Mykonos, or My Big Fat Greek Scooter Adventure

The day after Izmir we were in Mykonos. We decided to rent scooters, an activity for which everybody else was seemingly well-equipped. Beth is licensed to ride a motorcycle, Cody had rode 4x4s during previous visits to Mykonos, and Brian had even taken the time last year to rent a scooter in Chicago, so as to prepare himself for the Greek Isles. I, however, brought nothing to riding a scooter except my lack of hand-eye coordination, spotty driving history, and adolescent belief that nothing bad will happen. We were also with Jack, a friend of ours from the Broadcast department. I don’t know if Jack has ridden scooters before, but he is from just Philadelphia, so I assumed he had excellent automotive skills.

After a brief tutorial on how to operate a scooter, conducted mainly in Greek and broken English, we were off. Now, while Mykonos is a charming resort island, it also is not stuck in the eighteenth century. It’s not like we were sharing the road with Zorba and his trinket-laden donkey. As I zipped into speeding traffic (still not sure how to control the speed of the scooter, so the scooter moved about three seconds ahead of my body), I was reminded of word problems about accelerating masses, the laws of motion, and my own mortality.

I managed to survive the first street and subsequent turn, but faltered when I had to navigate a rotary. I was stopped at the corner and had to make a left turn. When I started the scooter, I accelerated too fast and turned the handlebars too sharply, so that a second later I was comfortably on the ground, my scooter on top of me and the fender of an oncoming car in front of my head. I got my scooter up, assured the very nice people in the car that I was fine, and continued on.

I’ll be honest, the first fifteen minutes of driving the scooter I thought I was in over my head. The curves seemed to sharp, the hills too steep, my body suddenly felt vulnerable to the slightest wind, and I was sure I would be sent toppling over the rocky Grecian hillsides. But there was no turning back, and I vowed that while I was battered, I was not beaten. We soon stopped at a Citibank and Starbucks (they were two stores in the same complex, I don’t want you to think the bank-coffee store combo is an example of gross overseas synchronicity). One of the dancers and her boyfriend were at Starbucks and gave me the Mocha Frappucino that had been incorrectly made for them, much in the same way you give a three year-old an ice cream cone after they skin their knees. But, just like the three year-old, I was easily placated and ready to hit the road.

After that, my confidence increased exponentially and I developed a love for the open road. Or, rather, the open road at twenty-five miles an hour while gripping the handlebars and keeping your eyes glued to the road, no matter how many times Beth points out the “adorable” goats or “breathtaking” coastline. I might have been confident, but I wasn’t stupid.

Our first stop was to Ilya (sp?) Beach for lunch. A bunch of the male dancers had rented a car and were there as well and we all ate together. After lunch we all went to the beach, the dancers changing into their European-cut swimsuits and we changing into our more figure-covering ones. We walked over to where the dancers had set up camp, but realized it was in the epicenter of the nude section of the beach. Most of the clothing-optional advocates were well-fed middle-aged men, reclining in what Cody termed “Venus of Urbino” poses (these are the kind of jokes you make after you visit the Uffizi Gallery). We ended up setting up shop a discreet distance away.

After a quick swim, we hopped on our bikes and with a cry of “Wild Hogs Forever!” were off to our next stop, Paradise Beach. This site was where the majority of the crew had gone. When we arrived most had been there for a couple of hours and the scene looked like an outtake of a “Girls Gone Wild” video. The Spa Girls were doing cannonballs in the kiddie pool and one of the Principal Singers was standing on a table and drunkenly gyrating to “Umbrella.” The Russian Gymnast had taken control of the DJ’s microphone and was ordering everyone to “make some noise” and be “party people.” Then he would get up on the pool table and, with cigarette in mouth, do a handstand that morphed into a version of the worm. I watched just long enough to make sure there weren’t any career-ending neck injuries and then went with the others to a quieter section.

We stayed for a few hours and then drove back to town. When we returned the bikes I had to pay forty bucks for the broken reflector and scrapes on the side (or, as Cody called them, “fireworks”) incurred by the crash. But by that point, I had caught the scooter bug, and was swaggering around like a miniature Peter Fonda. Plus, the clerk told me my damages were nothing compared to what she usually sees (probably because of their incredibly lax rental policy). We are going back in four days and I can’t wait.