Wow! Athens! What a place;
it’s a pretty incredible city and it seems to never sleep. There are constantly people moving through it
every which way, vehicles never stop for
pedestrians and even drive on the sidewalk,
the streets are lined with cafés, restaurants, bakery’s and shops. There is music blasting out of the
shops, there are stray cats and dogs
roaming the streets or siting in the entrance ways of a store or café to keep
warm. The buildings are covered in
grafiti, there are protestors and
rallies everyday, you can pretty much smoke everywhere and the vibe…well the
vibe is just incredible.
I felt the vibe as soon as we entered the city. I was only 12 hours in transit (which is
short considering some of my journey’s)
except not only had I not slept the night before I left (I had to leave
at midnight) I only caught a 45 minute
nap on the plane. My stomach was in
knots and I just couldn’t relax, plus I
had barely eaten. I wasn’t really that
tired though when I landed – the first the I saw when I landed was an Ikea,
definitely not what I was expecting landing in Athens lol – and I was more then
happy to enjoy my day.
I cried when I saw my parents at the airport. It has almost been two years since I got on
that first plane at Pearson and flew to Fiji – even though it feels like
yesterday. Before we did anything we had to make our way
back to the City Centre and drop my bags off at the hotel – yes hotel not
hostel. We had to take the metro train
from the airport to the city centre – about an hours ride. Lucky enough when we got on the train it was
pretty empty so we grabbed 4 seats next to the door. They had some nice music on the bus, only
after realizing it was kids playing the accordion play Christmas carols and stroll
the cars asking for money. The train
ended up getting packed, so much so we
couldn’t even move. Out of nowhere this
old Greek woman peeks her head out of the crowd and starts yelling at me. I had no idea what she was saying, she point
at my backpack – which took up a seat, someone would have fallen over it if I
put it down – and then points back at me still yelling. I looked at her and said “I’m sorry I don’t
understand Greek” well she didn’t like that, she kept on yelling at me. Now to be fair, if I had seen her when she
got on I would’ve gotten up and offered her my seat and left my backpack on the
other seat, but the train was so crowded and my parents and I were talking that
neither of us had even seen her. “My dad
said here take my seat” – who by the way was older then the woman – and then
she got embarrassed and didn’t want to take his seat. She finally sat down and just glared at me,
like it was my fault. Anyways we ended
up getting off at the wrong stop but I didn’t mind because we got to get lost
in the streets of Athens.
Athens reminds me of a high-class Bali mixed with a bit of
Vegas. There is lights and music everywhere,
massive shops, beautiful restaurants and cafés, but when you go down the
smaller streets outside of the City Centre you have the junk shops, but they
line the ally’s just like they do in Bali streets, with people haggling you to
come in and buy from them, offering you deals, following you around the stores. Restaurants are the same, trying to get you
to come in and try there food and enjoy their view of the ruins of the old
church and library. There are people –
including children – coming up to you as you walk through the streets trying to
sell you roses, balloons, lottery tickets and umbrella’s which, my dad and I
ended up buying one. It was only due to
the fact that we were out for a walk and it started to rain, and rain more, and
rain harder. It rained so hard the
streets turn to rivers where the water is ankle deep. Well we learned really fast that 5 euro’s on
an umbrella from the umbrella man is a waste of money, ours had a hole in it,
oh well you live and learn.
There is a market to
get fresh fruit, coconut, a hot snack of
corn-on-the-cob, which is open till late
in the night. The place never seems to
sleep, the music in the city centre
seems to go on past midnight and the streets are always lit up. There are 2 things in Athens which are almost
obsolete which is quite refreshing.
First, people are not out in the
streets drunk, fighting and falling down obliterated, and 2nd, you
rarely see cellphones. No one is sitting
around on their phone, or texting in the streets as they walk, people here actually socialize with one
another, it’s quite refreshing.
The food here is to die for,
bread with oil, fresh cheese, sandwhiches, pasta, salad, everything taste soo good. Sometimes – if your lucky – you will get
serenaded by a passing accordion or a four man band. It’s quite interesting but of course you
always have to pay something. It’s
almost quite strange because as much as there economy is bad and there is a
demonstration almost everyday, the
amount of shops blows my mind, people constantly shopping even with a bad
economy (I know it’s xmas), and everyone is so well dressed, even the woman begging in the streets are
clean, healthy looking and non-tattered
clothing. Dogs and cats are
everywhere, they have collars with tags –
which means they have shots – they are fed, but yet they are not bothered by
the people and they don’t bother the people.
