Most Wanted

Classes were canceled because of the flu. The swine flu. Not because anyone at school had it, but because no one wanted to get it.

In order to escape this hypothetical virus, my friends and I boarded a boat to Santorini - that quaint little island you’ve already seen and fantasized about every time you think of Greece. It exists in reality as it does in every picture and in your imagination; elegantly sculptured whitewashed villages, blue domed churches and the sparkling Mediterranean all against a bright blue sky backdrop. Curiously, this enchanting place is the same island where historically (up until WWII) political prisoners and war criminals went into exile.

Upon disembarking an 8-hour ferry, my friends and I were bombarded by middle-aged Greek men pulling out laminated brochures of their respective hotels and rooms for rent. In order to escape the madness we sought refuge in a storefront labeled “Tourist Information” with a hand-painted tourist bureau emblem. (Congratulations to you if you already have thought that the description of this “tourist office” sounds questionable...)

I guess that I take non-partisanship for granted, coming from a country where there is a definitive separation between church and state and public and private sectors. Greece, however, does not have such clearly defined - or better yet defined- distinctions between public and private sectors. I saw what looked like something official and treated it as such.

“We would each like to pay 12 euro or less” I said to the (now in retrospect) sleazy man who came out of the storefront.

He told us (the group of teaching fellows) to hold on and he would look into options. Not more than a minute later he returned with the perfect answer: his hotel, Fira Blue Horizons.

At this juncture it should have been obvious that this was not a non-partisan tourist office. This was a storefront run by a sleazy (perhaps even a pimp) hotel-owner whose hotel he wanted to promote in a deceptively non-partisan manner. I have no excuse for my oblivion except to say that, well, I was overwhelmed and this guy seemed to simplify everything quite nicely.

Two rooms with three beds each for 70 euro total. Sold.

And we must pay now to get a free ride up to the hotel?

Okay.

Wait. You’re not taking us up to your hotel yourself?

Questionable. (This is the point at which my intuition started to overpower my poor negotiating skills).

But before we knew it the five of us were packing into a taxi and being shipped off to the main island town, Fira, where our pre-paid hotel rooms where waiting for us - bed bugs and all.


Keep in mind that this was not a hotel. This was a building with individual rooms. No hotel clerk, no one on staff. Our rooms were left unlocked with the keys hanging inside. We were told to put the keys in the mini-refrigerator the next day upon leaving. You get the picture.

Looks can be deceiving because upon closer examination these seemingly decent hotel rooms had beds covered in short curly hairs and very small bugs.

Fortunately, Romello (the "hotel" owner) had given me a business card with his number. I called him up to break the news; we didn’t want the free bedbugs. He told us to move to another room and I told him to just come in person to work this out...we wanted our money back.

Sara (a fellow teaching fellow) babysat the bedbugs to keep as proof. The other teaching fellows and I proceeded to call and insist that Romello come to his dirty hotel with our sanctimonious money. We waited for awhile.

When we called again we were dealing with an unidentifiable someone who did not speak much English. What a farce. This anonymous someone did not know what is a bug.

Another girl, Allyson, explained.

Insects!

They refused to come refund our money to us. The phone conversation ended with a threat of keeping the keys if we didn’t get our money back. Click. Dial tone.

We all left that place up in arms. We had been duped. But all is not fair in matters of accommodation and payment; we took the keys and tossed them outside the hotel - we had to feel like we’d paid for something. Then we called another hotel owner who agreed to pick us up at the bus station (transportation is so vital to this story because we are on a craggy cliff, unnavigable-without-a-car island). We stormed off to the bus stop to wait and while hovering like a school of fish we were accosted by yours truly, one Romello Fira Blue Horizons "hotel"owner. He was furious. That was an understatement.

“WHY YOU DO THAT TO MY HOTEL!?! WHERE ARE MY KEYS!?! YOU TRASH MY HOTEL!”

This man was rabid and directing all accusations at Allyson who effectively deflected his rabidity.

