"International Drivers License"

Hello Readers,

Well, usually I wait until I've started traveling to experience significant misadventure. But, for the sake of efficiency, I (we) have started now. So here's the story.

Our original plan was to get to Athens, spend the night, and rent a car to drive to Thebes, Delphi, Corinth, etc., getting back on Friday night and going to Santorini the next day. A while ago, Katie Thorne and I checked on prices, and today we decided to call and book, so that we didn't have to worry about trying to do it in Greek.

So we called Hertz, booked a car for three days (two nights), got directions from the hotel to the pickup point, and got the phone number of the company. We were pretty excited, because it ended up being cheaper than what we had priced a few weeks ago.

Enter the drama. As the Hertz guy went through and confirmed everything, he let us know that we needed an International Drivers License (which none of us had). This was a bit of a shock, because my travel book doesn't mention it (albeit, I got my book at a thrift store, and it's from 1999) and many of the travel websites we had looked at alluded to it being good to have, but by no means mandatory for car rentals. So we feel like we may be out of luck.

Hertz guy tells us that it's no big deal. Triple-A sells them for $15, and they do on the spot processing. So we're feeling optimistic again. Until we realize that it's Sunday, and because of the Fourth of July (happy Fourth, everyone!), Triple-A is closed on Monday for the holiday. An educational adventure, to say the least.

So once again, we may be out of luck. Our current plan (much like that of Napoleon) is first to show up, and then to see what happens. We know that there are busses that run from Athens to Thebes and Delphi (and many other places), so we might end up just being able to take a bus, and save $75 each on car rental fees and gas. That would be cool. We also might get there and find out that this International Drivers License thing is something that an American license can substitute for (we all have those), and be able to rent a car after all. Who knows?

But in just 26 and a half short hours, Katie, Caitlynn, and I are departing for all sorts of fun and (mis)adventure. I'm excited.

FYI (because I like to do this)

$1 = .796 Euro

1 Euro = $1.255

Pretty darn good.