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Published: August 6th 2007
Yasu,
So I finally made it into Greece. I caught the bus in Tirana and started to head across the Albania/Greece border towards Thessaloniki. The passport control took forever and then afterwards we had to wait for the bus to get searched which took so long that I began to wonder if maybe the bus had just kept going and left all its passengers standing by the side of the road. Anyway we all piled back on the bus and were driving along and all of a sudden a few of the passengers and the bus driver started yelling at each other, and every time you'd think it was over one of them would get the final word in and the whole thing would erupt again. I of course had no idea what they were fighting about, although I would have preferred if they hadn't yelled at the bus driver considering I kinda like when people who are driving me to concentrate on the road and not on the person yelling at them (but I guess thats just valuing my life way too highly- obviously its more important to vent ones spleen whenever the urge strikes you). The lonely planet guide
says that the bus trip should take 10 hours so I expected to arrive about 3pm, however about 3pm we were still driving along. Then when we came to an option to turn towards Thessaloniki or Athens, the driver turned towards Athens! And I was like, "Oooooohhhhh CRAP!!!". I was tempted to go yell at the bus driver and ask him what was going on (screw personal safety!) but one of the others passengers saw that I looked confused/distressed/angry and managed to sign language that we were just taking a short detour (a short detour that added about 1 to 2 hours onto the trip). Eventually (and after a new group of passengers had taken to yelling at the driver) we arrived in Thessaloniki at about 6pm. I didn't have any accommodation organised, and I was pretty sure that there was no backpackers hostels so I dragged my bag to the cheap hostel mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide (it was actually quite expensive and cost about the same per night as it did for two nights in Albania). My first impression of Thessaloniki though was clouded by a sudden missing of Tirana. You see Thessaloniki had the same dirt
in the street (less extreme) and feeling of being overcrowded but without the ridiculously friendly people (the Greek people have been lovely, but nobody can match the Albanians when it comes to hospitality) and the value for money. And there were ads everywhere, I saw my first Maccas since I left Split in Croatia and half the signs were written in English. Thessaloniki is a nice city but probably one of my least favourite so far because it lacked a unique character. I think it would've been more fun if I had been staying in a backpackers as I would've met people to go out with and I think that Thessaloniki is probably supposed to have quite a good nightlife. Its also has lots of tourist aimed shops, but no real tourist activities. The most famous sight is the White tower which was stripped of its paint and is now brown. And whilst it is pretty, its no better than any other tower any where else. I walked for a while trying to find a supermarket so i could break my 100 Euro note - I hate that they give you impractically large notes when you get money from an
ATM cause nobody wants to break it. Eventually I found a supermarket and they pulled a face but gave me change. I then spend a while walking along the waterfront and watching the sunset.
Along the waterfront I found a stage where they were doing what I assume was traditional Greek dancing. I sat down to watch, but after about 10 seconds I had to fight the urge to leave and forced myself to appreciate the comic value. You see there was about 10 to 12 women holding hands and walking really slowly in a semi-circle and doing the same moves again and again. Now that was fine but not particularly exciting when they kept doing the same movement for what felt like 20 minutes. What was more irritating was a horrible instrument being used as back-up music which seemed like a cross between a bagpipe (which I actually quite like as an instrument) and a recorder - which should tell you how whiny the instrument was. He was accompanied by two women singing who would've been perfect for the reject section of the Idol shows. The whole thing was painful and I have to say that when the next
group came on I breathed a sigh of relief. The next group came out in elaborate costumes and did a similar dance (although it was slightly more complex and much more graceful) with a CD as their backing music (which was quite pleasant music). So of course I got deadly bored straight away and began to miss the first group and their unprofessional dancing. I should mention that between acts a woman came out who introduced the next act, and I know that if I had been able to understand a word that she was saying I would've been bored stupid. She clearly had no previous experience in public speaking and closely read what she'd written, and read it really fast. If there was any humour present in the presentations than nobody in the audience even chuckled. The next group had about 9 men and 7 women in it (much bigger than the previous groups and the first with men). The men were really amazing dancers and did lots of impressive moves and jumps but the women looked so bored and had almost no observable personalities. In fact they just looked uncomfortable with their oversized hats on and really unshapely
dresses. In fact they got dumped for the 2 and 4 th dances of their group and just stood at the back watching whilst the men leapt around and gave a great spectacle. Another group came out but I'd had enough and headed back to my hotel for yet another early night.
The next morning I woke up in my hotel and realised just how horrible my hotel actually was. The whole place felt dirty, the toilet on my level had no toilet seat and the shower was effectively a hose (with no shower curtain so of course the whole room flooded!). I walked around that morning looking at various things. Then it started to rain, then it started to pour. So I headed to an internet cafe where I wrote the Albania post, wrote e-mails to people including ones that I was overdue to people I'd met whilst travelling. I then walked around some more, ate an overpriced and fairly unimpressive meal (I miss Albania), talked to the night guy at the hotel for about 15 to 20 minutes and then got yet another early night.
I woke at what I thought was 6am to go catch a train
to Athens. What I discovered was that I was an hour behind the time as I had never changed my watch when I went over the border between Albania and Greece so I'd missed the train I'd planned on catching. At least I hadn't bought a ticket yet so i bought a ticket to Athens at 12.43 (unfortunately the trains were all booked out that day so even the 10am train was full and I had to buy a first class ticket which was 30 euros instead of 15 which sucks but I guess isn't the end of the world!). Of course it was raining so I headed to an internet cafe where I wrote the first half of this blog.
