I’ve spent a total of 10 days outside of the United States now, the longest time since I have been alive, according to my knowledge. It has caused some interesting results. I realized that I am inextricably connected to the people who I am familiar with in my life, and being without them decreases my mood significantly, and without contact to them decreases my mood sharply.

I am not alone in this fact. There are many studies that show that people who have more social connections lead happier lives. I am lucky in that I am technologically ept and can connect to my near and dear in a number of ways, and be resourceful in finding other ways to contact them if necessary. I feel that I am lucky to live in a time which it is possible for me to spend so much time apart and still be in connection with people. I am also lucky that I was born in a geological area which enables me to be as such.

At the same time, I am sad to leave this place. It is a nice area, with good food and a very long history. As Nikos reminded me the other day, it is the birthplace of Democracy, which I hold to a fairly high regard. It is also the birthplace of modern medicine, and a significant portion of many early sciences. The wealth of the nation as a whole and as parts is clear to me, and I wish to return.

I’ve learned part of the language while I am here, and it has made me more cognizant of communication with other cultures. People in Athens seemed put off when I tried to talk in Greek, but in Kos they were at the worst amused at my attempts. The language may not be as romantic to learn as French or Italian, and may not be as useful in the long term as Latin, but it would be interesting to speak nonetheless. I am tempted to start working on some of the i18n Greek QA issues in Debian — It would help me learn the language more, and also keep me aware of the issues in software when you start working with other countries’ characters. I have been lucky to be using a MacBook this entire time with decent Greek support, allowing me to type at least some greek while I was here. It helped me understand even more of the language – I now know mostly the numbers 1-9 at least.

The trip has highlighted for me something which is highly lacking in airports: power. Every airport that I have been to has prominently displayed the signs of wireless access, and has people using their laptops in almost every direction you can look (I am one of those), but they are sorely without power points for people who are using those laptops. This may be a designed flaw in order to save energy, but I don’t really believe that 50 or even 5,000 laptops at 65-150W will put a significant dent in the power grid at somewhere as large as an airport, where LCD screens are running 24/7 with ads and bright lights illuminate every corner for all to be seen. I won’t even start talking about the airplanes themselves.

All in all, the trip has been a happy one, and I would very much repeat it. I will make different decisions on lodging at some places and probably plan a shorter trip. I however wholly endorse Greece as a vacation spot, and even would consider moving here if offered a position (that would depend highly on Diana as well, obviously). I find it entirely favorable. I hope that this small series on the site has caused you, the reader some pleasure at least, even if it was at my expense.

Now begins the long trip home, on three planes and with 14.5 hours in the airplane and 18 hours in total. It’ll be only 10 hours counting local time, unfortunately — the jet lag will, I’m sure, be horrible.

They say that this airport was built new for the Olympics, but it is not that great. It is like a normal airport, with some extra things because it was built recently. There is still surprisingly no power outlets. I love how all the new airports advertise that they have wireless internet, but they are crap for power. The security checkpoint is very near the gate, which is good because you can get in and wait for your flight, but bad because you can’t really estimate how bad the wait will be at security, and there is nothing to shop at or eat after you get through your security. I wish they would just put the security near the ticket counters, like normal airports have, then you would at least be able to relax knowing that you had gotten through security and could definitely make your flight.

The flight was changed gate after I got there (less than an hour before my flight) and also delayed, I assume because the plane wasn’t ready or something. When I finally got to the gate and the plane was going to take off, we got on a bus and rode it out onto the tarmac. It was interesting to me because I hadn’t ever been on a plane where you had to board it from the tarmac before, but it was just like a normal plane inside if a little less luxury. The flight was full to the brim, partially I am sure because of the conference – the guy sitting next to me was for sure going to ECC07, and there were other passengers with a ECC05 bag so they were probably going as well. It was at least short at about 45 minutes. I watched an episode of anime, and they came by with orange juice and pita chips with cinnamon and sugar on them that were rather good. I may see if I can find some at a shop in Kos.

Landing at Kos was smooth, and looking over the Mediterranean was nice as well while flying. The airport is really small, but still prominently displays that it is an international airport – then again, you could probably swim to another country from here. Baggage was no problem as it was the only plane landing at the time. I got a cab and rode 25 minutes or so to my hotel in Lambi.

After the stay at the horrible hotel in Athens, I was pleased to arrive at Gaia garden and find that they had my reservation on hand and didn’t need any proof. Also I didn’t need to pay until the end of the stay. The difference in a 45 minute flight’s distance and 10 euro of room fare is amazing. The room is nice, with tile floors, and well kept. There is a large pool and a bar in the hotel that has free drinks (from a limited list) for guests. The hotel staff are very nice and explained to me everything, and even walked me to my room to show it to me. There is still a thing that you need to put your key into in order to turn the power on, but I am completely happy with it as it works every time and I don’t need to worry about it. The bathroom is well-kept and they were even very nice to me when I broke a glass on the floor shaving. I can not recommend more highly the Gaia Garden hotel in Lampi, Kos. I will definitely return if I take another trip to Greece. I may post pictures on Flickr of both hotel rooms if I can figure out how to get pictures off of my phone (it was working earlier, but is not working now).