“GIVE ME THE KEYS! WHERE ARE THE KEYS!?!?!” he screamed in this public bus station venue.

“We don’t have the keys. They’re at the hotel” Allyson responded with the selective truth of a sassy teenager.

“COME WITH ME! COME WITH ME AND GET THE KEYS!” roared Romello who will, from this point on be referred to as Crazy Face Killer (C.F.K).

“No. I’m not going with you. You’re scaring me. I'm not going anywhere with you!” Allyson proclaimed as she stood her ground.

At this point the foam was pouring out of this Greek man’s mouth as he straddled his scooter and shook his fist.

"YOU GET YOUR MONEY WHEN YOU GIVE ME THE KEYS!" he yelled while pointing at a dirty little fanny pack containing god-knows-what.

While I found this all very engaging, it was also quite scary. We had only been on this island for an hour and had already created a vendetta greater than the Montagues vs. the Capulets. Plus, there was no escape from this angry man on a scooter on an island in the middle of a very large sea.

Realizing our limitations and predicament, I tried to set the situation straight and volunteered to go get the keys with another teaching fellow, Claire, while the rabid man stayed behind to wait.

Allyson ran off (rightfully so) and we called her to find out where she had tossed the keys. I had tossed my set over a gate which (thanks to goodness) happened to be unlocked. The keys that Allyson had tossed were a mere 3 feet from a Rotweiller's fenced-in home.

Claire and I retrieved the keys with a huge sigh of relief and excitedly walked back to the bus station where we were to receive our refund. Crazy Face Killer, however, met us halfway on his scooter. This big man on the little scooter was a throwback to the UW-Madison fraternity football players, except C.F.K even lacked that elegance.

“YOU HAVE THE KEYS?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes,” we replied as we held up the keys

He pulled out a 50 euro bill from his disgusting little fanny pack. Claire handed him one key. I kept the other.

“You said that you would give us a full refund if you got the keys back. We paid 70 euro, you’re 20 short,” I said, holding the other key hostage.

“LOOK, MADAME,” Romello said in the most aggressively polite way ever, “I pay for your taxi to my hotel. You trash my hotel and hide the keys. You get 50.”

“What constitutes "trashing" your hotel?" I asked using the Socratic method (I am in Greece after all). "Your hotel was already filthy upon entering. You've wasted our time and we want our money back. You can have the other key when you are ready to give us a full refund” I said in a less elegant manner. This is where my preschool teacher conflict resolution experience came in handy. But Crazy Face Killer did not appreciate being talked to so calmly in his rabid state.

“COME WITH ME!” he screamed, looking like the little teapot ready to blow. “WE ARE GOING TO THE TOURIST POLICE!” he yelled, seriously believing that we would follow and, even if we had, that he would have been right in this totally maniacal situation.

We refused to follow a crazy man on a moped. At this point I just wanted the whole fiasco to end so I could go back to, or rather, begin to enjoy the Meditteranean paradise surrounding me.

“Look. Why don’t we just cut the loss and you keep 10 and give us 10 and you’ll get your other key back,” I said in a reconciling manner.

With bulging eyes and clenched teeth, he gruffly took out another 10 euro from his fanny pack and begrudgingly handed it to me. I gave him the key. It was a quick and nervous exchange. Then he insisted that we give him our names (which we made up of course) and he asked if we were staying at the other hotel (where he knew the owner). We lied and said yes. What kind of question is that anyway? Did he really expect us to tell him the truth so that he could come strangle us in the night?

As quickly as he came to us on his scooter, so he left. It was over. We had lost 10 euro between 6 people; a mere 1.67 euro for an hellacious adventure that made us all the wiser for it.

High adrenaline and low-blood sugar put me into a state of post-traumatic shock upon seeing any other Greek men on scooters that day and for that matter, the rest of my vacation. I did, however, enjoy the rest of my time keeping a low-profile (sunglasses and all) and skipping town the next day to spend the remainder of my island time in exile in a magical, scooter-free town called Oia. Life in exile on Santorini wasn’t so bad after all.