Athens

---

---

Its been a while between entries, mainly because I haven't been in the best state for typing most of the last 11 days. Athens was awesomem we spent the rest of the first afternoon there checking out the stadium of the first modern olympics and the Temple of Zues, both of which were amazing. We also lost Luke for 4 hours which caused a fair bit of concern considering it was his first day on foreign soil and he isn't known for his sense of direction. That night I ate my first Souvlaki which was beautiful. The next day we rose at 9 for breakfast and headed up to watch the changing of the guards which was very interesting, the way they walk reminded me of 2 steps forward 1 step back. An old guy grabbed my hand and started throwing seeds over it and before I knew it I had a dirty pigeon sitting on my wrsit eating from my hand and was being charged 5 euro for a photo of it, wasn't all that impressed and refused to touch anything until I found the hand cleanser. We then made the walk up the hill to the Acropolis in the 35+ degree heat, it was well worth it. An amazing place to see in the flesh. My hat got blown off into one of the old structures and I had a tough time getting one of the attentands to retrieve it but there was no way I was leaving it after paying too much for it earlier in the day. The whole day was spent touring around the old sites and a few of the markets. I found it amazng that everywhere you go you find all these old sites and artifacts popping out, you can see why they don't upgrade the buildings, theres every chance they'll stumble onto something and have to change all there plans to unearth it and build around it. After walking around for the whole day we returned to the hotel, picked up our packs and caught the train out to Piraeus to catch the ferry, by this time we were exhausted. We boarded the ferry at 2230 that night and set sail for Santorini. Tim, Luke and myself, mainly myself had decided to be cheap and only get deck chairs whilst everyone else had a cabin. Big mistake, we were hot, sweaty and tired and found ouselves sitting on the top deck of the ferry on hard metal benches. I managed about an hours sleep before the bench had my body aching and I set off on a mission to find somewhere more comfortable. There were people sprawled out all over the place, walking the corridors was like an obstacle course, all the bodies and luggage one had to step over. One guy had even set up a one person tent in a corner to sleep in. The boat was massive too, it had bistros, bars and even a disco. I eventualy found myself a comfy seat in one of the bars and called Tim down to join me. Luke was still fast asleep on the bench and everyone else had retired to their cabin. Tim and I spent the next hour or so getting into the Bailey's trying to make the journey go quicker, until I got an SMS from Luke telling me I had better come and grab my bags because they and him were about to get blown off of the boat. It was blowing a gale up there. He was more then happy to help us drink the bar dry of bailey's.

---