It’s All Greek To Me!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Today was another day full of adventures and the unknown! We decided we’re a little crazy for doing this type of trip, but we’re trying to just go with the flow and not get too stressed. It’s funny though, because we finally got the Paris metro down and then left Paris, and the same thing with Rome. We were getting a hang of the streets and where to go and the bus routes and then we left. So Athens was another new beginning.

We got into our hotel pretty late last night and were a little scared to say the least. It is in the middle of this huge intersection and doesn’t look like the greates part of town…And downtown Athens wasn’t really anywhere to be seen. It also turned out that even though I put my credit card information into the booking website for this hotel they said they didn’t charge me and that we had to pay cash for the night.

Um…yeah, definitely didn’t have enough cash, so thankfully they were nice enough to keep our passport and let us pay in the morning…so we walk up the stairs to our room. The hallway light wasn’t working so that was also a little creepy. Sam, then asks if we’re number 26 and I said yes. He then exclaims, “Someone’s in 26!” The TV was blaring, but it ended up just being really loud from the kitty-corner room number 25. Thankfully, there was no one in our room.

We walked in and it looked ok. Not really anything to complain about, just that it did smell like smoke…I don’t think putting “non-smoking preference” really has much of a bearing in Europe. So we dropped our luggage and tried to relax. Sam wanted a shower and come to find out there’s no shower curtain. Apparently this is pretty normal for Europeans too. Not something we’re used to, but he figured it out…after getting water all over the bathroom.

Then off to bed. We slept pretty well, even though the bed was quite hard…woke up and went to find some money for the hotel. There ended up being a bank near by and an internet café so that we could check to make sure my credit card wasn’t charge by the hotel.

When we got into the internet café there were probably 10 or so boys playing War Craft 3 on all the front computers. Sam said that was worth the walk and 50 cents. But we figured out that everything was ok and no one was trying to cheap us out of anything. I guess we were just being too judgmental or something.

Anyways, so then we headed back to the hotel to give them money and then off to downtown Athens. We were trying to figure out which bus to take, but everything is written in Greek. It was so confusing! We tried to ask a guy at the bus stop if the next bus went to the metro but we didn’t really understand what he was saying.

As we were standing there with really confused looks on our faces the man driving the next bus said, “Ask me quickly!” I asked if his bus took us to the metro and he said, “Get on quickly!” So funny! I was so grateful for his kindness!

We finally made it to the metro and then onto the Acropolis. We had to walk a ways once we got off the metro, but that was fine. We were able to find a nice restaurant to just take our time in and relax. It was really bad though because it felt like 9:00 in the morning when it was like 12:30. And all I wanted was some pancakes and eggs. But we ended up getting a really good tomato and cucumber salad, baked potatoes with cheese (I think it was pecorino), and then sam got a “kebap”. It was basically 2 sausages with their greek yogurt and some red onions and a really yummy flat bread. I good literally eat the flat bread all day long! It was all very good!

Then we headed over to the Acropolis. We had to climb quite a ways up, but when we got to the top it was an amazing sight to see. All the houses and structures just piled together. The ocean was pretty visible too. Unfortunately though it was a pretty grey day and it began to rain. I was silly and left my jacket in the hotel so was pretty cold by the time we got down. Fortunately there were tons of guys selling umbrellas for 5 euros. So thankfully, I didn’t get drenched.

We then just wandered through all the different areas near the Acropolis and Parthenon. The Ancient Agora was pretty interesting with lots of different artifacts and stuff. And more and more columns and architecture. Pretty fun. We then decided we would head over to the National Archaeological Museum, but we had no idea where we were or where it was or how to get there. Like I said, it’s all Greek to me! The map we got from our hotel was in Greek , all the signs were in Greek and so it was all around just confusing!

But we were able to find a map with English street signs and figure out where we were supposed to go. It was a very cool museum. Tons of statues and sculptures along with pottery and artifacts. We had a good time, but were getting tired and hungry again so we left and tried to get to the Plaka to find a place to eat. We got off the metro and began walking toward the Plaka. The streets were lined with tons and tons of shops. It was really fun and reminded me a little bit of a small version of Times Square in New York. Lots of people, side cafes and tons of stores.

We finally chose a place to eat. I picked this place because it looked like there were lots of Greek people eating there. It was actually quite a yummy meal! We ordered an appetizer that was a little different, puff pastry wrapped gouda and some type of meat…I couldn’t really tell what it was, but it was tasty. Then Sam ordered a combination plate of Chicken and Kebaps. The chicken was really good and came with fries, some tomatoes, flat bread (yum!) and more Greek yogurt. We were quite satisfied and now just wanted some dessert.

I decided to be brave and ask our waiter if he could recommend a good place for Greek dessert. He ended up saying that the area we were in there really wasn’t anything. I was pretty shocked by this…but remembered that there was a gelato shop up the street that we passed by. So we decided to stop there…bad decision. We ended up getting baklava and something else that looked pretty yummy, but we could only eat like 2 bites, if that. It wasn’t all that great…we should have listened or at least gotten gelato which we knew would be good…oh well! Next time, I’ll listen!!

Well, we thankfully made it back to our hotel safe and sound. We were a little worried because we didn’t know which bus to take or even the name of the road that our hotel was on, but we were both praying hard that we would make it back ok, and thankfully we did! We were so happy when we saw it!

We enjoyed a pleasant evening and are ready for bed! Tomorrow we head off to Navplion…a 9:00 train in the morning will hopefully get us there by 11 so we can have the day to relax and browse a new city. Apparently this city is so small that you really can’t get lost, so that will be good! No metro stations to worry about!! Hopefully we can find a nice hotel with a room available for us! Wish us luck!!