Greece: Ladies Traveling Solo - Wear a Fake Wedding Band, Hold Your Head Up High and Lock it Up!

There has truly been only one single moment in my life where I felt I was in imminent danger. Our journey to Greece via the ferry and the encounter I had on that train never came close to trying to hail a cab after a late night in a San Francisco Mission District bar or a 3:00 a.m. subway ride in New York City with my friend back to her apartment in Washington Heights New Year’s Eve. Never even a close encounter with a mugger. Wherever I traveled, I held my own. Even if I was completely lost and couldn’t find where I was on the map, I’d dodge into a café to figure it out. I never let my ulnerability show.

They say that you truly get to know someone while traveling with them; I believe in this statement. Instead of the proverbial coffee or dinner and movie as a first date, I wish I could have traveled abroad with every guy I dated. I would have gotten to know their true selves immediately. Either the best or the worst comes out of people while displaced in a foreign country. Same rings true for my sister and I. The worst in her was she played the Mother/Commander in Chief role: she always had guard of our passports, Eurail tickets, money and itinerary and never let me touch. She curbed my enthusiasm after dinners to head to the bars and meet some boys and was the bugle boy alarm clock to get up super early (we never wasted a minute of daylight) to sight see. The worst in me? My inability to shut my yapper. Whether it was mumbling along to any Spice Girl song on my walkman during long train rides (annoying, for sure) or as we moved on to southern Europe, my natural tendency to yelp back at any machismo muck who threw out comments like “Ciao Bella.”, “You lovely American yeah?” “What hotel are you staying at? I have a couch you could sleep on.”

I would jokingly scoff back with “Are you kidding me? Please.” “As if!” or “Gimme a break!” This annoyed my sister immensely. She would scold me and lecture “Erika, you’re in their country now, you must abide by their customs and culture, grow up and deal with it.”

“I’m sorry, (cough, cough) ‘culture’ did you say?” I questioned and began the heated debate “You call sexual harassment culture? I won’t stand for it!” This was the 90’s, the dawn of sexual harassment in the work place and the height of political correctness. Don’t we all remember the mandatory sexual harassment learning seminars? Male employees were told to not even comment on a female co-workers appearance or else they might get canned. Remember the movie Disclosure with Demi Moore and Michael Douglas? Didn’t that just scare the bejesus outta ya?  In hindsight, far too extreme and a bit too much. I was actually flattered if some male co-worker complimented me on
how nice I looked that day, harmless stuff. Looking back, I missed out on a few opportunities to hook up with some rather handsome, male-coworkers.

With her natural mothering tendencies which were far more extreme than my own mother ever was, she warned me for the last time “Look, we’re only in Italy and on our way to Greece and then Spain, it’s only going to get worst from this point on.” Then she reprimanded me “So you better learn to
deal and lock it up.”

“No, you lock it up!” I bitched back.

“NO. YOU! Lock it up!!!”

I exhaled with frustration and I didn’t want something silly like this to ruin the rest of our trip. “OK. I’m done. I’ll deal with it.” ‘Mom’ I muttered under my breath.  

We spent one day in Florence before heading down south to Brindisi to catch the ferry to Greece. After viewing the marvelous Il Duomo Cathedral, Ponte Vecchio Bridge and Campanile Bell Tower we’d browse the street stalls, looking for Versace scarves and other Italian high fashion designer
handbag rip offs.

By the time we made it to Brindisi we had the entire day to waste. Brindisi is a port town, not much there to do. We got our passports stamped for entry to Greece and meandered around. Nothing to view but signs selling tickets to Greece. Eventually we sat on some rocks near the ocean. We
grabbed some cheese, bread, green olives, pistachios and a bottle of red wine, our backpacker on a budget dinner for the late 10:00 p.m. ferry departure. The ferry just happened to be titled Erika. How auspicious I thought; surely a sign of good sailing ahead, in a cabin below the deck, the size of a closet, with no window and two tiny bunk beds.

Upon arrival in Patras, Greece the next morning, we had breakfast and coffee and made hotel arrangements for Athens. We walked to the train station en route to Athens. The hotel manager that my sister spoke to over the phone assured us the train ride was approximately 2-4 hours and we’d
arrive in Athens early evening.

