Friday, June 4, 2010

BLAST FROM THE PAST, ATHENS STYLE

Athens day 2

I got up a little late then I planned, but I managed to meet up with the others for breakfast. I was really impressed with the food at the hostel. Normally hostel breakfasts are so plan, but they actually had eggs here, that definitely helped to put an extra spring in my step.


The first mission was to find my new hostel so I could dump my backpack and we could carry on with the day. I let Nate lead the way, it was draining carrying my stuff in the heat of the sun, but I managed. On the way there we also stopped to take a peak at the site of Ancient Agora, you needed a ticket to get in, but you could pretty much see everything clearly from the outside.

After dropping off my bag, we headed straight to the acropolis. Turns out if your a student in Europe as Julia was, you don't even have to pay anything to get it. It wasn't that expensive for me and Nate anyway, about 6 Euro got you tickets for everything. We started walking up and taking in the view, we knew it was only going to get better, but we couldn't stop taking pictures, it was all breathtaking. It took us about half an hour to get to the very top. You could see all of Athens around you, it was amazing and overwhelming!



After we were done, we headed back down in another direction, but there wasn't much to see besides olive trees. Then me and Julia got accosted by a man selling fake sunglasses, we had them in our hands after bargaining to 5 euro, but before we could pay him the man ran off. Turns out there were cops in the vicinity. We thought he wouldn't come back and here we were with his sunglasses without having paid him. Just when we thought we had seen the last of hi, he popped up again, and we paid him.



Next up was the acropolis museum, talk about ultra sleek and modern! There's so much to see you don't even know where to start. The only downside is that you are not allowed taking pictures.

After the museum, we headed towards sygmata square, which was all decorated because it was going to be Greek day tomorrow. Nate had a restaurant recommended to him by a friend so we decided to look for it, unfortunately it was closed, but we found another place. It was quite posh, but it was quiet and we enjoyed our meal. After eating, I went back to my hostel we made plans to meet back up at their hostel for a night out. I went back to my hostel, relaxed a bit and took in the view from the balcony. Then I decided to look around the shops in the Plaka area which was near by. I ended up getting an authentic pair of Greek style sandals, they were expensive, but I still think worth the price for Greek Leather. Next thing I knew it was time to meet up with the others. I decided it was easier to catch the metro there then to walk, you can't argue when it only cost 50 cents if you are a student, just make sure that you are prepared to get checked by security. I made it to the hostel and I found Julia and Nate on the rooftop bar. We ended drinking and hanging out there and talking to the Aussie bartender named chase. He was only 19 and had been in Greece for two weeks and managed to score a job at the hostel, he was definitely living the dream. We ended up chatting up with a few other American guys that were on Vacation, but going to school in Cairo and we decided to go out to dinner at together. We went back to the Souflaki place we had gone to the day before and ate up a storm.

After eating we headed to a bar and drank there, then another bar then finally we found a place with locals playing greek music. At that point I was started to fall asleep and decided to head in, I had a 7 am boat to Santorini the day after. They walked to to my Taxi and we said our goodbyes. My Taxi driver was Albanian, but his name was Costas as he says he's now a Christian. He had all these lights in his car and called it a "taxi club", it was the funniest thing ever.

I got to my room, and crashed, I was only going to get 2 hours of sleep.



No comments:

Post a Comment