athens part one

Arriving in a new country at night is always a bit strange. Sometimes the airports and the transport to your destination all seem so familiar you could be almost anywhere, until you see something that firmly reminds you it's a whole new place and you can get excited about a new adventure.

In Paris it was spotting the Eiffel Tower, in Istanbul the ancient walls of Constantinople, and in Greece it was the Greek writing on buildings and signs. Kind of forgot about that...

I arrived in Athens feeling less than stellar.  I grossly miscalculated how long I would have to sleep on the flight, and I even though I slept through meal service! This is pretty much a crime because I love airplane meals. Something about all the little bits and bobs you get all separated out is just awesome. I might have issues. 

Things didn't improve when I got to the hostel by 5.30am not having booked a room and there were no spare beds. This probably would have been ok but there were no spare couches in the garden area either. So it was an uncomfortable couple of hours contorted into weird trying to sleep positions on a chair and having a numb ass. 

Three extra strong coffees later Jess and I set off to explore Athens! 

First we managed to catch the end of the changing of the guard outside parliament. Then it was a walk to probably the most famous site, the Acropolis. I think someone knows when I'm headed to some of the worlds most famous moments and organises for scaffolding and construction to take place. Oh well. It was also strange for me because the first time I saw ancient ruins like this was on my trip to Turkey, so now every time I see ruins it reminds me of Turkey! 

We made our way down the hill and into some weird antiques area before having my first Greek food in Greece for lunch, gyros...delicious! Plus a free dessert on the house!

The rest of the day we found our way around some more ruins we apparently bought with our Acropolis ticket and relaxed at the hostel. 

There is a mountain that stretches above Athens even higher than the Acropolis an we decided to head up there before dinner. You'd think the highest mountain in Athens would be easy to find but it disappeared behind buildings as we got closer and we ended up off roading up some dubious bush terrain to get to the top for the sunset. Totally timed it to be like that of course...

After dinner and probably the most delicious beer I have ever had I was ready to sleep, knowing it was another early wake up for our ferry to Santorini. Bring on sea and sunshine and more amazing Greek food...plus maybe a few more of those beers! 

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