(Athens, Greece) - You Can't Board! Part 2

So I thought it would be pretty simple. I took a ferry from Italy to Greece, I would now take one from Greece to Venice. I arrived to the port terminal from Athens on a bus after a day of looking at the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena, and walking around the city in general. I only spent a day in Athens. I arrived yesterday and spent the night, got up this morning to look around the city. After skimming the main sites I was on my way again enroute to Venice. So there I was at the port terminal after five hours of train/busing to get to Greece's west coast port. It was about 10pm. I bought my ticket and paid the port tax. I met some Canadian backpackers waiting to board the ship and since we all spoke English waited together and chatted. When the time came and we were passing through security, the officer said "Are you all group?"
"Yes," we said nonchalantly.
"Passports, please?"
The two Canadians whipped out their Canadian passports and I took out my Jordanian. He looks at mine again and says, "Are you together, friends?"
"Yes," we said again.
He looks at the two Canadians, "Friends before? You know him before?".
"We're friends, but we just met" the Canadians replied.
After a few minutes he says,"If you want you can go now because it's going to take time with him," the officer says to the Canadians in regards to me. The two Canadians walk out towards the ship. I got a really bad feeling. I'm thinking why does this guy not want witnesses for what he's about to do. I asked him what was going on and he just said he had to check something in a purposefully vague way. He asks me if I live in Jordan and I told him no I live in the United States. He says but you're Jordanian. I said yes (in my mind I'm thinking technically I'm Palestinian American), but yes I'm Jordanian. He says "Why do you come to Greece?" as if he wasn't going to believe anything I was about to say.
"Tourism, I wanted to see the Acropolis."
"For only one day, that is curious!"
I didn't react. I just shrugged my shoulders.
"You live in the United States?"
"YES!" and I pulled out my Green Card and handed it too him so that he would believe me.
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He takes my Green Card and starts looking at it. And then my passport. And then my Green Card. And then to my passport again. "Is there a problem?" I asked him.
"No I just have to check something."
"If you ask me what you want, maybe I can help you find it."
"Just wait, I do my job."
Again he starts fumbling through my passport. The whole time he looks really nervous like someone doing something they shouldn't be doing.
"Why you in Europe?"
"I'm a medical student. Medicine. I'm studying to be a doctor. I am doing a medical exchange in Barcelona."
"Medicine Student. Where do you go to school?"
"University of North Carolina. I worked at Val De'Bron Hospital in Barcelona for my exchange."
"How come you are in Europe?"
"I flew to Spai…..Espana"
"You flew from Jordan to Spain."
"No from New York to Spain."
"New York to Spain. So you live New York?"
"NO. I live in North Carolina where I go to school."
"You flew New York to Spain."
"Yes."
"You don't have stamp."
"I have a Schengan Visa" I pointed to my passport. "It is okay for Greece. Wait you mean an exit stamp from New York?"
"No you don't have stamp, you have different stamp." He shows me the stamp I got when I entered the EU on a connecting flight through Brussels, Belgium.
Oh my god dude! I connected through Brussels. I spent all of 60 minutes there. Seriously? I explained this to him, the whole time trying to keep track of where my Green Card and Passport was. He tells me to wait and motions in the directions of the seats, but I told him okay and stayed right there where I could see what he was doing with my documentation. Everything is running through my head like what is this guy doing? Is he copying my info so he can create forged documents to get into the States? Is he going to run off with my stuff? Am I going to be detained? I just have to keep watching my stuff. After 10 minutes he asks me to have a seat because he has to "check something. " A phrase I had gotten really tired of. I went over to the seats and picked the one that had a clear line of sight behind the desk so that both I could see and that he could know that I was watching him. WTF? I have no idea what's going on? Internally, my heart is pounding. My brain is racing. What should I do? I see him go over to the phone and make some phone calls. As I'm waiting, I see these two average guys on motorcycles pull up they are both dressed normally and both walk into the terminal. They immediately head over to the officer that has my stuff and swarm around him. I don' t know what I though of this but I suddenly got the idea to take out my phone and pretend like I was looking at it but instead try to take pictures of what was going on. As soon as I pulled my phone out to take pictures one of the plain clothed guys comes over to me and says stand up and put your bag on the desk. He pulls out some gloves and puts them over his hands. "Take everything out of your pockets and put it on the table." All my money, credit cards, everything I had was laid out in front of me. "Do you have anything illegal in here?" "Why are you in Greece?" He pulls out a copy I had made of my passport and green card that I had hid in my pack in case I lost my documentation. "Why do you have copies of this?" I explained it was in case I lost my stuff, but then I thought it would be a good idea to tell him I had copies online so that he wouldn't try anything funny (total bluff). He proceeds to take everything out of my bag and put it on the table. After finishing, he give me the pat down. Convinced that I wasn't going to blow up the ferry he tells me to put everything back in my bag. The other officer handed me my green card and passport and I quickly put them in my back pocket and buttoned it. They went outside to smoke and as soon as they were out of sight I pulled the green card back out to make sure it wasn't a copy. Ten minutes later as I was packing up my life back into my bag, the original officer walked over and says me its just a security procedure. I was totally silent but in my mind, I'm thinking how should I end this, should I tell him how jacked up this was or just let it slide? He told me his wife was detained in New York over the same stuff. He thanked me for being so calm during the process, which I very much was externally (not internally). I smiled at him and said, "It's funny but maybe in Spain or Italy, I would've expected this, but because Arabs and Greeks are so similar in culture, physical appearance, and even food, I totally didn't see it coming from Greece." I extended my hand to give him a hand shake (which is quite symbolic, because handshakes come from people showing they are unarmed). He shook my hand and I walked out toward the ferry.

