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Saturday morning, as hinted at in the end of my last entry, we woke up after a less than peaceful night’s sleep at met Mackenzie and her boyfriend Michael outside our hostel at 5 am to split a cab to the airport. After the 30 or so minute ride to the airport, we all get our money to pay the cab driver. Michael pulls out his wallet, opens it, and says “This isn’t my wallet…”
Turns out he and a friend of his had bought the same wallet in Florence and Michael unknowingly took his friend’s wallet of the nightstand that morning and had left his own behind. He had his passport with him still, so we could get through security. He tried to leave his friend’s wallet somewhere so that he could come by later and pick it up, but none of the Italian security guards working at that hour had any idea what Michael was talking about, so he and his friend ended up switching wallets for the week. Interesting start to our trip to Greece.
When we got off the plane in Athens, Allison’s friend Tasos from high school was waiting for us. He grew up
Athens Metro
It was one of the nicest metro systems I've seen--there were ruins displayed in it! in rural New York but is 100% Greek and very proud to be so. He helped us figure out the metro system (which was one of the nicest I’ve been in, but also the one that takes the longest to actually get anywhere) and we went back to his apartment where he had invited us to stay for the next two nights. Allison and I were so tired that we took advantage of the Greek siesta which normally takes place from 2 to 6. When we woke up Tasos was just coming back from having lunch with a friend (finishing lunch at 6:30 pm? Was it dinner? No, of course not. The Greeks don’t eat until later.)
Allison and I went to a café with Tasos and one of his friends where we had the best coffee I’ve had since coming to Europe and played backgammon—apparently everyone plays backgammon all the time in Greece. (This was confirmed over and over when we would see people playing at every café we would pass throughout our time in Greece.)
After coffee, it was about 9:30 or 10, and the Greek boys wanted to watch some soccer game that was on,
so we went to a different café by the Acropolis to find a restaurant that would be appropriate to watch the game. We thought this meant dinner. We learned we were wrong. We were going to another café, and while there was some food on the menu, we were told that the food would not be good. I ordered orange juice, because apparently it was going to be the best orange juice I would ever drink. (It was actually really good—I felt like I had just stuck my straw in an orange…delicious…) So Allison and I waited for the game to be over while the boys discussed the game (in Greek) so we were just kind of sitting there for two hours or however long a soccer game lasts wondering when we would get dinner…
When the game was over we walked around the acropolis about 12 times (this is at midnight or so and Allison and I are about to fall asleep). We later realized we walked around it for so long so that Allison and I could see it…oh…we eventually came across a metro stop and headed back to Tasos’ apartment for bedtime—we were too tired for
dinner at this point. The metro took forever, but Tasos’ friend had parted ways with us so we got to visit with him and he told us more about life in Greece.
The next morning we got up to meet Denise at the metro station because she was arriving Saturday after spending a week with her family in London and Paris. We found her, grabbed some lunch, and then went to the port to pick up our tickets for our trip to Ios the next day! Apparently we needed to pick up our tickets at least 2 hours before our departure…which was at 7:30 am the next day so we opted for going Sunday. However, once we got there we realized that they were closed. And therefore we had to come back at 6 am when they opened the next day. Fabulous. We then took the subway (or the train—not sure which one but apparently the Greeks think there’s a pretty big difference, even though it’s the same stops and the same tracks…) to the Acropolis. We had to get out for a few stops and take a bus because the metro tracks were under construction for a few
Denise, Me, and Allison
Standing on what turned out not to be democracy rock stops. Some Albanians tried to chat us up and told us that they were Italian. I never would have known they weren’t Italian but afterwards Tasos told us he could tell by the shape of their face and he thought it was hilarious that we would believe that they were Italian. I guess in America we don’t all look the same in the first place so we don’t really notice…
We eventually reached the Acropolis, walked around it multiple times again to try to find the entrance, only to find that it was already closed. That’s right—one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions closes daily at 2:30 pm. So that was disappointing. Needless to say we were thankful we had allotted to have one more day in Athens after we came home from Ios. We went to the newly opened museum across the street with lots of old Greek artifacts and sculptures which was cool. Afterwards we went to the Parliament building and saw the Greek National Guard dressed in funny costumes. We took a picture (convincing the guy that it was ok for us to take a picture with 3 of us…not the limit of 2 he
was trying to make us abide by…) and then we walked around for a bit trying to meet up with Tasos’ friends but we weren’t exactly sure what the problem was…eventually we found them and headed to dinner at the Hard Rock Café to meet up with Michael and Mackenzie (we had been planning going to the Hard Rock for a while—we were starting to need some American food in our lives, especially Allison who had been going through American cheese withdrawals.)
We hadn’t eaten since an early lunch so we went all out—wings, bottomless sodas, burgers, and dessert. It was fabulous. I think the five of us Americans really showed those three Greeks a bit about how much Americans love their own cuisine. It was great to be in an American establishment—free refills! (well, free until the 4th—then the each cost a penny) It was a little strange though—we received about 17 different receipts throughout the course of the night for each time we ordered something different or at a different time or something…It seemed to me like there was no rhyme or reason for all the receipts but apparently that’s totally normal in Greece to kill a
tree each time you sit down for a large meal.
We went back to Tasos’ apartment and said our goodbyes before we went to sleep since we would be getting up at such an early hour (again) the next morning.
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