Αθήνα, Ἑλλάς
Athens, Greece
Greece for Spring Break. I know that’s a cliché and all, but never in a million years did I imagine that I’d get to do it!
Oh life abroad, you’re quite amazing.
Okay, not to forget the underlying theme of most all my adventures, this one, like most, started out all too early in the morning. At 5:30 am we left the gates of Villa Aurora behind us and headed down the hill to the bus stop in town, our luggage echoing like thunder off the walls and nearby buildings. The bus was late, as usual, you know, in order to keep up with Italian standards of time, and it was a bit too chilly for our tastes, so when the correct number finally did appear around the corner, we jumped up and hurriedly scurried away from the sketchy crowd that so often gathers around bus stops at either extremity of the day. We took the bus to the train station and after much scurrying and incorrect validating of the tickets, we barely made it on in time. Now we just had the happy prospect of a four hour train ride minus food plus creepy bathrooms ahead of us. Yay.
I slept some, hummed some, squirmed some, and stared some out the windows. It seriously took forever, and by the time we actually arrived at our destination, our stomachs were close to mutiny. We found a McDonalds and a bathroom, but the McDonalds told us they were only serving breakfast at that time, and let me tell you, when you’re hungry, you want more than a pathetic Italian McDonalds breakfast of coffee and a croissant. However, everything else around was ridiculously overpriced, so cappuccino and croissant it was. The coffee turned out to taste rather good, but the croissant must have been at least two weeks old. And to top that with a nice cheery smile, the moment I was finishing the last bite of my “breakfast” they opened up the lunch lines. So I got some fries too.
The next leg of our journey was the one for which we couldn’t really plan in advance. The trip from the train station to the airport. We had contemplated taxis, buses, and a couple other modes of transport, but after talking to a rather questionable taxi man and futilely trying to decode bus maps and schedules, we asked the info desk which pointed us to yet another train, the Leonardo Express. So on we hopped and there we sat for another good half hour until, with much rejoicing, we reached the airport.
After we made our way through the many lines required for airport passage and marveled at the lack of security check, we sat some more and watched part of The Little Mermaid before boarding our plane and heading to Athens! Katie and I entertained ourselves by gawking at the Alan Rickman look-alike in the seat over and the attendants gave us delicious free snacks and the time passed by quickly so that before we knew it, we had arrived.
After a bus ride and a short walk we found ourselves at, what at the time we thought was the crappiest hotel ever. We whined and complained, but then found a place to eat dinner and found our attitudes had turned 180 degrees. A view of the Acropolis tends to do that to ya. After breakfast the next morning we set off into the city a bit. Hiking and climbing until we found some amazing views. We had planned on trying to find the parade for their Independence day that was happening, but we just ended up listening to it instead. For lunch we started a trend for ourselves and bought salad ingredients and headed back to the hotel to make a wonderful lunch of freshness. Supper consisted of the same delicious salad after we had walked around the city a bit more.
Day two we spent doing some more touristy shopping and gathering things for various people. We also headed into downtown Athens in search of an even cheaper veggie market our host, Stratus, had told us about. All we found was a nut vendor and a disgusting meat market. So we bought peanuts to add to our salad, some bread from a bakery, knives from a street vendor and headed back for another lunch of salad. Yum!!! After that came some more walking, the finding of a fruit market and buying of fruits and vegetables for Sabbath meals, trekking back to the hotel, making fruit salad for supper and chatting with our new Israeli friends from Milwaukee, Ann and Cami.
Saturday we decided to sleep in a bit and kind of just relax all day since we Holly wasn’t feeling well and we couldn’t really come up with any Sabbathy activities, so we had some fencing wars with the Greek flags we bought our first day, and once the sun set we finally came up with good ideas and headed off to take pictures of the Parthenon by night. I climbed out on some rocks that mom would have freaked out about, and got some okay pictures. The photographer for Earth Hour was all up in our way. It was a lovely walk for a night out.
Sunday morning we woke up early and headed off to the Acropolis. On arrival we discovered we’d hit it on a random free day. It was crazy windy so we used our scarves as hoods and took pictures of all the cool things on the mountain. Down off the Acropolis we went to see the Agora and some other cool temples within. We then decided to eat at a rather nice restaurant with what turned out to be mildly decent food, and then we trekked back to the hotel for a nice afternoon nap after which I discovered that something akin to a splinter was lodged in my foot, but I couldn’t see it, just feel it. So I tried to go on another adventure up the hill to take pictures at sunset, but my foot hurt so bad it made me nauseous and by the time I got back to the hotel I had a pretty high fever, so I took a cold shower and napped some more. That night we another wonderful meal of salad ingredients, talked some more with our newfound friends, and headed to bed early, because the next day was a beach day!
After an early breakfast we took the metro to some other town. Walked to some dead-end docks, turned around and walked back, took a tram, and finally made it to the beach. It was gorgeous minus a few creepers and one man who had had the decency to wear a speedo, but had decided to tan his backside anyway. The beach was pebbly, which was a new experience for me, but it was a bit chilly, so we all just sat and enjoyed the sun and slowly shed our jackets as we adjusted. After a few good hours of sun, we took the tram back to our starting point and made our way to yet another restaurant with the nicest server and host ever. Both adorable, patient and very talkative. I had my gyros there. Yum. And afterwards we just chilled in our hotel garden avoiding packing our bags and thinking of leaving.
The next morning we all made it to the airport, back to Rome and back on that four hour train. Miserable.
All we want now is Greece back. And all it’s salady goodness with it.
P.S. The internet barely let me put this up…for the past MONTH! So pictures will eventually be up later. Eventually…