Feeling home free, I went to board the ship. As I got to the entrance, one of the plain clothed guys from before had changed shirts and was now standing there checking people in. "Passport?" he says to me. Seriously? I'm thinking. This has got to be some kind of elaborate operation these guys are running. Meanwhile, as I'm standing there, five white guys roll right by me and board the ship without even getting asked who they were. "You saw me just in the terminal." I told him a lit frustrated but to make the point that I knew who he was. He let me pass after radioing in his walkie talkie. Unnerved, I finally walked onto the ship, and as I was rolling past this guy who was behind a desk inside the entrance to the ship, I heard him say "Passport, please?" This is where my breaking point was and just then he radioed the guy from outside who came in and told him to let me pass. I said thank you and the guy mentioned something about Greece. I told him that this was my first time but that if this is how it was going to be I didn't think I would ever be coming back. It was a total lie because the country was beautiful, but this was my form of venting and retaliation. I had to have it because in the end: I'm only human!

(Roma, Italia) Sorry Mr.Arab man, You can't board!

Flying to back to Spain for the Running of the Bulls and for the World Cup Championship Game seemed like a great idea, I swear! That was until I showed up to the airport. When I tried to check in, they told me they couldn't find me. An hour later, and after having already missed my flight, I was informed that I was cancelled off of my flight. That’s right: My flight wasn't cancelled, I was just cancelled off of it. They said it was because I used a "strange credit card from the United States, and they are very strict." I used a Wachovia Visa, WTF? Anyway, I got sent to the consult desk to try to straighten out the situation. And boy did they ever. The lady there told me that my original ticket will be automatically refunded and that I could buy a new ticket for 127 Euros (about 15 Euros more than the original price). Okay no problem, its kind of lame, but I just want to get back to Spain. Handed her my card and she ran it. Five minutes later she is like "Oh, I have to charge you another 80 Euros." Hell NO! I may be Palestinian but a man can only take so much punishment. I told her to just refund me the money and I was going to figure something else out. She proceeds to charge my card again (and I found out later again, she triple charged me). Then she pulled out the manual to the credit card machine and started reading it trying to figure out how to do a refund. I've said it before in my blog posts and I'll say it again: "THIS IS NOT GOOD". An hour and a half later, she had managed to do one return and then gave me another one in cash. I didn't know she had charged me a third time at that point. I walked away from the desk and blotted straight for the pay phone so that I could call my credit card company. They have a number on the back and you can call them collect if you're outside of the US. What could happen in this situation? Yeah they refused my call. Three times! Why? This is why you put the number on the back of the card for situations like this. Oh well! So needless to say I will not be watching the world cup in Madrid.

