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Hey everyone!
I arrived in Athens on May 3rd 2007, Sas, Seb and Steve picked me up at the airport where I was ever so hopeful they would remember to come pick me up. They did! It was so great to see them, and have them carry my luggage as well as I was exhausted from the 7hr flight across the ocean, then my morning (1am-5am) sitting at Schipol Amsterdam Airport, and the next 3 hrs on the plane to Athens. Drinking? No thank you. Feeling a little knackered? yesssssssss!!!
We went on the train, got threatened with a little fine by the train conductor because the boys like taking risks and chose to not buy tickets for their way back to Athens. They sweet-talked their way out of the fine, and were let off entirely when the conductor found out they were students who had paid a full adult-price fare. Got to Seb's neighbourhood and walked to his place, and despite the pollution, Athens actually smells very nice, there's all these citrus trees lining the streets which were in bloom and perfumed the air.
The boys wisely decided to stop at the market and pick up wine
before heading home for dinner, and after hearing about bottles for 1Euro, I was pretty satisfied to see aisles of alcohol for sale in the grocery store, for less than in the Duty Free shops. Picked up drinks for dinner, headed to Seb's place to devour an entire chicken, salad and side dishes. A nap was out of the question as we finished a big bottle of Retsina on the balcony and prepped to head out to what Seb describes as the Yonge and Eglinton type neighbourhood for the evening.
We jumped on the bus, headed down (or up?) to Kifissia, checked out all the little cafés which spill out into the sidewalks while I brushed up on the bits of greek I had learned from Alex and Maria in Florida and their talking parrot. I also saw my first perriptero, which means corner store, which are actually little stands that sell everything, and booze. come onnnn I'm in university, it's good to notice these things. no wait, i'm FINISHED university!! But anyways, the area was beautiful, the citrus trees sweetened the air, and it was nice to look at. Although I learned that pedestrians definately DO NOT have
the right of way here 😉 and in that area they have this bad habit of sticking their gum on the trunks of trees lining the street. I just make a really disapproving face at that thought. So we sat outdoors at a little café, had some drinks and some food - the menu prices include taxes and tip which makes it a little difiicult to get used to, but makes it simpler at the end. Seb's ladyfriend Sofia and her friend Corrina joined us afterwards as I tried to keep my eyes open behind my aviators.
Turned out to be an easygoing evening for my first night in Greece, and I was looking forward to a good night's sleep followed by a day of checking out the Acropolis in Athens!
May 4th 2007
We woke up and went to buy breakfast groceries - cheese, meat and bread. Nutella too - for Steve, and came home to again eat almost all of it, and get ready wearing comfy shoes to go check out the Grecian ruins! We took the train down closer to the ocean and as we exited the station I could already see the Parthenon
peeking out from above. We paid our entrance fees (BRING A VALID ISIC CARD!!!!!--> make sure!!!) and everyone got discounts except me because I let my ISIC card lapse 😞 this is going to be rough if it keeps happening in Europe..! Then we trekked up the rockside and I took pictures of EVERYTHING and they turned out nicely too! It was really hot, and I learned that you make the greeks mad if you take flash-photography in their museum on top of the Acropolis (don't do it). They thankfully had a water fountain up top because we finished all of it on the trek up. It was very beautiful despite all the scaffolding (they are renovating/restoring?) and it was definately interesting to see all these ancient structures from the dawn of civilization... or very very ancient civilization anyway. The views were pretty incredible too and we just sat up there in the sun for a while. Somehow none of us have sunburns even though we all neglected to put on sunscreen. After checking out the ruins, we walked down to the touristy marketplace looking for stuff and food. Gyros is tasty FYI.. although apparently the waiter was trying to
rip us off a little bit. Luckily Sofia is a local and yelled at him a little bit for us. She met us for lunch after she was done work, and we headed around the marketplace some more. She also brought us to this desserts place and selected a delicious bunch of desserts for us to um.. devour as soon as it was placed in front of us. Greek food is really really tasty, and fresh, I've been eating with a healthy appetite since I got here and I think I've even been keeping pace with the boys :P
After that, we picked up some beers from a perriptero so that we could drink beers while sitting on this special rock watching the sun set. Again, beautiful, and we watched the Acropolis light up as the sun went down. Sadly my camera chose that moment to die, which anguished me to no end because all the ancient ruins in Athens light up at night and I was so upset I was only able to capture a shoddy picture of it before camera died entirely. We found ourselves a café which had a good view of the Acropolis to have
dinner/drinks and chilled in the friggin view of the Acropolis!! Also the greeks are really into basketball and there was some kind of final game on that night so there were big screens and projectors all up and down the sidewalk spilling out of the cafés and everyone would cheer pretty often. We were also surrounded by a road and at least three times this one dog chased smartcars all the way around the roundabout. I'm gonna have to say it was pretty funny.
Took the train back to Seb's place and settled into the evening routine of sandwiches before bed for Sas and Steve, phone conversation for Seb, and pixieing around for myself.
Our plan for today was to book ferry tickets to the greek islands but the travel agency was closed.. a little bit of relaxed panic, and our plans are all straightened out thanks to the net~
Steve is off to the Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea tomorrow morning, while Sas and I are heading to an overnight bus/ferry trip to a hostel called the Pink Palace on the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea. We are heading to Italy afterwards. Seb
is staying here with his lovely ladyfriend and doing his homework! He goes to the Open University based out of England. It's very radical and confusing, look it up.
We are going to do a few shots of Ouzo before having dinner and then Sas and I are off! Athens was pretty cool, though hugely overwhelming and so different from Toronto. No skyscrapers but houses that entirely blanket the valley and creep up towards the mountains.
Laters!
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Catherine
non-member comment
Cool beginning
Hey Krys, Sounds like you're having a great time. Enjoy and add more pics.