Days 4-5 Athens

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Welcome back! heh... thanks for reading. So tonight is my last night in Athens, this evening I am going to meet up with my contiki trip and tomorrow we head off to Mykonos. It's still boiling here, which isn't terribly shocking. If anyone is ever in Athens, I fully recommend the Athens Backpackers hostel, it's about a 3 minute walk to the acropolis, clean bright rooms, a bumpin roof-top bar that has a fantastic view. The staff has all been really nice and helpful, and the location can't be beat. Yesterday I decided to take a stroll around the area, and ended up witnessing a full out brush fire on the side of the road. I was, of course, the stupid looking tourist taking pictures as the police and fire trucks showed up heh. Continuing on my journey, I discovered that I had wandered right over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It was really cool, and I got some great pictures. Continuing on my way, i had a delicious feta, oregano, and tomato sandwich (yes, i really did eat tomatoes!!) and then headed back to the hostel to shower and relax, read my new-found and very amusing book, Are You Dave Gorman? (if you're British you might know what I'm talking about). Today I checked out of the hostel and went over to the acropolis, cuz you can't be in athens and not see the acropolis. After a bit of a trek up to the top, i dodged huge tour groups from all over the world, and strolled about, in absolute amazement. Unfortunately, the structural integrity of the buildings has been somewhat compromised over the last, oh, few thousand years, so much of it was covered in scaffolding. The views from the top are just absolutely incredible, you can see the entire city of athens from the top, and I can easily say that my pictures don't do it justice. the city is surrounded by mountains (well, they're kind of more like rolling hills) and it's really great. I'm looking forward to going to the Islands next, Mykonos and Santorini are supposed to be fantastic, and who wouldn't want to cruise for three nights through the Aegean Sea? I can say that so far, Mom, you would totally be freaking out here. It's absolutely beautiful and all the historic sites are amazing. Like I said in my last entry, I haven't heard great things about Athens, but I think it's just great! Everyone is really nice and around the centre of the city (known as the Plaka) it's beautiful with lots of little shops and cafe's and street vendors serving Feta cheese everything and Gyros. It's hot and sunny and I just wish I had some time to go the beach, but i suppose I can wait till Mykonos. I have met some people that are on crazy trips... i suppose many of us hostel-wanderers are experiencing somewhat of a quarter-life crisis. An Australian girl who was in my room was almost done her Euro-trip, and was heading off to the States next, on her way to South America. Wow. A couple I met the other night were backpacking around for 8 months, and were 5 months into their trip. While I love travelling and seeing new things, I think I might freak out a little after wandering around the world with nothing but the clothes on my back (haha) for that long. Well, I suppose that's all that's new for now, just been exploring ancient athens. Since its lunch-time and I'm starving, I'm off to eat something feta-cheesey and maybe work on getting rid of this Canada-tan i'm sporting. Miss you all!!

P.S. I can add "subscribers" to my blog so that you will get an e-mail whenever I update, if you want, just send me a message and let me know!!

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