Sigrid in Athens

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After a wonderful week in Belgium and seeing everybody again, it was time to go back to Athens. I didn’t really feel like leaving so it was good that Sigrid was coming with me! That made me excited to come back again😊

Wednesday (30-11-’11)

We were both pretty tired so we slept in until 11o’clock. Then we went to the Omonia market, both to show Sigrid what the markets are like in Athens and to use her as my personal carrier :p haha no, we wanted to cook ourselves a lot that week so we would save some money😊

After bringing everything back to the apartment and eating some dinner, we went to the Olympic site that was used in 2004. Deserted as always, it was nice to see the beautiful buildings and walk around for a bit. There were even some groups swimming in the pool so apparently it is still in use😊

When we came back, we also went to the Carrefour to get some other stuff and brought it back to the apartment (a lot of walking with bags that day!). In the evening, we went to plan our new year’s eve, we knew there was a party in the bar of a fancy hotel at Syntagma. 50euros with booze all-in for the evening and we Erasmus people like that :p they also wanted to go look for a tavern where we could eat, me thinking it was probably impossible to find something the day before new year’s eve. But hey, it’s Greece, everything is last minute so apparently dining with a group of 50people was no problem!

We made dinner ourselves that night, salmon mmm and just had a lazy evening catching up😊

Thursday (31-11-’11)

In the morning we went to the Acropolis museum, apparently the Acropolis itself was closed (Greece). We also ate lunch there with a nice view on the Acropolis.

Then we went on a mission, I wanted to take the red train that drives around Athens. When my sister and mom were here we took the white one because I thought it was all the same but apparently it was not! The red train just left so we did some tourist shops in the little streets while waiting for the next one. We went to sit in the train when it arrived waiting for the women coming to ask us to pay. I tried calling her but she didn’t look so we thought she would charge us at the end of the ride. But she didn’t and I have to be honest, we didn’t try calling her that much anymore :p

Afterwards, we walked to the shopping streets where a lot of people had little stands with handmade and not so handmade stuff. Me and Sig both bought a beautiful ring there, it will probably brake after wearing it a couple of times but it wasn’t expensive anyways😊

We went home to get ready and in the meanwhile drank a bottle of wine to start our evening on a good note😉 When we left we realized in the metro that we forgot our tickets for the hotel (typical). So we had to go back to get them.

The dinner was very nice, it was 20euros for Greek salad, a main dish, a bad desert and wine all-in. we left a little before 12 because we wanted to see the fireworks from Syntagma, apparently that is where all the people gather to celebrate new year’s eve. So we went and were very excited to see the fireworks over the Acropolis. Sadly, we couldn’t see the acropolis from Syntagma and thus, missed the firework😞 but is sounded wonderful :p

We stayed on the court for a while celebrating. It was the first new year’s eve where I also saw a lot of poor people, some making the best of it, some being passed out drunk already and other begging as always…

We went to the hotel to carry on celebrating but apparently it wasn’t ‘ready’ yet so we had to sit outside for an hour before we could get in (ugh, very annoying!). But once we got in, it was a very nice party and we enjoyed every minute of it! At the end, me and Sig walked home, it was a long walk but we were drunk so it was good for us :p

Friday (01-01-’12)

Well, I’ll tell you what we did that day: sleep, sleep, sleep zzzz

We finally stood up at 4 o’clock and watched movies the rest of the day. Hercules and troy to stay within the Greek theme and Dirty Dancing afterwards because it’s just a classic😊 We ate some pizza for dinner…

Saturday (02-01-’12)

We woke up early that day because we had to do a lot of stuff! First we went to the Acropolis, then the Agora, we ate a pita at monastiraki and then walked to syntagma to go take a look at the change of guards. We wanted to go to the Kalimarmarostadion but it was about to close and you need some time to go through it so we didn’t go in. We met Bex and Mati there who also wanted to go to the stadion so instead we went with them to watch at the University and national library at Panepistimio. Afterwards we went for a drink in Exarchia with a very weird/funny/high waitress.

We went home to make wraps, one of my favorite meal and it was delicious! In the evening we decided that instead of our ‘day to study’, we would go to the island Hydra. Apparently some other people had planned on going the next day so we decided to just go with them😊 After dinner, we tried to watch a movie but apparently in was in Spanish so we couldn’t :p We had to wake up early to go to hydra so we just stayed in and talked for a bit😊

Sunday (03-01-’12)

We took the metro to Piraeus to take the ferry, we almost missed it because we couldn’t find it but we made it eventually😉 Hydra is an island without cars, only donkeys take care of transportation there so we saw a lot of them and a lot of cats. It was really nice to walk around in the little streets, we went up so we could have a nice view. At some point, Bex saw a tree and from then on it was our goal to take a picture where the tree was. We first stopped at a place with a nice view and discovered that there was a very loud echo when we shouted so we had some fun with that:p Afterwards we went to ‘the tree’, apparently it was in the garden of a construction site so we sneaked in and took some pictures. Eventually somebody came to tell us we couldn’t be there but he was very nice.

Afterwards we went to look for one of the beaches of the island, it was very small but it was nice to lie there for a while in the sun. We went back to the little harbor and we ate and drank something there while waiting for our ferry.

When we came home we made pasta carbonara, Sigrid’s specialty from miracoli:p it was very good! Then we had a little preparty at our place and went to gazi.

Monday (04-01-’12)

We planned on waking up early but clearly we overslept :p we went to the Kalimarmarostadion which is very nice, I really recommend it when you’re visiting Athens! We also went to the National Archeological museum but it was closed already.

In the evening we made scampi with pasta and watched dirty dancing 2 with Tanais in our room, this time not in Spanish😉

Tuesday (05-01-’12)

This was the day Sigrid was leaving so we woke up early to go to the National Archeological Museum. We wanted to go there because I read about a statue of Athena that used to be in the Parthenon from gold and ivory, but I didn’t know where it was now so we looked it up and it was in the museum. Tanais came with us and we walked through the whole museum without seeing the statue. We asked a lady at the desk where it was and she said that there was an exposition that ended the day before and that was the room where the statue was situated. Because the exposition wasn’t moved yet, we couldn’t see the statue (Greece:p)

Afterwards we went back to the apartment to eat some soup I made myself. Then it was time to take sig to the metrostation and to say goodbye😞 I was really sad after she left, we had such a great time just like we used to so I was really going to miss her!

Xoxo Anne

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