We sat on the platform waiting, me enjoying an iced coffee and my sister reading a book. An eerie man kept pacing the tracks, occasionally looking at me. He didn’t appear to be Greek or Italian, Armenian I thought. During the 1990’s there was an influx of Armenians throughout Italy, Greece and
Turkey seeking escape from the violence and ethnic cleansing from the Balkan War.

Nothing against Armenians, but the guy was creepy and started to get on my nerves. He would stand right in front of me, staring, leering. Eventually, I had had enough and assumed my sister would understand that I deserved to counterattack after biting my tongue for so long. I jokingly said to him “YOU think you’re going to get with THIS?” and ran my hand up and down my body (clad in shorts and a tank) and laughed, rolling my eyes.

We boarded the train, second class carriage and stashed our backpacks on the racks above. Our ‘friend’ joined our carriage and sat opposite me. For the next four hours he sat there, head turned to me, glaring with sexually suggestive, and intensely threatening, crude look in his yes. He never, ever, once, turned his head or blinked an eye. I refused to let him get the better of me. I sat there reading my book, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary, looking out the window or closing my eyes for a nap. Luckily for me, I never had to get up once to go to the toilet, I was afraid to move. Though I never flinched, inside this guy had a stranglehold on my confidence and my fear began to heighten. I then
truly regretted the crass remark I made to him back on the platform. I didn’t realize I had taken it that far and pissed the guy off, total regret and felt horrible that I might have gotten my sister and I in real trouble.  

Our train ride had passed the 4 hour mark. He did get up about 6 or 7 times to head to the bar. He’d come back with a beer to drink, but still kept his eye on me and getting increasingly intoxicated. Or, he’d grab a smoke in between the carriages (this was allowed) but he would stand there, still staring at me through the glass window. When he was absent, my sister and I whispered about the problem and what to do. We were told this would be a 4 hour train ride max, it was nighttime and we were traveling through the countryside, nowhere close to Athens. Our particular carriage was full of Greeks and neither of us had a chance at asking for help because no one would understand English. I told my sister I was going to walk up and down the carriages to try and find a group of Americans or Canadians to sit with us; anyone actually who might speak English and could understand our problem.

After several searches up and down the train I found a group of young male and female Australians. I shared our dilemma and asked if they wouldn’t mind if we joined them. They were super outgoing and understanding and welcomed us. I came back to grab my sister and we breathed a sigh of relief and partook in the laughter and fun that only a group of Australians can provide. They are the best of both worlds, the U.S. and Britain: friendly and outgoing and a lot of fun to pub crawl with and take the piss out of (British slang for making fun of someone).

At 11:30 p.m., barely midnight our train arrived in Athens. We all gathered our backpacks and disembarked. The Australians asked us which hotel we were staying at and offered to escort us here. I looked back at the empty train, all the lights were on and the conductor was walking through. All but one passenger remained. Our ‘friend’, was passed out drunk with his head slumped against the window. ‘God let’s hurry up and get outta here’ I thought to myself.

Unfortunately, the train conductor woke him up. Dazed and for an instant, confused of his own whereabouts, he stood up and looked around the train and then outside the window and spotted us. We all began walking to our respective hotels which were both nearby. The man had the nerve to follow our group. My fear turned to anger. I couldn’t believe this guy had the nerve to continue his ridiculous hunt. I confided in one guy that this was the man who had been harassing us.

Finally, after 10 minutes of walking, this strapping, husky, Aussie guy launched back threatengly, with his fist up and shouted “Enough! Now leave us alone mate!” Yeah! YEAH!!! ‘Get a wolly dog up ya arse’ (Australian slang for fuck off!). He turned around and left us alone.

Lesson learned, I mean, I got it, I really, really got it. My sister was right, thanks ‘Mom’. That lesson was like a nail pounded in to my head with a hammer. Ignore it, don’t give them the pleasure and move on. Truthfully? All of it is in jest and mostly harmless fun and it is part of the male culture in some European countries. The wiser woman ignores it and moves on and they do too. Since then, I’ve never, ever yelped back at any European male who made such comments. Over time, I confess, they were slightly flattering. In my thirties, while traveling Italy I remember one such comment from a stranger “Hello. Where are you from? Are you a student in university?”

“No. I’m not.” I smiled and moved on. ‘Wow.’ I thought admiringly of myself. Someone thinks I’m young enough to be a college student! Hmmm, 32 years old and still rockin’ it!