Passports, Tickets, Money, Marriage license…
Holiday Day 20 (March 21st)
I’m still titling these posts ‘holiday’, but it turned into more of an adventure. When I left you yesterday, we had just taken off from Heathrow, and here we are, still flying, only now, we’re flying over Split, in Croatia where we went on our honeymoon a couple of years ago. You might notice that the clock on my phone (this is a screenshot) was two hours out. It had kept up with the time zone changes through Canada, but somewhere on the way back, started to do odd things. We weren’t flying over Croatia ten minutes after take-off; more like a couple of hours. Anyway, we were on our way to our next pitstop on the long journey home.
Landing in Athens at some time in the early morning, and having collected our bags, we found our taxi driver and greeted him in the standard way, by touching elbows and tapping our shoes together, a tradition started back in the early days of the Masons, I believe. I told you about Welcome Pickups and the easy way they do things, but I might not have mentioned that they also supply their guests with maps of the city, talks about what to see (if you ask for them) and bottles of water. In this case, we were also supplied with a facemask and told we were required to wear it. This was the first time we’d had to adhere to a guideline rather than be politely asked to consider the option in that British way we’d seen on TV back in Heathrow. Apart from steaming up my glasses, it wasn’t an issue at all, but it did add to the unsettling dystopian feeling of it all.
Delivered safely to the hotel not far from the seafront in Piraeus, we checked in and crammed into the lift. It was one of those where, if you have more than two people in it, you’d better be married or be very liberal in your views, and clunked and clanked up to the second floor and our room.
There’s not a lot to tell you about most of this day, except things were still changing rapidly. Unable to sleep as it was, by now, breakfast time, we went downstairs for something to eat and discovered that although we had no choice but to be intimate in the lift, there was no chance of dining together.
Our job for the day was to change boat tickets, and I set about the Blue Star website looking up the nearest boking office that was open and the sailing times, only to discover that the law had changed overnight. In order to return home, we needed to prove that we were tax resident on Symi. This measure was put in place pretty quickly and was designed to prevent people from the mainland fleeing to holiday homes on the islands and potentially spreading the virus. It was Saturday morning, we wanted to change the tickets asap, and of course, we weren’t travelling with our tax folders and paperwork. So… A quick think while standing on the balcony watching some kind of weird delivery to and from a bank across the road, and we contacted Jenine.
Being one of those semi-organised people, I knew exactly where our tax papers were, as in: which room, desk drawer, folder and under what other piles of other documents and Jenine volunteered to head down to our house, find them and send photos. Meanwhile, I also emailed our accountant, assuming I’d not hear anything because it was Saturday, but all the same, explained our predicament. Stelios replied almost immediately with a helpfully vague ‘Ok’, and with nothing else to do but our best, we set off to the port and the ticket office. At this point, you could still go outside without SMS permission, but there was queuing at supermarkets, everything else was shut, apart from the peripteron, and most people were masked. I say ‘most’, we saw about ten, whereas usually in Piraeus, you can hardly move no matter what time of day.
A decent walk later, we found the Blue Star offices open and empty apart from two ladies behind the counter wearing masks, so we put ours on, and stood behind the tape that distanced us from the counter, where there was already a Perspex shield in place. (Very organised.) I know it sounds odd, but when we set off for this trip, I thought to bring documents with me that proved I lived in Greece. I was thinking of Brexshit at the time, not a pandemic. We both had our residency permits of course, and my Greek driving license and Neil had his Irish passport, and in the end, we didn’t need any of them to get into the country. But, what I also had just in case, was a copy of our civil partnership registration document from Symi Town Hall. We didn’t have our tax papers by then, but after an explanation to the lady behind the counter, I handed over the certificate to which she said, ‘Congratulations! But on Symi?’ as if we’d pulled off some impossible feat. Her colleague was equally as charming and enthusiastic about our marital status, and our tickets were changed. We would, however, still need our tax papers to actually step foot on the boat which was leaving the next day at 3pm.
Back to the hotel.
Where we spent a very quiet afternoon in our room, reading, popping out once for a sandwich and some cream for Neil’s hands which, thanks to his allergies and various different hand-sans, were now blotched and itching. As were his legs and arms. The sedate raid on the bank opposite went on well into the afternoon and gave us something to watch while not reading, and later, we had dinner at the hotel – the only table – and noticed a new sign by the compact lift.
We were leaving the next day, 22nd, so that wasn’t a problem for us, but it was sad. One of the very helpful and cheery young staff behind the counter had only just started working here, and her ambition was to work in hospitality. Hopefully, she, and the others, will be able to resume their dream soon. (I just looked on Booking.com, and the hotel appears to be open again, which is good news. It’s the Savoy Hotel on Iroon Polytechniou Avenue, if you are interested.)
Finally, later that evening, we got to bed and slept for the first time in I can’t remember how long, and by that time, both Jenine and Stelios had come up trumps with emailed tax documents, so we were all set for the journey home.
I know that wasn’t an exciting post, but I didn’t want to leave the story hanging. Tomorrow, I’ll round things off by talking about the boat journey. I’ll finish today by saying that at some point over this weekend, while still on the move, we learnt that a national lockdown was due to start at 06.00 on Monday morning, one hour after our ferry was due to arrive at Symi.
To be continued… (And, thankfully, concluded.)
