As you saw in the previous episode I waited for a later than late ferry at Ancona which is beyond ludicrous if you consider that this is the normality of the ferry companies for the last years. They don't give an F, they give you a departing time which is much earlier than the real one so they can cramp routes as much as possible as the ferry arrives, unloads and departs again. The good old days when the ferry was docked and you could enter even 2 hours before departure while the latter was accurate as a Swiss train are gone for good. Now they don't even sms you the delay as at least they used to few years ago.
But the (not so) funny bits are far from over. The ANEK lines I'm using at the moment in an attempt to offer a palaeolithic experience they don't give you cabin card/key at check in. You have to carry all your luggage up to the reception first (several decks above the garage), wait in the queue so a guy comes to take you to your cabin, usually together with several other passengers so you have to walk with them till you reach yours. The employee tends to insist carrying your luggage so you feel the need to tip him like I did. I can't remember how long it was since I had to do that but I think I have to look back before the current and the previous decade.
At least the guy who escorted me was a good middle aged one. You should have seen the much younger hilarious one they had at the reception "welcoming" the passengers. This clown with a moustache like auditioning for the village or some American cap B movie from the 70s, found it a good idea to guess the ethnicity of the people coming in. So he goes at a group of Polish schoolkids and goes "Russian Russian?". Their teacher almost had a stroke...
So finally I make it to my cabin, tip the guy who gives me back a smile of gratitude and surprise and finally I am able to get me some much much needed rest. Or better say that's what I thought...You see, I have booked an outside cabin solo, a gift to myself for being on the road for more than 16 weeks after more than 8000km over 10 countries during which I did 3 countries in 1 day 4 times. Well deserved on a trip breaking so many personal records. What do I get in real?
For starters, there's no hot water. Only lukewarm. To the point that I am not sure whether that's the cold water anyway. One faucet semi destroyed. The shower's curtain is so short that you make a mess on the floor regardless how carefully you shower. The blankets of the beds where basically thrown over the beds - the guys don't even bother to make the beds of their "lux" cabins. They know how to charge them well over 300 euros though. The window of the cabin is dirty enough to fool my camera focusing on it instead of outside. So you can easily capture this:
Instead of this:
Sweet rainbow isn't it?
That's the good side of rain cause while it's pouring it's not as nice:
That's my cabins window by the way allowing me visual access to the outside world from this shithole:
Not that there's much nice stuff to see here in this miserable weather:
See one more (not so) funny bit in this circus:
If that's "Hellenic Spirit" then they should put "80s" in front.
Rain stops allowing some more attractive shots close to sundown as the ship finally leaves the port:
You think I run out of ANEK lines fuckery? Nope. It's been hours now that either from indifference or by mistake, they direct ALL the announcements, even the ones that are strictly internal communication between employees to go through the WHOLE PA including the cabin speakers. At full volume. Which you cannot control. Can you imagine that? So my only way to reduce this torture, especially in the thought they might leave it like this through the night, is to muffle the fucking speaker. At first I take all my stock of velcro stickers and put in on:
You may ask how come I carry such stuff with me. I carry a lot of things that look useless to other people but they are not for me. These ones come from a helmet intercom system which I disassembled in June while I was in Austria and bought a new helmet there. This trick worked but I wanted to make things even less worse (you see I don't dare to say better) and also put one of the two pillows available:
Now it comes closer to acceptable though not precisely there yet.
It's all dark now, no more pictures, time to get me some sleep. See you tomorrow when I will be back in Hellenic territory after all this time!