Pink Palace "Bus" ride.
The Pink Palace is this famous backpacker resort hostel thing on Corfu. Corfu is a pain in the ass to get to. I guess people come through their on their way from Italy to Athens as otherwise its just plain out of the way. I checked from Croatia and despite being close by geographically, it still takes 36 hours to get their as you basically have to go to Italy then back over to the mainland port near Corfu then back to Corfu, etc. I had originally decided to skip it for this exact reason, but when Michael came over we opted to make it more of a priority. So, the Pink Palace offers a shuttle bus from Athens and back. This is advertised as a nice air conditioned coach with satellite TV, etc and includes breakfast, dinner, and a night's accomodation on arrival. We arrived and it was not a bus at all, but a van. In fact it was a 9 passenger van. There were 11 of us. No air conditioning, just windows...in August. My first instinct was to just say fuck it and not get on this claustrophobia-inducing, night time, nightmare van with George the driver (they are all named George) and 10 others. Michael talked me into it but agreed to let me have the windown seat. So we road 4 wide in the back seat of the van with our shoulders pushed up against each other and our knees up against the seat in front. After the first bit we all became friendly and eventually when we arrived we all had this bad experience to bond over. But the during was hell. No one slept. I took a xanex, drank some Oozo left over from Athens, but still no sleep. The driver didn't really speak English and was in a hurry so was driving along the curvy roads at like 70mph I imagine. He also stopped at about 5 gas stations that were all closed which I assume meant he was about to run out of gas. Finally we found one that was open and he took his time smoking a cigarette (while pumping the gas) and talking to the rather large greek gas attendant (this guy could easily be an NFL lineman). We all got out and stretched, went to the bathroom, etc but the driver kept yelling at us and saying 10 minutes. We figured that meant 10 minutes so we took our time but he just kept yelling at us. Turns out he meant that the ferry was leaving in 10 minutes to take us across to Corfu from the mainland. Well, needless to say, we missed it. This guy probably makes this drive 3 times per week and if we were going to be cutting it this close we should have left 15 minutes earlier or something very simple instead of rushing it and driving crazy, etc. Needless to say we pulled up as the ferry was pulling away from the Harbor. So, we had to sit at the ferry port for 4 hours and wait for the next one. Seriously this is the worst travel experience I've had yet. I slept in the van for like an hour and others sat at the coffe shop. I was at the coffe shop but they yelled at me because I tried to lay down on one of their couches that were all completely empty because it was 4 in the fucking morning. So, we finally made the morning ferry at 7:30am and that took a couple of hours (sleep, yea!) then drove to the Pink Palace and arrived sometime around 10am. They give you a shot of pink Oozo when you walk in the door which isn't really what I needed at that point but took it just the same. They sent us down to the breakfast buffet and we all ate together. We came back up to get our room keys and check in (we had already given our passports and filled out their info card...just waiting for the rooms to be ready). By this time loads of new people had arrived and were in line to check in. I stepped up and they told us to have a seat at the table and wait for them to call us up...so I obliged. More new people walked up and they checked them in but didn't acknowledge us. So I went back up and talked to a different girl and she said she would not forget about us and told us to wait at the table. Eventually all of the people at check in were cleared out and they asked if anyone else in the lobby was ready so I walked up. They said, oh, were not quite ready for you...15 more minutes or so. This in spite of the fact that half our "bus" already had rooms. I said OK with a little sarcasm and sat back down. They checked in like 2 other people and then asked if anyone else in the lobby was ready to be checked in. At this point I was pissed off, tired, frustrated, delerious and became rude which I know normally doesn't get you very far in the customer service world. I walked up with the other 4 people that were at the table with me and basically yelled at them in a pleading sort of mannor to explain why everyone else could check into a room but the people from the torture bus were not allowed to. I recounted all of our experiences over the past 12 hours and that I had been yelled at by George and crammed in a van and told to wait 3 different times, etc. Finally an older lady who I assume was the manager stepped up and offered to give us a room upgrade for the same price as the dorm we had booked. I was slightly appeased, but at that point was just happy to have a room. She asked us to fill out the card and give them our passports....I explained we already had and she acted surprised as if we should have been given a room already. Anyways, we finally got our room, a 3 bed private with cold a/c right next to the pool and steps from the sea for 25 euro/night each which included breakfast buffet and 3 course dinner each night. It took us 2 days to find the light switch to the bathroom as it was not only on the outside of the bathroom (as all of europe does for some retarded reason) but the door was also a sliding door such that when it was slid open to go in or out of the bathroom it covered up the switch.
