A motley morning. Brekky and gym.
Fiddling with the monolithic “totem” in the central foyer which is a huge
interactive touch screen that gives you access to all sorts of shipboard
functions, including the Costa Club for past passengers. The draw for a free
spa treatment was held at 11am after a false start yesterday. In short, J won
and chose to have a massage.
All the cruise lines have a system
of automatically charging about $10 per day per head for “gratuities or service
fee”. This offends me because there is no possible way you can expect an
automatic tip to have any effect on staff motivation or performance. The real
agenda is to split the cruise cost so as to make it look smaller. Each cruise
company has its own game that they make you play if you wish to vary the amount
they take from you. With Cunard you just front at the desk and they write your
name on the list . . MSC make you attend an interview (I think her head is
still spinning).
Costa insist that the fee is set in
stone and not variable. So the chief purser’s officer told me and they have a
printed sheet that says the same thing. Stay tuned for the ongoing saga. We
haven’t paid anybody yet after about 15 cruises and it has become a bit of a
challenge.
We had agreed to meet the Americans
for lunch in the formal restaurant to discuss strategies for getting to Olympia
this afternoon to go round the site of the original Olympic games. The Costa
tour cost 60 Euros and we had seen on the internet that the taxi brigands are
charging 120 Euros for 4 people. The English speaking host Adam had told us
there was no other means of getting there.
Shortly before lunch we discovered
a flyer that had been dropped in our room saying that Costa is laying on a
shuttle bus for 14 E but the excursion desk had closed and there was no way of
knowing how many places were left. So we relegated the taxi to second choice
and turned up early and shouldered with the fat women to get first go at
whatever tickets were free. Tom and I had decided we wanted to find an internet
place and browse the shops but J and the 3 Americans got bus tickets.
Tom is one of those people (the
salesman type) who can’t help bargaining with people when he has no intention
of buying anyway. It turned out that the taxis were available for 80E and the
very next thing we saw was a shop advertising shuttle bus services for 10E. We
were rather peeved with Adam at this stage because surely he would have been
aware of that and he was making a big point of giving us his personal advice
rather than pushing the Costa line.
Tom wanted to talk to his partner
in Pittsburgh, some 7 hours behind us. He calculated that he needed to wait an
hour first so he wandered off and bargained for fish lunches that he didn’t
really want to eat. He came back and set about trying to email then skype and
finally phone Bernie. I know this because I ended up doing all that for him.
They sell and install commercial or industrial scale solar panels. He is a very
nice fellow, larger than life but he can be high maintenance. He is not
ungenerous but can be very demanding on waiters and proprietors of internet
shops.
I suddenly noticed that the
internet place had emptied and it was quiet outside and it was 2 minutes to 5
and I was not sure what time the boat was leaving. This provided some
adrenaline but it turned out we still had half an hour to get back to the boat.
Alternative – find your own way to Israel sometime in the next 48 hours without
a passport.
J:
We travelled through the very touristy area of the port of
Katakolon. The main township was quite
large. The countryside was farmland with
a lot of olive trees. It took about half
an hour to reach the site of ancient Olympia.
We only had time to visit the actual site so the museums will have to
wait for another time. It was a hot day
and the sun was beating down. The site
was a lot larger than I expected with a mix of Greek and Roman ruins and we
didn’t get to explore it all. Main
points of interest was the Temple of Hera where the Olympic Torch was lit just
a few weeks ago; the arena which has the original marble starting blocks, the
judges’ stands, the winner’s podium and the podium where the only woman was
allowed to watch from; and the Temple of Zeus, who the games were in honour
of. The temple once contained the
gigantic Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
This pile of stones is where they light the Olympic flame
Entry to the stadium
People standing on starting blocks, forground is where shotput and javelin events held. Half way along on right side is judges stand, opposite on left is where the only woman permitted to be there sat
Marble starting blocks
On the winners podium
Stairs to Temple of Zeus
Column reconstructed for the 2004 Athens Olympics
We have established that the
children have names which Anglicise to Yadarn (him) and Shaneen (her). No idea
about mum yet. She met Tom when the kids were 4 and 3. She would have been late
20s and Tom over 60. They all seem very happy with one another. Shani and J
get on very well together.
Some of the people we wandered
around with ran around the arena which was brave of them considering how warm
it was. I had a lovely afternoon.
C: Dinner ran for over 2 hours, by
which time I had spent almost the entire day with Tom. I went upstairs and fell
fast asleep while J went to the show.
By the way, emu eggs are green and
beaver teeth are orange – didn’t want to leave you guessing.
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