only thing I had planned to do on my Sunday in Athens – find out what happened with Anna… After realizing that I wasn’t really gonna get any quality sleep, I decided to get my butt up, do the morning ritual of making myself presentable and head on out for a bit of a walk to waste away the hours… I had absolutely no idea what time Pub Love opened or whether or not Anna would even be there – I was pretty much relying on hope.

I did an awful lot of walking that day. I was heading nowhere and accomplishing nothing; however time was passing. This was good as this was all I was trying to accomplish. I figured that the pub (okay, so it’s not really a pub, per say, but that’s what I’m gonna call it…) would probably open around 5ish or so. I walked by it earlier and saw that it was actually closed. There was, however, no posting of the hours anywhere; so I just needed to try again later…

I do believe that it was slightly after 5:00 pm when I returned back to Pub Love and saw that it was open. I headed on inside…

Anna was there! She immediately came over to me and said that she was very sorry about not making it to my hotel last night. Call me a ‘sucker’, but I believed her. She said that she attempted to call me (3 times) on my mobile but that she was not able to get through. This was true. I tried calling my mobile number from the hotel earlier in the morning and got a recording (in German, of course) apparently saying that the number could not be reached. I’m assuming it is because I had no money on my phone and I was in Athens. What this means is that I was ‘roaming’ and was unable to accept incoming calls freely – remember what I said earlier? If you’re taking a trip to a foreign country, make sure you load up your mobile before leaving… She could have sent me an SMS – I was able to receive those – but she was claiming to have been way too drunk to pull that off.

According to Anna, she had a customer after I left the night before that bought her a lot of drinks. From her account, she was as bad as I was on Friday night. Was it a lie? I don’t know… All I knew was that I really liked this girl. I guess I was willing to believe anything.

That’s one of the large problems I have that makes me so easily screwed here in Europe. I guess I’m just a bit too willing to believe what people are telling me. The thing is with Anna, it just all seemed so real. You know what I’m talking about – those vibes that are in the air when you meet someone special. They were there – and they were strong. I do realize that this woman was basically doing her job and that her job was to be friendly enough with me to extract the maximum amount of money; but there seemed to be something more going on…

Anna and I then returned back to the couch that we spent so much time on the evening before. I needed to buy her drinks in order to keep her there and talk to her, but this wasn’t the least bit surprising to me. She was at work, after all… I didn’t want to get her in trouble. I decided that buying the bottles was stupid for €190. You could also just buy glasses of champagne for €30. The way I figured it was that there was far less than 6.33 glasses in the bottle so buying the drinks by the glass at least made some monetary sense… Either way I still spent €420 talking (as well as making out a bit…) with Anna that afternoon. It was fun – I honestly felt like there was a connection…

The thing is that I had pretty much no sleep from the night before and I made Anna aware of this. I couldn’t stay there long as I had been spending way too much money already in Athens and I really did need to get some sleep. We sat there talking and flirting a bit and we then planned for Anna to, once again, head to my hotel at 3:00 again when she got off work. Interestingly enough, one of the topics that we talked about was the short little trip that I took to the strip club on my way home the night before. Anna actually knew about this! How? I have no idea. I guess the little network they have set up there is pretty tight. I told her exactly what happened – that I was trying to get back to the hotel and this taxi driver took me to this strip club. I told her how all I did there was drink the free beer they gave me and then left. It seemed a bit strange justifying my actions with the woman that never showed up last night but strangeness seemed to be all around me recently…

This time, however, Anna gave me her mobile number. Not only that, but I was also given the task of picking up some condoms and a bottle of champagne on my way back to the hotel. It appeared pretty obvious that Anna was actually coming by this time…

It was a bit before 9:00 when I left Pub Love and walked back to the hotel. On the way back I picked up some condoms (15, to be exact … there were 5 varieties to choose from and I figured it would be best to be ready…) and two bottles of champagne (at €8 a pop – these pubs were making a killing at the prices they charged..). I set my phone to wake me at 2:00 and got some sleep…

My phone alarm went off at 2:00 and I got up and took a shower. I tidied up the room a bit and even moved the two beds (the room actually had two twin beds in it – each on an opposite wall) together. At 3:00, I headed out to the hotel lobby to grab the champagne bottles that I had left chilling in the refrigerator behind the bar. Upon entering the lobby I woke the night attendant (the same guy from the night before) who was taking a nap on one of the couches. I grabbed my two bottles and a couple of champagne glasses, dropped these off in my room and headed back to the lobby to await Anna’s arrival. I was in a very good mood…

The receptionist, however, seemed very tired this evening. He didn’t talk much and I kind of felt bad sitting there and keeping him awake. Oh well, I sat in the lobby watching something Greek on the television and waited.

It was around 3:30 when I decided to head back to my room and give Anna a call. I wanted to make sure everything was still on. Unfortunately, all I got was the answering service. Oh well, no big deal. I left a message urging Anna to hurry up and told her that I was waiting in the lobby.

Around 3:45 or so, I headed back to my room and tried to contact Anna again. Same result – the answering service. I left a message this time asking whether or not she was coming. My good mood was going sour rather quickly.

At 4:00 I gave up. This was when I took on the title of “chump” and headed back to my room for what I knew would be another restless night. The receptionist knew what was going on and he even mentioned that if I had offered her some money that she might have showed. He seemed to have some pity on me and even told me that “We’ve all been there.” I personally doubt that, but I know what he meant. I headed back to my room and made one more phone call…

The last message I left was basically me congratulating Anna on a job well done. I told her that I was a chump and that I actually did believe that she was interested in me. The last thing I said was, “You are a mean person.” I then hung up the phone, drank a couple glasses of the champagne and went to bed. I felt like I had just been kicked in the gut – but what could I do? I had until 7:00 pm that day to figure this out – my flight back to Berlin was scheduled for 9:30.

