Faliraki, a beach town on the island of Rhodes, is worse. A bus from the town of Rhodes deposits you by the side of the highway among a sea of plastic store-front signs. The road to the beach is lined with restaurants. Many of them exhibit an obsession for English breakfasts. There are postcards for sale that show the sites of the island or big titted women. The cards also have messages that expresses the sender’s earnest wishes, like “Greece is great” or the Pink Floydian desire “Wish you were here.” The bars are called Mambo Bar, Vibe Music Bar, Pozen, KGB and Jimmy’s Pub. One bar has a painting of a topless woman with a caption that read, “We’ve got the biggest jugs.”

The beach itself is paved with umbrellas. The population consists mostly of vacationing Greeks and sunburned Germans. The Brits are in the bars or at the mini-put course. All around the bathing area are boats: boats for para-sailors, boats for inflatable doughnuts and these giant air-mattress thingys that would flop around like poorly flown kites. For the meek, there are long inflatable tubes that twenty can straddle at a time. To the south are water-front condos and to the north is a small amusement park.

When I have to pee, I pee in the sea. I’m sure everyone else is doing it.

Matt was having a good time too, but it was a serious good time. He had to concentrate on what he was doing more that I did. There was a bit more to his bike than just: gas and break, gas and break. And he did very well, only fell off the bike a few times. Parents, please don’t fret, all of the falls were from a standstill, and did way more damage to the bike than to his person (and yes, we were wearing helmets). When he was in motion, he was in total control, king of the road. Motorcycles take practice, but you don’t even really need an opposable thumb to master the scooter.

Yup, I’m all about the scooter. I hear they make great Christmas gifts.

“I’m George. George Bartender.”

I doubt his last name was actually Bartender, unless he shortened it from “Bartenderopolous.” This guy was all about the party and he’s been at if for over twenty years. He played some guitar.

“George, were you in a band?”

“Before Christ.”

I never found out if that was the date or the name of the band.

There were six women from Spain staying in a room. One evening was starting slowly so George called the Spanish women on the hostel phone.

“Hello ladies. It’s George Bartender. We are having party. When will you come?”

He threw up his hands when he found out that they wouldn’t be down for another hour.

“What do they have to do to get ready?! I don’t know.”

I was telling him about a great drink I had in Spain, tinta de verrana (sp?). It’s wine and Fanta, not a combination that I thought would work, but it’s really good. George said he could make me something like that, but better.

“George, what’s this called?”

“My Cold Blood”

At any given time, George usually had someone else working the bar for him, usually a pretty patron. Martha worked the bar for a bit. She learned to work the cash and make some kind of green drink. In fact, George got pretty flirty with Martha. He said that if we ever broke up, he’d be right there. I told him to stop making me jealous.

In Athens we saw most of the sites that we wanted to. We didn’t want to spend more than two nights in the city. It’s nice, but grimy and there’s not as much old broken stuff as Rome. On our last day, we had hours to kill before our night ferry left for Naxos, so we headed back to the hostel. George had just gotten up (it was around 6 or 7pm), and the bar was pretty slow. Martha got behind the counter, I took a stool and so did George. We chatted. He told us about his kids, who asked him if he’d ever grow up. He said he didn’t fear anything, just God, but he’d see Him in heaven. He poured us his special wine, which was retsina from a plastic bottle.

“This wine is only for bartender. I don’t sell this. Only for me. But I want you to have some.”

He showed us the letters other patrons had written him and said we should write him one. Both Martha and I scribbled something. In my letter I said that George would make a great bartender for God. When he read this I got kissed on both checks. What else could I do, I kissed him back!