Okay, so the second half of this blog now. I went and caught my train in Thessaloniki towards Athens, and cause I'd paid double the price I was expecting some pretty swanky treatment in First Class (you know like champaigne and foot rubs). Unfortunately nobody told me that if you have "bulky luggage" you are supposed to check it in (my bag is v. bulky). So I ended up with my bag infront of me for half the trip,
until eventually the cabin area filled up and I chanced it on the overhead shelves (I was nervous that we were going to crash and my bag would singlehandedly kill four or five people when it came off). Overall I was very unimpressed with first class which had only slightly more legroom and you were in a cabin with six people (yay! - sarcastic). The trip took about 6 hours (unfortunately I finished my book on the Albania to Greece leg and so I had nothing to read - but this meant that I spent a while looking at what places I'd most like to go in September). I arrived in Athens and clawed my way to my hostel.
Just a quick flashback to Albania now. When I was sitting in the Tirana hostel, the Aussie girl came onto the balcony and said that she'd just had a really hard time finding a place to sleep in Athens and had to book a hostel for 40 euros a night. Realising that Athens was one of the few places where I hadn't yet booked I hurried to the internet cafe to book it. Everywhere was booked, especially on Monday which is
really weird because weekends are normally the hardest time to find a hostel. However in the end i found an 11 euro a night hostel for Sunday and an 18 euro a night hostel for Monday. So I was really confused about why Athens was so popular, until about 5 minutes into my walk to my hostel. You see there was a little thing happening on Wednesday the 23rd (I arrived on Sunday the 20th) called the UEFA Championship match between Liverpool and Milan. Everything was decorated in the flyers advertising it and they had lots of special soccer related events taking place around the city.
My hostel that I was staying in was decent but nothing special and nobody else was around so I went out by myself. I had a caesar salad for dinner and sat in a restaurant where they had a guy playing songs on his guitar (after everysong when people would clap he would say, "Thank you. Thank you very much" in a drawl with a completely straight face which kept making me laugh). I headed back and briefly talked to some people who were staying in my hostel (which was great because with the
exception of the guy who worked at the hotel I hadn't talked to anybody really since I'd arrived in Greece).
I woke up on Monday and headed to the Acropolis. However on the way I stopped at the Theatre of Dionysos which gave me a flashback to year nine drama when we studied the ancient theatres. I then headed on up to Parthenon which was very impressive even though it was surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of tourists. The day had beautiful blue skies except for one very ominous grey cloud that kept hanging around (it looks really threatening in all my photos). So after I saw the rest of the Acropolis; the Erechteion, the Propylaia and the Temple of Athena Nike; I headed down to investigate the Ancient and Roman Agora. The highlight of these was the Temple of Hephaestus which was similar to the Parthenon, just smaller, complete and with much less tourists. I then headed over to Keramikos which is the ancient cemetary and then looked around the shops until I came to the internet cafe and wrote this. One of the shops I went into had figurines from movies, and they were so detailed (and obviously
ridiculously expensive). My favourite thing was the Aliens chess set which had the Alien Queen as the queen of one side with other aliens as the important pieces and face-huggers as the pawns, and the other side had sigourney weaver in the yellow fork lift suit as the queen and the various characters from the movie as the other pieces. It was really detailed and even the chess board itself was awesome. Sorry to rant I'll get back to stuff people might actually be interested in. Then I dragged my bag across Athens to my next hostel, called the Zeus Hostel.
I really like Athens, it has much more of an atmosphere than Thessoloniki even though it is packed with tourists (particularly English and Irish tourists who've come for the soccer). I was really hoping to go out on Monday night because its been a while since I've actually gone out - but for some reason whilst the hostel was booked out nobody ever seemed to go back and hang around there. So in the end I talked to the two Romanian bartenders for about and a hour to an hour and a half, and then went and talked to
the Brazilian guy who was working at reception for about 30 minutes (I'm sorry Sophie hes already been to Aus and don't think hes that keen to go back yet - but I'll find a Brazilian guy for you yet!). And then, surprise surprise, I got an early night!
I woke up on my final day in Athens and discovered it was raining! YAY! But after a brief stint in the internet cafe the rain had stopped so I headed out and looked around the markets and shops. I even spent money on something other than food, accomodation or transport. I bought myself two t-shirts whilst looking around, which whilst they weren't expensive I probably can't really afford them. I was just getting very sick of wearing the same t-shirts over and over again. I also bought a couple of cheap souvenirs for people. I planned on going back to the hostel about 5pm to get my bag and leave which would mean that I would make it to the airport with stacks of time. And I did pretty well and left the hostel at 5.15, however I think a higher power knew that I was supposed to leave at
5, so when I was halfway it started bucketing down with rain, and if I'd left when I was supposed to I would have been on the bus already. So I jumped on the bus to the airport, laughed at the hundreds of liverpool supporters getting soaked in the main square (and acting like soccer hooligans). The bus dropped me off at the airport at about 6.30. I bought a new book and caught my plane at 9.30 heading for (hopefully) sunny Berlin.
Have a great birthday Megan, and an awesome time in Vanuatu.
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Constantina...with a slight bit of greek pride
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Ti kanis Alexi?
Signomi pos i diasethisi sou stin ellada den itan haroumeni. Alla tha itan pio kaliteri av piges sta nisia. Ola ta visia eivai poli omorfi kai tha eihes ilio. Hey Alex, I thought Id go with my fellow Greek people and talk to you only in Greek. What i said was: Im sorry that your trip to greece wasnt as enjoyable as you wanted it to be. You would have had a better time if you went to the islands. It would have been sunny there!! Anyways ya didnt have the best luck in Greece and I am a little saddened but oh well. Next time plan shit out its starting to annoy me!!! Also thanks for totally bagging greece out, totally appreciated the insults about the greek dancing, twas quite the heart warming. If you do go back plz plz plz go to the islands, take my word for it this time!! Byeeeee :)