After yet another pretty much sleepless night, I headed out again and did quite a bit of walking. I stopped off at this café and got some food. I stayed there for a couple hours taking notes about what was going on. The notes didn’t help, but it was a way to pass some time. There were a couple ladies that sat down at the table next to mine – Jill and Mary Beth. Turns out that they were actually in the middle of (and this was their own words) a mid-life crisis trip of Europe. Where were they from? Colorado Springs! It’s funny how life works… I spoke with them briefly, but they said they didn’t want to interrupt the novel I was writing. I then told them that I was just jotting down some notes for this blog that I am writing and even gave them the URL. I did suggest for them to head the warnings… Will they ever even bother to read any of this? Who knows … although I doubt it…

Anyway, it was around 3:00 pm when I decided to take a seat at this small café about a block away from Pub Love, ordered myself a Sprite and began my stakeout. I was determined to find out what the hell was going on with Anna. At about a quarter to 4:00, Pub Love once again opened for business. I sat there watching but never saw Anna head in. It was about 4:15 when I decided to head in and see what I could find out…

Anna was not there. Well, there was an ‘Anna’ there, but a different one – a 20 year old Russian. She was working with this other girl whose name I forget – might have been Samantha, so that’s what I’m gonna call her… I inquired with Samantha on whether or not Anna (my Anna) was expected to be arriving soon. She told me something like Anna was sick and probably wouldn’t be in that day. Of course it wasn’t long before we moved to the couch in the back and these two continuously badgered me to buy them drinks. The bartender there most definitely knew me and gave me a free beer. He even gave me a special price on drinks for the ladies – I could buy glasses of champagne for €20 instead of the €30 usually charged. Oh boy! A 33% discount! I ended up buying the ladies one glass each just to shut them up. I wasn’t trying to hook up with anybody this day; I was trying to find out what happened with Anna. It was strange though as the girls seemed to be having a bit of difficulty in telling me what had happened to her. At one point I was told that she might be in later. I was then told that she was sick and wasn’t coming in. I was also told that she had gotten drunk and was now “seeing vodka in her dreams”. Whatever the case, I had nowhere else to be so I stayed in the pub. After the two ladies finished their one drink, I was asked to move to the bar. That was fine with me – that’s where I was planning on staying from the beginning…

It was interesting sitting there nursing the free beer I got (as well as the Ouzo that the new Anna bought me) and just watching the routine there in that pub. A group of guys would enter and take a seat. Anna and Samantha would rush over and sit next to them. If the guys bought drinks for the ladies, they would stay a bit longer. If no drinks were bought, the ladies would leave. I guess the male libido is just ripe for the picking and these Greeks have figured out how to reap in the benefits…

As I was sitting there and basically just wasting time before I needed to be at the airport (oh yeah, that bus stop that I mentioned earlier was only like two blocks from this pub … I knew where I could catch the X95 bus back to the airport…) I received an SMS message on my mobile. It was Anna. This is exactly what it said:

SORRY BABY. I COUDNT COME LAST NIGHT. I WAS IN POLIS STAISON THEY LET ME GO AFTERNOON. I FIGHT WITH SOMEBODY! I THINK ABOUT U ALL THE TIME. U ARE VERY SWEET

Well, that was interesting… Apparently she wasn’t sick… So I sat there a bit longer and tried to make sense out of this situation when I received another SMS. Again, it was from Anna:

I WISH U GOOD FLIGHT DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME. CALL IF U WANT WHEN U WILL ARIVE TO GERMANY. KISS.

Well, that did it. I decided that I needed to get to the airport quickly. I needed to get to a phone that I could use. Hell, I was gonna see if there were any empty seats on my flight and ask Anna to fly back to Germany with me. I left the pub, headed over to the bus stop and jumped on the X95 bus to get my ass to the airport.

When I arrived at the airport it was then a mad dash to the phones. I had a hard time trying to figure out how to make a phone call with my credit card but seemed to get through on one attempt. I got the voicemail and, although I couldn’t actually tell if it was Anna’s or not, left a message telling her that I wanted her in my life and that I was going to see if any seats where available on my flight. I hung up and proceeded to check in for my flight. I asked if any seats where available and was told that the flight was sold out. Oh well, how crazy would that have been anyway…? Shortly after checking in for my flight, I received another SMS message … once again, from Anna:

I FOUND YOUR MESEGES. I AM REALY SORY A ABOUT LAST NIGHT. WHEN U WILL CALL ME I HAVE A LOT TO SAY U ABOUT ME. I CANOT LEAVE GREESE UNTIL WINTER. I REALY LIKE U AND I HOPE U^LL UNDERSTAND ME. I DON’T HAVE ANYBODY IN THIS COUNTRY. I NEVER GIVE MY NUMBER TO CUSTOMERS. ALL THE BEST FOR U.

I immediately went and purchased a phone card that could be used on the pay phones and called Anna back. I was expecting to speak with the voicemail again but was shocked when Anna answered the phone. We talked for a bit and I even told her that I was willing to buy her a seat back to Germany with me but the plane was sold out. She told me that she was stuck in Greece until at least December due to her papers not being in order. Apparently she had a court date scheduled for December and was hoping to get all the European citizenship stuff settled there. Oh well, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be…

I have, since returning back to Germany, exchanged many SMS messages with Anna and even spoken with her on the phone a few times. Do I think we will ever see each other again? I doubt it… Do I want to see her again? Hell yes!

bis später,

Coriolis