The night ended with me at a left wing political reggae concert in Roma with a bunch of people smoking the mary jane!

Holla atchya Mallah Mon!

(Lilongwe, Malawi) Just call me DJ T$

I think that it’s been awhile. I feel like my time here is soon coming to an end because I only have about 3 more weeks left. It will be interesting to leave here and go back. I’m curious to see what sayings I will keep during my first few weeks back. I definitely feel like saying “fast, fast” won’t die (this is just because I love it so much).

I had an amazing vacation this past weekend. Because of the fact that Fourth of July was on a Sunday, we were given Monday off from work. We also had Tuesday off because it was the Malawian Independence day. (If you’re keeping score that’s a 4-day weekend. ) We decided to go to northern Malawi to see the beach there because we’d heard so many amazing things about it. Best decision of the summer!
We ended up in a town called Nkhata Bay, and stayed at this beautiful hostel-type place. It was more of a rocky beach than a sandy one, but I found this place to be so gorgeous. Everywhere I looked there was one beautiful view after another. I was an idiot though and forgot to charge my camera battery before we left so I was only able to take about 6 pictures. Hopefully, my house mates will take pity on me and let me get some of their snaps.

The place where we stayed is called Mayoka Village. The owners have this quote painted in the common area that says, “I’ve always hated private life…I grew up in a home where everyone at every time was welcomed.” This pretty much sums up the atmosphere of the place. At all times of the day, people are just in the common area (an outdoor, covered bar with pool tables, couches and tables) hanging out, talking and napping. There's swimming, hiking and other activities available. We stayed in a 3-bed chalet overlooking the water with a communal shower and toilet.

By the end of the first night, we met some other cool people (and yes, by other I meant people as cool as me) who were staying there. Our Mayoka village family ended up being 4 Swedes (2 girls + 2 guys), a Canadian (insert joke here), and another American. I had so much fun with these people. It was great. On American Independence day, we decided to have a party there. By some stroke of both luck and genius, I got to be the DJ. You have absolutely no idea how much I enjoyed this. Instead of two turntables and a microphone, picture me with two Ipods and a stereo rocking the house. I was behind the bar and people were coming up to request songs. For the rest of the time that I was there, people were coming up to me telling me how awesome a DJ I was. Yep, DJ T$ is on the scene!

So, I left Nkhata Bay as not only a famous DJ, but also a master whittler. There was a course available where a local carver would show you how to carve. Obviously, I was a natural. Not really, it took me 3.5 hours to carve these two little key chains (which turned out amazing). At the end, I asked the carver how long it would have taken him to do it. He replied, with a smile, about 20 minutes.

(Vatican City, Vatican and Roma, Italy)

So my search for God brought me here, to Roma, and the Vatican in particular, which is where I was today. Unfortunately, God was out, so I had coffee with the Pope instead. Then when he wasn't looking I consecrated the Vatican as the new Mecca of the religion I am going to start. Not really, but I did go to the Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel) and witnessed the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. Apparently Adam was white…who knew? Haha okay…I think I've used up all my sarcasm.



Roma, Italia is unique. I borrowed this guy's bike today and took an independent bike tour of the city. It seems like once I arrive in a new town in Europe the Metro workers go on strike. So they were striking today in Roma and I was pedaling. Maybe it was a good thing b/c these people live amongst so much history it's a little absurd. I mentioned to someone how little I thought of the metro system in Rome and they responded by telling me that every time they try to dig they discover a new layer of history and then have to call archeologists and start excavating it. I'm not sure how true that is but it makes sense, 3000 years of history in one city. I heard another story about some American tourists here that were acting a little crazy and jumping in a historic fountain in one of the many squares until the police asked them to kindly get out of the fountain. "Please," they said, " this fountain is older than your country."