August 15-19th at the Pink Palace
I'm not going to go into every detail of the time spent at the pink palace, but it was definitely a good time. I had my doubts and questions at first based on our arrival experience and some of the reviews I had read online. In reality this is not a hostel at all, but rather it is a resort for young, heterosexual people who like to party. Everything is geared towards taking shots, taking your clothes off, dancing, etc. They have a toga party on Saturday nights (which we missed) and a booze cruise every other day where you get free drinks for cliff jumping naked, etc. I'll summerize a few highlights but realize that the gaps are either laying on the beach, drinking, sleeping, or drinking. At the same time though it was welcoming and social status wasn't as big of a factor as say a frat party if that makes sense. Everyone was just there to have a good time. Each night they had a full dinner with 8 seats at the table so you end up sitting with random people and getting to know them which is always good.
The first night I ran into Wisconsin Patrick, the pub crawl guide from Munich, and of course he was still wearing his laider hosen (sp?) which he continued to wear every night that week. He remembered me as we had talked about him going to Burning Man in late August.
Quad bikes
Michael and I slept through the kayak tour and the waves were too choppy the entire time we were there to do the booze cruise so we opted for the Quad Safari. About 20 of us went and Christov, the Quad God, led us all around the island to beaches, coves, look out points, etc for like 6 hours. There was a group of about 10 younger Italian guys who all had man purses. They were a bit disobedient and none of them spoke English expect for one named Mossimo. So the entire day Christov kept yelling for Mossimo to come and translate so he could try and keep the italians in check. Amazing trip and included a free Tshirt and beer at the end. I guess there's not a lot more to say other than check out the photos but it was a good day.
Cross Dressing night
Each night had a theme at the bar (after dinner there was a large bar/dance floor area in the same building). On cross dressing night I wasn't initially planning on wearing anything other than my normal stuff, but then alcohol took over and I ended up in a nice zebra print tube top dress and slicked my hair back quite a bit and put loads of masscare on with a little bit of blush. I was a sexy bitch. See pictures*
Volley Ball
Our last night there we played in a 4 man volley ball tournament which they host every evening at 5pm (assuming enough people are interested in playing). They put together 4 teams that day and there were another 10-15 watching to cheer us on and participate in side points. This wasn't normal volleyball. This was drinking and body shots volleyball. Basically you play like 5-10 points then both teams have to come over and play some sort of drinking game. This usually involves chugging beer. How many beers can your team chug in 60 seconds, which team can chug 4 beers the fastest, etc. If not drinking then there were points given for the first person on either team that could find someone from the audience to do a body shot off of or make out with for 5 seconds (girl on girl counts). Finally towards the end of the last match we had to try and find a girl to get naked and stay naked for an entire point. No takers in the audience so then they opened it up to guys...I immediately got entirely naked and played an entire point in front of like 20 people. The funny part is that Patrick (the pub crawl guy) was on the other team and he got naked also even though I had already won the point....I think they may have given them a point anyways for that one. Anyways, in the end we lost the final game by a few points, I stubbed 1 big toe, 1 thumb, and ripped a 1 inch circle of skin (blister style) off the bottom of my foot as we were playing barefoot on a smooth concrete court. Not good for walking around for the next few days.
Oozo Circle.
One night at the bar/club they had an Oozo circle. Basically everyone sat around in a big circle (like 100 people?) and Patrick was chosen to be in the middle. They started up with some greek music then had a large bucket full of pink Oozo and proceeded to make him take 6 shots. Afterwards they broke a stack of 6 plates over his head. Once this happened, they went around the cirle multiple times and literally poured a shot of OOzo into anyone's mouth who wanted one. I had 3 by the time all was said and done. After each one they broke a plate on your head....they plates were made of chalk or clay or something but it was damn fun.
I can't recall which night it was but on one occassion I was dancing with my sandles off and had put them to the side of the dance floor as many people did. Of course they came up missing so I went searching with no success. I then began looking at people's feet to see if anyone had grabbed mine "by mistake." I found someone with my sandles so I immediately confronted him as they were rather expensive and have the cool little bottle opener on the bottom (Reefs). He said they were his so I grabbed one off his foot to inspect it and he got a little pissed. I went around again and this time decided as a back up I was going to steal someone elses. They only pair I could find was a broken pair so I figured someone had broken theirs and stolen mine. I went around again and didn't see any other ones. I went back to the guy who I thought had mine and he wasn't pissed but calmly explained that we must have the same brand...I trusted him at this point and left him alone. After another look around the bar I found another person with them on and confronted him...he immediately gave them up and I just gave him a fuck you look. Crisis averted.
