“To be in Bodrum and not to go to the Körfez Restaurant in Kadikalesi seems to verge on sin, especially if you prize fish and seafood” – says the popular wisdom (i,e, Bodrumlife.com). The conference organisers are well aware of this. After the group photo…

… we board the coaches who take us a few kilometers west of Bodrum, to the Kalikadesi Fishing Village …

… where one can use the lovely scenery for photo-ops with professor Hoppe, Christian Michel, and Robert Groezinger …



… and to basically enjoy life!

9:10 – We take off, and we land in two hours, after an uneventful flight. Carpatair may have had several incidents in the past year, yet it managed to earn a good reputation from the way it tackled them. Greece greets me with music from “Chariots of Fire”. 30 minutes after landing, I buy a 3.20 € bus ticket to Piraeus – bypassing Athens. Normally, one would take the metro, but at the moment it is closed for works. At 13:05, the bus reaches its terminus – the port of Piraeus (or Pireas); in Romanian, the port has the same name – Pireu – as mashed potatoes. I remember seeing as a kid “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” where Richard Dreyfuss (was it him?) recreates the Devil Peak (was it called like this?) from different materials – clay and even mashed potatoes. I have a confession to make – after I saw the movie, the first time mom served me with “Pireu de cartofi”, I gathered it all in the middle of my plate.
But enough with childhood memories; here I am, in one of the busiest passenger ports of the world, traveling to Bodrum “a la grecque”. The charter flights to Bodrum from either Bucharest or Budapest will start early in June; a commercial flight via Istanbul would have been prohibitively expensive – so I am happy to have been “constrained” to take the ferry as a less expensive alternative.

13:10 – I do not know who said that men do not ask for directions. I do; of course, I first try to figure it out on my own, but if I cannot manage in reasonable time (say, 20 seconds), I make appeal to the local wisdom. The newspaper vendors gave me the right directions, so in five minutes I arrive at the office of Filippis Tours, with whom I booked my tickets on the net. The ferry tickets are not e-tickets – unlike the airplane ones – so I have to physically collect them. Sure thing, they have them in an envelope, and they are happy to give me directions. As I was told before, they confirm that I can simply buy the tickets for Bodrum from Kos, once I arrive. They are happy to let me wait for the boat (and for my old friend Kostas) in their office; fortunately, I can access the wireless net from the port authority. My battered old laptop manages to stress me once more – it can only access the net from outside the office, but its battery drains in five minutes, so I have to load it over and over again. I do manage to talk to a colleague and write a couple of work-related e-mails.

16:30 – I ask the friendly people from Filippis Tours what gate will BlueStar 2 depart from. They told me it’s Gate E1 and that I’d better hurry up, as the place is huge. Kostas did not call yet, so I decide to go to my gate. Fortunately, there is a transfer bus I can use. At 17:00 I board the boat, that would leave in two hours. I have time to tour a part of it before Kostas SMS-es me inviting me to get down for some minutes. I am happy to do so – I met Kostas in 1994 at ISWINT, the International Students Week in Timisoara. He works for a bank and speaks 8 (eight) languages. We have a coffee, and he offers me some nice hints about Greece and Turkey. As I will return through Athens, I will meet him again, this time for a bit longer than a coffee.


19:00 –The ferry leaves for Rhodes, but I will have to descend at Kos (one stop earlier) in order to take the first ferry to Bodrum. The weather is so and so – quite cloudy, but not too cold.


22:30 – A voice announces the passengers that the restaurants will remain open for another half an hour, a polite way of saying that they will close in 30 minutes. I got the hint while hunger got me, so I hurried to the budget restaurant (there is also an a la carte one) and ordered a hamburger. Not too bad (Sorry, Ronald – it’s even better than yours). We just passed Milos and Sifnos – there is an electronic, real-time chart that shows our location, and plenty of people are fascinated by it.

22:00 – Kostas just sms-ed me to remind me not to fall asleep before we arrive at Santorini – just a port call, I won’t stop this time.