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.

Lunch was at a reasonable restaurant near the hotel (the one in the hotel was very expensive and also looked horrible). I got a mixed plate of meat, which came with some pita and fries, and also had along with some very tasty sauce which seemed to be a mix of mayo and mustard, although I am not sure.

The conference lasted until about 7pm, and after meeting with Nikos and talking a while it was easily 9pm. Hyeun and I went back to the hotel, stopping along the way to get some drinks from a shop. Fanta orange-ade seems very popular here, and it tastes very nice – it is a orange-like still drink. After that, I needed to stop at the cell phone shop again, because it appeared that the charger that I bought previously was not working. The shopkeeper tested the charger, and then got another charger and tested that as well, and the phone still wouldn’t charge. This is a bad sign – the phone is hopefully not broken completely. Thus begins my decline into desperation.

You see, Greece is fine and nice, but I have a desperate need to stay connected. I realize this after I was so happy to have the internet at the conference, and use it in the Internet cafe the night before. I was looking forward desperately to talking to my lovely, and now it looks like I won’t be able to. I try to buy a new phone at the shop, but it is nearly 10pm now, and they are closing for the night. I walk back to the Hotel, and for the first time since I arrived, I feel completely disconnected from everything near and dear to me. It doesn’t help that the shopkeep doesn’t speak english, but it is not her fault. I break down, and feel a deep sadness and futility rush over me for a while. This is not good. I need to be able to talk to my sweetie.

I try to dial the phone in the room, at this point willing to pay the crazy charges that I would have to pay in order to at least tell Diana that I can’t call her tonight and will have to try tomorrow. It doesn’t seem to work at all, and the phone is dodgy in the room anyway. Calling down to the office, I discover that I cannot (or should not) use the phone in my room because it is very expensive and will need to buy a card from the kiosk down the street. Walking to the kiosk and getting a card, I discover that the card is a pay phone card, and I will need to use the phone outside. I was shown by a nice man how to use the phone, and tried to dial to no avail. I try many times, pushing random buttons before trying to call. Nothing works – I either get a message telling me I dialed incorrectly, or the phone saying Greek words I don’t understand at me. I go back inside the hotel to talk to the owner about how to dial, and he doesn’t know how. I try again in futility a few times, and then ask some students upstairs who are from I don’t know where, but are speaking English anyway, and they tell me I need to dial 001 + number.

I go back out, and wait for the phone to be free again, and dial my sweetie. Voice mail. I need to talk to my honey, and she’s not available. Maybe she is talking to someone. It doesn’t seem to work for call waiting. I try again after a minute or so just in case she is not near the phone. Voice mail again. I leave a message, and go back inside.

The temperature is 110 F (45 C) by the way, which isn’t helping my mood at all. Also not helping is the fact that the metro police are saying that there may be a city-wide blackout, so the hotel manager advises against using the elevator. I wait inside for a while, and try once more. Voice mail still. At this point, I am feeling still very disconnected, but at least I was able to leave a message, so I go back up to my room for a while and lay on the bed a bit. After a bit, I return down to the hot street and try once more. Finally! I get to talk to my sweetie, and the world is right again.

Today’s ordeal has taught me a lot about myself and my comfort zone. I have been helped by the hospitality and graciousness of many people. My world is rooted in connectivity — at least to the people that I hold near to my heart. For a couple of hours today, I was alone in a sea of people, and the world was a horrible place — a living hell. Tomorrow I will buy another cell phone for use here, and the world will have righted itself once again.

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.