Thursday
That's Thursday 18th of October 2007. We got up at half past midnight, and I drove us to Gatwick Airport. Paying for easyJet's Speedy Boarding proved to have been a good idea, and we settled down in our well chosen seats while everyone else followed us and struggled to find places they liked. "We" means me, my wife Liz, our son Dominic and my brother Nick. In contrast with previous years, I was not going to the Hydra Rebetiko Gathering on my own.
Three and a quarter hours later, we landed in Athens. We were all hungry, so we had a snack in the airport's Arrivals café, and went outside, to find an X96 bus to Pireas just sat there waiting. For a moment, I thought the ticket kiosk was no longer in use, but it turned out that the window was now on the side of it, instead of facing the road. A couple of minutes after we had boarded and "validated " our tickets, the bus set off. Nick and Dominic seemed very impressed by the bus driver's total absence of fear in the face of the Athens traffic, as well as the rapid acceleration of the bus. After a while, they changed seats to face forward, partly because they felt it would be nice to see whatever we were doomed to bang into, and partly because Nick was thinking it was better than any of the rides at Alton Towers.
A little over an hour later, we rolled our cases along the dock to the Hellenic Seaways Flying Dolphin ticket kiosk, and bought tickets for the next Flying Dolphin to Hydra, which was due to leave in about ten minutes. We boarded, taking care to note where they hid our cases, and settled in our seats. The sea was nice and flat, so the Dolphin could race along without beating us up too badly. We were in the rear cabin, so the noise of the engines was horribly loud. To my surprise, we didn't stop at Poros as I had thought we would. Note to self, watch those assumptions!
This simple, quick journey was much easier than the return journey turned out to be.
I showed the others the way to the Ippocampos Hotel, and Voula showed us to our rooms. Nick had a nice twin bedded room at the front of the hotel, and we had a room with a double bed and a single. I think it may be the first double bed I have seen in any Greek hotel.
Once we had unpacked and settled in, we went off for a walk, and a beer. It was wonderful to keep meeting people I knew, starting with Hank Bradley and Cathy Whiteside, who seemed pleased to see me as well. Somebody I met told me that people would be meeting up for drinks at the Dalakos Ouzeri in the market place, followed by a meal and jam session at Lulu's Taverna. After a coffee and a rest at the hotel, we set off for the ouzeri. It's easy to find, using the wandering about and hoping technique. You can't easily get lost in Hydra town, as heading downhill always gets you back to the harbour.
At the Dalakos Ouzeri, we met even more Rebetiko fans from round the world that I knew, and settled down for a drink. I decided to start with Mythos beer, rather than ouzo, to pace myself, and avoid drunkeness if possible. Soon our host started to bring out little mezedes, as every sensible person knows that food with your drinks stops you becoming stupidly drunk. What a pity we don't have proper drinking places that give you food in the UK! Soon enough, music broke out, with Hank Bradley and another person whose name I didn't get playing guitars, Nicos from London and others playing baglamades, Nikos Politis and a young guy I didn't recognise playing tzourades, and Nick from Cornwall playing bouzouki. We also had a local singer join us, and duet with the young tzoura player I didn't recognise. It soon became obvious that the local singer had taken numerous drinks, probably without any food, but he was only violent to the songs he sang.
After a while, as we had had several good mezedes - bread, tzatziki, dolmades, meatballs, sausages and Greek salad - Ed asked if people wanted to postpone Lulu's until Friday. They did, and everyone stayed. Liz and I had a couple of ouzos, and being shattered from the travelling, we left while people were still playing. I heard later that they went on playing for another couple of hours, but I had already recorded some good music, and several kinds of singing.