Its all Greek to me!
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2010
1
10
15
Trip End
Ongoing
Vathý, North Aegean, Greece
Sunday, April 11, 2010
So we flew to Greece, I slept the whole way and woke up to see the most amazing Greek Islands. Ah, how beautiful it was. And then we landed.
I could almost stop there, seriously. All my fantasies about Athens and Greece were shattered at that moment.
On the way to our hostel the taxi driver decided to tell us that the area our hostel was in is run by the mafia. We soon clicked that it was a scam, to some degree anyway. We arrived, and saw that yeah, it was a pretty bad part of Athens, but not that bad, I've seen worse.
The Acropolis was minutes walk away, but as we had been up all night getting ready for the plane we slept the whole day.
The next day we got ourselves ready early, started walking up to The Acropolis, hopped onto a mini train and we were away!
Breathless, that the only way to explain those first few minutes atop that flat hill filled with such history, such wonder, the stories told on and about that mountain. Its weird to stand there looking at a place that so identifiable. That feeling soon leads to frustration though, as the only information given to you up there is what restoration work they are doing now. That was quite annoying. But the view from that place is quite amazing.
From there we walked down the beautiful promenade, filled with Bangladeshi guys either selling you little toys, fake Ray Ban sunglasses or Prada bags, to The Acropolis Museum. I never knew you could get sick of looking at statues of people or Idols a couple thousand years old, but there you go!
Its quite humorous to walk down the promenade while a security guard comes riding past on his motorbike and watch all the street sellers run. We called it runaway corner. Needless to say I am quite sick of them, if you so much as walk past them, they will follow you around even after you say no. I end up shouting at them, lucky there are none on Samos or I woulda ended up swearing at them! But at the other end of the spectrum there are literally tens of them standing along the road trying to sell me table clothes, and I have to wonder, is this what you dreamed of, is this what you wanted to do with your life? You're 18, you have a life ahead of you, is this it? The state of Greece at the moment makes me sick, young woman with toddlers are begging on the street, families, walking around trying to sell laminated pictures of saints for some dinner.
In fact, quite often I found myself asking, why did I leave Israel again? and I have to say I don't find Greeks all that kind, they have somewhat of an arrogant air.
Anyways, we looked at the Temple of Olympian Zeus and walked home. That night we watched Percy Jackson& The Lightning Thief. Quite cool really.
On Friday we climbed the Aeropagus(Mars Hill), so amazing. The view in its self is fantastic, but to know the history of that place, blows you away. The fact that we had gone to the Museum the day before and seen the idols Paul was talking about put it all in context.
On Saturday we packed up and went to Ancient Agora, the town Paul would have hung out and discussed with people in the market place, also Socrates old stomping ground. There is a mini museum there too, with some artifacts dating back to 10th century BC, King Davids time!
We grabbed our luggage, hopped on the metro(with some hiccups in between) and got of a Piraeus, the port. Ate a quick dinner, stood at the wrong port, ran with all our luggage and two kids in prams, and hopped on a 11 hour ferry to Samos. We arrived at 4am, grabbed some breakfast, slept in park benches and walked around. Unfortunately this amazing resort island was overcast and spitting. We went to the museum thats free on Sundays as saw a HUGE statue/idol that was 15 feet tall.
I'm about to hop on the ferry to Kusadasee(Turkey) and the suns just come out! Bother!
Ciao!
