We got into the city around 11:30, got some breakfast, which was these amazing sesame-seed pretzels. They were kind of sweet, but not, really strange taste but extremely good.
We stopped by the Parliament Building during the changing of the guard. They were some really weird stuff… but they let you take pictures with them :)
After that we walked around the city checking out the souvenir shops again. We found a t-shirt shop that did in store screen printing of all these different designs of shirts. I wanted to buy so many… but was very restrained.
1pm rolled on quickly, so we headed to the meeting point at the Hadrian’s Arch, which is kind of hard to miss right outside the Temple of Zeus. As soon as Lena arrived, we got on the tram to the beach. This time we got off at the second beach, which turned out to have more people. The water wasn’t as nice as the beach the previous day, but it was still wet and refreshing :)
We stayed there for a few hours talking about all sorts of things. Sunbathing and taking the odd dip in the water to cool down. This time I was prepared and had sunscreen :)
At 5:30 Lena had to leave to catch up with her friend, Steph, who had arrived at some stage throughout the day. We decided to head back to the city as well. The tram ride back to the city was rather interesting. As soon as the doors opened we heard a big, “WOOOOHEEEEEY”… and saw that it was packed right up to the doors. We had to squeeze in and find a spot. It was sooooo humid and hot with the amount of bodies in there. It turned out that there was an international juggling convention on the beach, and they were all heading to the city to perform a parade. After a long almost hour standing, barely being able to breath, we made it to Syntagma Square. It was a great feeling stepping of the tram and getting a breath of fresh air…. Even the temperature outside seemed cooling compared to the tram :-)
We walked Lena to her hotel and met Steph. Instead of saying our goodbyes, we decided to catch up for dinner at 8:30pm. They were doing a Contiki and had to be at a meeting from 7-8:30. So Lefourgue and I headed into the city to do our final souvenir shopping. I bought a couple of t-shirts which I found most amusing. Lefourgue bought some football paraphernalia. Then we headed back to the hotel to grab the girls and head out for dinner (we were starving).
We met them in the lobby and also Jasmine joined us, who was doing the Contiki with Lena and Steph. I played tour guide and led the group to a nice (and cheap) restaurant that I had noticed during my travels. We sat down and had a pleasant dinner (Greek salad and a cheese pie… yummo! I really liked Greek food). Talking about all sorts of things.
We walked the girls back to their hotel taking the scenic route around the edge of the Acropolis and down to the Temple of Zeus. I never stopped being impressed by the site of these monuments by night. I think we stopped every couple hundred metres to take photos.
We got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour of 11pm. The girls had to get up at 6am, so went off to bed. We said our goodbyes. It was rather sad saying bye to Lena because the three of us got on like a house on fire and we got to know her really well over the past two days.
Lefourgue had started talking the these two American girls in the lobby, mainly because a football game was on the TV :-) They were also doing the Contiki. We ended up talking for just under an hour. One of them wanted my contact details because they were thinking of heading to NZ. I’m always open to visitors :-)
We did manage to catch the last metro back to the hostel, and were in bed by about 1am.
It was a really nice day, very relaxing and fun.
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