Last week I had a double black day on Tuesday. My room-mate Stepan finished at DaimlerChrysler so left back to Konstanz. We got on really well so I will miss his company.
Also, Thom left the research team I work in. So my English speaking companion is now gone… I spent Tuesday evening chatting with him at work until about 8:30pm before he took off to catch his bus. I will catch up with him in November anyway :-)
Wednesday, Lefourgue and I stayed up late getting ready for Athens, didn’t end up getting to bed until midnight, with the alarm set for 3:30am :-(
Up at 3:30am Thursday morning, and on our way, starting our walk to the train station at 4:15am… we had to catch the first train at 4:58 otherwise we would miss our flight. Exciting times! We made it, checked in and the flight was completely full… we ended up sitting in seats not next to each other, but it didn’t matter because I slept the entire time anyways.
So after the 3 hour flight we arrived at 9:40am… not to bad for getting on the plane at 6am (+1 hour time zone for those of you trying to figure it out). We got off the plane and didn’t think it was too hot… well… it was only about 30 degrees. We got on a bus and headed to the city. It took about an hour and dropped us off in Syntagma Square, which is the epicentre of the Athens, and where the main government is located.
We had a suitcase that we wanted to check in… so after wandering for an hour asking several people we eventually found it… it was not clearly marked. The Greek alphabet is not the same as the Latin alphabet that we use, funnily enough it is Greek :-) Lefourgue and I could read most of the Greek because of our math background (geeks… rhymes with Greek doesn’t it, I wonder if that is where the origin came from?). Most of the street signs were subtitled in English for when we couldn’t read a sign.
Once I had a map though… we were right as rain. I’m getting very used to quickly learning a metro (underground train) system and also studying city maps. So only a few stops up the road we checked into our hostel. It wasn’t too far from the main city. It wasn’t the cleanest… but it was pretty cheap so you get what you pay for.
Lefourgue and I headed into the city to check out the main bustling shopping districts. The city was full on… heaps of people about and the temperature was now hot, around 40. We wandered around for quite a while checking out various shops… the shopping streets reminded me a bit of China. People on the streets ushering you into the shop and people pestering you to buy things.
Also, the amount of illegal items that were on the streets to be sold was incredible… lots of fake Prada, Gucci and Armani bags etc… mainly for the girls. The people would have these big sheets with knots in the corners which they would use to lay the bags on. As soon as the police showed up they grabbed the 4 corners and mad a knapsack, then very quickly scuttled off to setup shop in another street. I sometimes wonder how much of it is real, and how much of it is for show, so people think they are getting the real deal.
We stopped at a little shop and had a drink in the middle of the day. I had a nice cold Greek beer. It tasted similar to a NZ beer, so not the German standard that I am now used to… but it was cold and wet and was good. I ended up talking to this Spanish couple (Augustine and Patricia) that were sitting beside us and talked about their adventures. After our drink we walked around the city and saw the Acropolis from the streets… it was pretty cool. But we planned to see it up close on another day.
After wandering for a few hours… we stopped at the info centre and asked how to get to the beach. It turned out to be an hour away by bus or tram. It was still very hot at 5:30pm so we decided to go. We got off at the first beach we saw. It was nice, with a bar on the beach and people playing soccer, volleyball and other sports all around. We went for a quick dip then had a bit of a sunbathe… I fell asleep for about an hour :-)
We left at sunset which was beautiful.
After that we decided to head back into the city. We wandered around for a bit, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then decided to have an early night because we were both shattered. We were back “home” and in bed by 11pm. We had a quick analysis of the room… and I made a bet with Lefourgue. I said “I bet we have two French girls staying in our room” he thought an American couple.
Outside it was at least 30 degrees in our room, so we had to sleep with the door open. And Athens doesn’t rest! People were up all night on the streets making noise and all sorts. We were in part of the suburbs, so removed from the city centre as well! I don’t think I got much sleep but definitely slept at some stage.
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