They are all so docile, some even coming up to have a little pet. They find spots of sun and sleep to keep
themselves warm or they sleep outside the shops or just walk right in, no one
even taking notice. One night as we
were strolling a long a streets which was just lined in café’s we saw 2 little
kittens curled up on a big. floor light to keep warm.
The weather here has been great, we have had rain, and a
couple of cool days and it does drop at night which is when it gets extremely
damp but its been about 18 degrees which is completely fine with me. It’s been nice to feel warm and see some
sunshine.
Of course one of the main attractions of Athen’s is the
ruins. The city has been built around
(and sometimes over ruins). There is the
old Roman Agora Market, the ruins of the
Church and library, the Odeon Theatre
and the very famous Acropolis, which sits high up on a hill overlooking all of
Athens and a bit beyond. You can almost
always see it from where ever you are in the city, it’s almost like the city is in it’s constant
shadow.
All the ruins are incredible. The architecture is amazing and the columns…they
are humungous. How they were carved and
stacked section by section is a constant wonder. I try to picture what life was like back
then and the greatness of these temples.
There is a lookout point at the Acropolis. You can see all of Athen’s surrounding it a
360 degree panoramic view of the mountains surrounding the city because the
city itself stops at the base of the mountain and goes no further, almost
giving the effect the mountains are forbidden.
From other points at Acropolis you can see ruins down below. The Acropolis consists of The Parthenon, the
great entrance way and a few temples,
all of this being surrounded by great castle walls. Below the Parthenon you have the Odeon
Amphitheatre which was amazing. It must’ve
sat 3000 people at one point. Closer to
the City Centre there is the Temple of Zues which was my favourite. At one point it was bigger then the
Parthenon but now only about 6 pillars stand together and down the other end
two stand and one has fallen to the ground,
and even the this Temple is not as important as the Parthenon, I felt there was more greatness with this
one. Outside the surrounding walls of
Zues and down a little path is this beautiful
area, I almost felt like we were in a
forest of fairies. It was so green and
quiet, and the sun warmed it up
perfectly. Here were more ruins, but
these we could walk through and around and touch them, I even got to stand inside the Temple of
Apollo.
The old church and Roman Agora Market was quite nice as
well, though three days of ruins was enough.
We relax at night. We
might have some wine – of course I do.
We even met this nice Canadian guy the other night, he is a professor in
Australia and was over here for a conference.
We sat and had some drinks with him.
All of a sudden a wom…well I think they were transgendered starts
yelling at us how we are horrible people that we eat meat, and the chickens are
gods and we will be missing our plane because we are evil. How we talk about the states and how they
hate Americans. I told them heaps of
times that we weren’t American, they
said they didn’t care and I said if you don’t care then why are you listening
to our conversation. Then I swatted at a
fly buzzing around my head and they said, fly’s have rights too and if I kill
it I’m a horrible person. After that
they sat there for about five minutes huffing and puffing at themselves until
they decided to leave..thank goodness.
I really like the Greeks, they are friendly, there English
is good and all around nice people…though there are some older ones, – like the
one on the train and another woman who was sitting at a 2 tables just for
herself got upset when the waiter moved her coat so my mum and I could sit
down, she didn’t like that – they don’t
seem to like foreigners too much.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go to Santorini, time budget
and lack of vacancies didn’t allow for it but it’s okay. We all really loved Athens. It’s got this warm, cozy welcoming feeling. Last night we went to this restaurant and on their patio each chair had their own
blankets to keep you warm…how thoughtful.
Now, we are packing up and it’s off to Italy later today for
2 lovely weeks in Italy. I’m actually
kind of gutted to be leaving Greece, it’s
actually been one of my favourite places in my travels. I think I could stay here…hopefully one day
I can come back with Dan. I miss him soo
much, I hate not being with him. I know it’s good to have some time
apart, but I miss him like crazy. Plus if at least if he was here, we could’ve
gone out at night and looked around, and also I like to share moments with him
and I know he would absolutely love it here.
Six more days till he meets us in Rome, 9 more hours till we are there.
