Ferry and Athens

After wrapping my pashmina around us and huddling close together, we were ready for the train and ferry rides ahead of us, because it meant one thing - sleep. We pretty much slept all the way to Ancona, and when we arrived we experienced our first bit of rudeness. We kept being told the wrong bus to go to, so we were going back and forth between these two buses and each driver was telling us to go to the other. Well, the one we were supposed to be on was the jerk. We finally got through to him, that his bus was, in fact, the one that we needed. At this point he then proceeded to wait for 10 minutes in the parking lot just sitting and talking to his girlfriend, who was riding the bus just to keep hi company. It was ridiculous; we were the only ones on the bus and obviously had somewhere to be. I didn't want to jump to conclusions and just assume that he was waiting just to spite us, but while we were at the port, we saw him come by at least twice within about 10 minutes...so we knew he wasn't camping out at the train station like he did with us. Nonetheless, we made it to the port, got our tickets and boarded our ferry.

We were quite excited for this mini cruise. Our first goal is to find food. All we had had to eat all day was some gross cereal without milk – we were starved. I got a huge plat of spaghetti – it was like our first hardy meal we had had to eat in a while. I was satisfied. We went back to our room to go put our bathing suits on and go swimming. We ran into the girl we were sharing our couchette with and I greeted her with “hola!” our of habit of living in Texas. It was a good thing because she hardly spoke any English. Her name is Soledad and she’s from Argentina. She’s traveling around with her dad for a month and 3 weeks! She was like the only other girl around our age on the ferry – everyone else was like older Greek and Italian men..yiikes. We became fast friends and our little knowledge of Spanish was put to the test. I knew more Spanish than she knew English, so I got in a lot of practice, and my translator came in real handy!

It was too windy and cold to go swimming, so we just sat on the deck and watched the water and talked with Soledad for a while. We had dinner, explored some, took much needed showers, saw the sunset, and PASSED OUT. We were so exhausted from sleeping at the train station, our beds were much appreciated!

The next day we had to do a lot more traveling on trains which I also slept on (despite the fact that there was no AC, the conductor was blowing the horn a lot, and it was really bumpy…don’t ask me how). We eventually made it there though. We headed toward our hostel, and Soledad and her dad came along with us too because they didn’t have a place reserved yet. We got separated from Soledad and didn’t see her the rest of the evening…quite sad.

The best part of the evening was the fact that our hostel offered a home cooked Greek meal for 6 euro! There was no way we were turning that down! It was so delicious!! We had Greek salad, and the kabob things with this delicious tzaki sauce (I don’t know how to spell it) which is just like Greek yogurt, cucumbers, and garlic. We were staying in an 8 person dorm, so we tried to hatch out our schedule for the rest of our time in Greece and then we went to bed!

The next day we decided to do the walking tour put on by our hostel. It was quite hot outside, so I put on some sunscreen and we headed out. We picked up some others along the way, and our first top was the Gate of Athena! (I took a picture for you B). We saw these ruins that used to be a market. Then we went up to this hill, which was really slippery, but it was cool because you could see all of Athens from on top of it. We took a lot of pictures (which will eventually go up). I don’t remember the name right now, but apparently it was a place for judgment – like a court – in the past. And he said that Paul or Peter (from the Bible, I can’t remember which) supposedly gave a speech from that hill – so that was cool.

After that it was time for the Acropolis! It’s like one of the highest points in the city, so there was a lot of walking up hill, and through dirt paths – I did not wear the right shoes. The Acropolis was cool! We took lots of pictures in front of the Parthenon and walked all around it. There was a temple of Athena there B! But it was like under construction, so I just took a picture of the sign for you. That part kind of bothered me because I don’t want it to be reconstructed. I’d rather it stay the way it was found, just because I feel like if they reconstruct it, they’ll ruin it (no pun intended..lol). There were so many people there – quite frustrating at times.

After that, we went to the theater of Dionysus – some really old theater that used to seat like 17,000 people, but because of wars and stuff, it’s pretty much destroyed. We saw some other old temple that all that was left were some pillars. It was supposed to be like the first temple people saw when they left Athens because they were trying to create their own city, but it never worked out. It was crazy seeing all of this stuff and imagining the people who could have walked these streets. We also saw the first Olympic Stadium, the president’s house and the parliament building with the tomb of the unknown soldier, so there were funny looking guards outside of it.

Afterward, we ate some more Greek food with our group and cooled off in some restaurant. Then, Steph and I headed to the port to buy our ferry ticket to Santorini! We ended up having to pay more for the faster ferry because the slower, cheaper one was all full! It ended up being a good thing, because the ferry wasn’t any fun, so oh well. Then we headed back to our hostel, took much needed showers, realized I got burnt after all, and then ate our delicious Greek meal again! This time it was some lasagna type thing and Greek Salad. Well worth the 6 euro. We had to be up early to catch our ferry at 7:15 so we packed up all of our stuff, slept in the clothes we were wearing, and fell asleep.

Overall, Athens was cool with all the ancient things, but the city itself was a little dirty. But nonetheless, it was well worth seeing all of the ruins – I really enjoyed it, despite my sunburn.

Casey – I think about your puppies and it makes me so excited to come home!! Dad sent me a picture and they are SOOOOO cute!! I’m so glad that they are part of our family…I’m so excited to be an aunt..haha.