The best thing about this place is that it has free wireless internet. It is blocked by a WEP password, but it is easily attainable at the desk. I can use Skype in my room and talk to Diana for 0.01€ instead of 0.98€ If I was running the hotel, I would sign up for some VoIP service and offer free international calls – it has cost me about $1 since I got here to talk to Di for ages, and it has helped my outlook nicely – they should be able to charge $5 more and make money on the deal. The Internet is not completely reliable, but I don’t mind that much at all – it’s just slightly annoying if I get cut off from Di while talking and don’t have a chance to say good bye.

I spent a bunch of time in my room using the Internet, and then walked down the street at about 11pm. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find anything, but found a restaurant which is very nice that was open and had very good Souvlaki. Then back to the hotel to try Internet again, and go to sleep. It was very relaxing. I know why people come to the islands of Greece now: it is much more relaxing than Athens was. I was worried about everything in Athens, and on edge. Here I am very relaxed. Today I will try to find the conference hotel, and look around Kos town a little. I plan to walk a decent distance, and judge the bus service here so I know how long it will take to get to the conference on Tue-Thu. Then relaxation some more, and I think I will visit that place again today late. That was nice, this island is very nice at night.

The hotel is cheap. Very cheap. Granted, when you pay 35€ a night, you can’t expect too much, but there isn’t even an alarm clock in the room, and the shower isn’t really a shower as much as a bath with a convenient shower handle. The power for the room is completely off when you are not in the room, probably to keep people from running the AC all day. The one small favor that this room has is that – the AC works well, cooling the place to a chilly 68 when it’s left on for long enough. Otherwise, the room is basically a place to sleep and clean yourself. The owner expected me to bring my reservation, which I hadn’t thought of because everywhere else I have been the reservation was handled by verifying who the person was who made the reservation, and then having them pay.

After getting to my room and dropping off my stuff, Hyeun and I took a walk outside to find some food. We eventually went to a place recommended by the owner of the hotel – they had menus in english, and recognized us as tourists pretty quickly. I had a large σουβλάκι (Souvlaki), which was actually very good even with the tomatoes and lettuce. When supper was over, it was time to take the task of finding a charger (which I learned the greek word for: φορτισή) and SIM card for my phone so that calling home wouldn’t cost me $1.40 a minute, and also finding the best way to get to the conference hotel.

There was a internet cafe just across Αχαρνον that had reasonable rates, so we went there for some precious connectivity. I couldn’t plug in or log on to the wireless there, so I had to use one of the computers. I am always wary when using someone else’s computer to log on to the internet, especially so when I am trying to check my own email and do things that I wouldn’t want some random person to go to. I also couldn’t use my USB drive which has secure pocket versions of Firefox and the like. After the net surfing session we walked back to the hotel, and on the way I found a cell shop that I was able to buy a SIM card and charger at. They don’t speak English there, but they were very helpful and I was happy that they were friendly with me standing there very confused and patient when I was trying to find the greek words for things.

After we got back to the Filoxenia, we sat in the lobby while I tried to show Hyeun how to use the SIM card. Unfortunately I had forgotten to call T-mobile back after I put in my request to unlock my phone, so I had to call them back (at high prices) in order to unlock the phone and use the new SIM card. When I was done with them, I put the new SIM card in and tried to call someone, but the service started talking to me in Greek, so I was confused. The manual that came with the SIM card was only in Greek and I couldn’t seem to get anyone but this Greek voice when I dialed. After a short trip back to the Internet Cafe to read instructions in English at the Cosmote] website, I learned that I was just not patient enough – if I waited for the Greek to stop, it would talk to me shortly in English (telling me to dial 1313 for English support) and then connect my call. I assume it was just explaining the legal ramifications of using their cell network or something.

I was able to call home after that, and talk to Diana for a short time before the minutes that came on the SIM card were used up. It was time for sleep then, and I was completely jet lagged and tired, so I slept from ~10pm to 6am when we were meant to meet in the breakfast area before going to the conference.

Having got my bearings when going to the Filoxenia, finding Victoria (Βικτορια) station was pretty easy, and the ticket machine was simple and cheap for a single trip, only 0,80€. I’m at the conference now, where English is the lingua franca.

I have a built-in downside of having two separate stops before my destination on this trip, mostly due to the ticket being much much cheaper than it would normally be. This means at least 8 hours in airports, waiting for another plane to board or standing in line. It seems like most of the day has been spent charging the laptop, or looking for power.

One thing that I have noted is that when you travel in airports, you need to be wary of power plugs. There are very few available, even it seems in modern airports. Surprisingly, the Iceland airport we stopped at last year on our way to england was much more accommodating for the traveler. This is very frustrating when you land with a dead battery from working on a flight after 7 hours or so, and you can’t charge up for your next flight. I found a wiki online which is trying to map the power available at some airports, and I added a couple entries on my travels just today.

I took a gamble on purchasing wifi from Boingo earlier, and I may sign up again with the “world unlimited” plan before the trip is over. Apparently the plan that I signed up on is 0.12 euro a minute at most locations in Athens, and I can easily see spending more than the ~30 euro it will cost for the month of unlimited. As an added downside, you can’t see your minute charge right away, so I don’t know if I have logged off here at Madrid.

I hope to take a bunch of bad camera phone pictures, but first I need to find a charger and SIM card for my phone. You can keep track of my travels on twitter, I’ll probably be updating it more often due to the high price of internet and relative cheapness of SMS. Suddenly texting has a whole new appeal to me.