The other night my wife prepared a tantalizing dish for dinner – eggplant parmesan. Loitering in the kitchen, preparing to fill my plate, I was reminded of a story. It is true, and relates a week-long escapade that was part of a trip to Europe undertaken in my youth. Misadventures make for good stories… Fresh out of college and work ing at the local newspaper, I was invited by two of my co-workers to join them on an adventure. We spent a glorious time gallivanting around Europe that summer.
After a week in Paris and a lap through northern Europe, we headed south, our target destination Greece. On the day our story begins, we found ourselves in the Italian coastal city of Brindisi, waiting for a ferry that would take us to the coast of Greece.
From there, we would travel by bus on to Athens, then continue by ship to the Greek islands. This was prior to the European Union being established, so no euro currency. We had to exchange money every time we entered another country. Thinking that our time in Italy would be brief, I carried only a few Italian lire, having exchanged more dollars for Greek drachma. We spent the day waiting for our ferry in a small public park near the docks. Realizing the need for provisions that would last while we were at sea, I decided to visit a local market to buy food. With only a few meager lira, looking for something edible, and conscious of the fact that I might need to survive for some time on whatever I bought, I selected a large bag of what appeared to be ornamental crackers. Unable to read the label, I could see large circus animal type cookies through the clear packaging. They would do, so I sidled up to the counter and made my purchase.
Back at the park, and hungry for lunch, I opened my bag and dug in. With the first bite, I thought that these were the worst tasting cookies I had ever eaten. Upon closer examination, I noticed that each cookie, or biscuit, looked the same. They resembled small cats. The cat motif and bland taste made me soon realize that I had purchased a large bag of dog biscuits! They tasted horrible…and I had to eat them, and nothing else, for almost three days!
After what seemed like an eternity at sea, we were deposited in a small village on the coast of Greece. From there we wait ed for a bus to Athens. I will always remember this as the bus ride from hell. We stumbled into the deserted bus station, purchased tickets, and after stowing our backpacks in the bowels of the bus, climbed aboard to wait. Parked in the sun, we waited and waited. Soon others began boarding, and we noticed that we were the only non-locals aboard.
As the bus filled, agitation began building. First dirty looks, then angry mumbling, and finally an elderly woman approached me directly and began scream- ing. Fortunately, her words were Greek to me, but I’m pretty sure she was swearing. She and her cohorts wanted us to leave. Since it was a long walk to Athens, we chose not to disembark. We remained seated and smiled.
Hours later we rolled into the bus station in Athens. An amiable taxi driver delivered us to a small hotel nearby, then drove us to “his brother’s” restaurant. Exhausted from the heat and travel and surviving only on my dog biscuit cat crackers, I had never been so hungry in my life. Our waiter brought us pitchers of ice water, and I ordered what he pointed to on the menu. He appeared shortly thereafter with a steaming plate of eggplant parmesan. I think this was the best meal of my life!
We stayed in Greece about a week, most of our time spent on the island of Mykonos. We made a return trip to Athens, and I made the mistake, still hungry after my ordeal, of purchasing a meat sandwich of some kind from a street vendor across from the Acropolis. I was soon incapacitated with the worst case of food poisoning I had ever experienced. That night was spent with my head out of the window of our dingy hotel room, vomiting onto the street below.
Returning to the United States, I was 15 pounds lighter than when I left… typewriterweekly.com © 2023 Jody Dyer