How did I get here? Well last I wrote I was on a train headed to Sevilla from Madrid. On an impulse, when the train stopped in Cordoba I got off. I knew I would go to Cordoba eventually but I hadn't really planned this and I was without a place to sleep walking around Cordoba at midnight. It's funny how travel changes you. In the States, I'm so stressed out about the details. But there I was walking around in a strange town, where I didn't speak the language, and I didn't have a place to sleep, yet surprisingly, I wasn't worried for some reason. I turned off the main street and into some back alleys and by coincidence I walked up on a place called "Bagdad Hostel". Interesting in south Spain. This sleepy guy about my age came to the desk a few minutes after I rang the bell and told me it would be 30 euros. We started talking and a few minutes later we found out that we were both Jordanian citizens. Instantly the Arab hospitality kicks in! I love it, not to mention this is the first time that my Jordanian citizen ship actually helped with anything.



So I spent the night in Cordoba and the next day was in the Mezquita (The Great Mosque of Cordoba). If you don't know anything about this building you should hit up the Wikipedia. Lonely Planet says that the Great Mosque has been described as "the greatest visual representation of homesickness ever constructed" since it was influenced by the Great Mosque of Damascus. Now, it's like a Church Mosque Cathedral museum; I swear that makes sense. At the entrance, one of the Spaniard security guards looked at me really hard (I hadn't shaved in days so I was rolling straight terrorist style) and then he says to me, "Don't pray." haha if you know me you'll understand why that’s funny. "I don't" is what I thought but I said "No problem". Ironically enough while inside I met some girls from Durham! WTF? Small world. Mosque Churches - the place that brings people together…really!





I left The Great Mosque of Cordoba and hit the train station immediately enroute to Sevilla. This place was awesome. All the people I met were really cool and the Catedral de Sevilla supposedly houses the room where Columbus' famous voyage started and ended. They also have a false tomb for Columbus in the Catedral (he wasn't really buried there). Right in front of the Catedral is the Al-Cazar, which it took me a day to figure out that it comes from the Arabic for "The Palace". Now at the time I walked through this building it was the most beautiful building I had been in in my life. Two days later, it would be overshadowed by another building but that’s further down this long ass post. The Al-Cazar remains from when the Moors controlled Al-Andalucia (South Spain), and is now the official residence of the Spanish heads of state when they come to Al-Andalucia. Maybe it's because I have Muslim roots, but for me the experience was quite powerful (disclaimer: not in a religious sense).





I stayed in Sevilla longer than I expected so I planned to go to Granada, Spain to the Al-Hambra, see it, and then bounce the same day. BIG MISTAKE. I'm lucky I even got in b/c Al-Hambra is one of Spain's most visited sites and to be honest I didn't see half of it. Al-Hambra is what I mentioned earlier and usually overshadows Al-Cazar (which is unfortunate b/c Al-Cazar really is quite impressive, but it's true Al-Hambra is breath taking). It's quite hard to describe, but its not a building but more of a village with military barracks, a palace, and a garden. But honestly, it brought me to my knees b/c it was as if they were trying to recreate heaven on earth. The pictures don't do it justice but when you see it with your eyes it will make you awe in wonder. The level of detail ectched into the rock and the ceilings that were designed finished wood and gold to look like the stars is overwhelming. And just when you think its over you go out into the garden which is 3-4 times the size of the palace. The fortress was designed so that you can hear running water at all times regardless of where you are. Anyway, I could spend pages trying to describe it but wouldn't do it any justice so just go! Seriously!




I took a sleeper train back to Barcelona which was like dorm life all over again. There were four beds in my room and the Brazilian wanted to smoke pot so bad! The other guy was American and just traveling in Granada. He met this girl there and they hit it off so well that he bought her flowers and she stood there waving to him as the train started moving. It was like a movie.

They had a bar on the train LOL. Odd! But it was kind of cool b/c we just sat there meeting new people on a train traveling at 125 mph. Got back to Barcelona and two days later hopped on a ferry on whim that crossed the Mediterranean and landed me in Roma.



I've toured the old Roman Colosseum. Okay I know this is really not very eloquent but I can't say it any other way: That shit is older than Jesus! And I've also tried to Lasagna in Rome! It was really good but I know someone back in the States who tells me they can make it better! We'll see. That’s it for now!



So when in rome, say peace like the Romans do….Ciao!

post work happy hour.

post-working in the fields, not post my work in the clinic. this is usually only for males.