I spent the last week of my three week break between summer language immersion and the start of the semester on a 7-night cruise to Greece, with a big group of friends from school. To say the least, we were not the typical passengers on the boat. The majority of the passengers were sixty years our senior and had hair dyed unnatural shades of purple and red. They struggled to communicate in Russian with the majority Filipino cruise staff who spoke limited English, broken phrases in Hebrew and absolutely no Russian.
The rare English speaking passengers on the Israeli cruise-liner gave us unanimous complaints of their discomfort on the less-than-luxury ship. My friends’ reactions to the boat were the opposite. We chose the cruise as a cheap vacation option. For what we paid, expectations were basically set at a charter bus-like boat with meals served to sleeper-seats that converted to beds. While our boat was not quite the upscale experience described by David Foster Wallace, four daily all-you-can-eat buffets are basically synonymous with heaven to starving college students without meal plans.
We had a fun and relaxing week, although the ship was definitely not the ideal way to see and experience Greece. Our explorations of Athens, Syros and Santorini were stifled by early evening departures before dinner time. We docked overnight in Rhodes and got a taste of the club scene just outside Old Town, which seemed geared entirely toward tourists. In Rhodes we also met a local guy our age who gave up his morning to drive me and three friends around to some of the ancient ruins.
My favorite part of the week, while entirely touristy, was riding ATVs around the island of Santorini. When we reached Oia, the picturesque town where The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ memorable shots of blue church domes built upon mountain cliffs along the sea were filmed, my friends and I consented that the views alone were worth the trip to Greece.
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