Welcome Back to Athens

When we got back to Athens late on a Wednesday afternoon, we headed to the dodgy red-light, drug-dealing area of Omonia to check up on our streetcorner standing girls. Although we'd tried to get in early to some inexpensive places in nice touristic Plaka we'd had no success. So we returned to this grubby bit of Athens in search of a place to kip. Although more than we'd usually pay, Hotel Parnon was awesome for the price. A functional shower is the most blessed thing for travellers like Dirty Dave and I. Since we were flying out the next morning, we never expected that we'd stay there another night.

We got to the airport at 9.05am, expecting to be two hours early for our 11am flight. When Dave got out the piece of paper to check where to go for the tickets he was taken aback. 'Our plane's leaving right now! We've missed it' he announced defeatedly. We rushed to find the counter in case of a delay, but alas we'd misread the arrival time as the departure. A right fix indeed - the plane had left without us. We went to the airline desk, and for a fee of 40€ each changed our details to exactly the same flight, same time next day. We knew we were in for a ribbing but all that mattered is that we were both O to the K.

We checked out some other sleeping options in Syntagma - ridiculously expensive. We looked around Omonia and discovered seriously skanky rooms, with towels draped over the floor to absorb recent sticky messes. We returned to Parnon hotel to be met by a bewildered reception attendant. He offered as a glass half-full solution, saying at least we had another day to explore Athens. All we explored was alcohol and food, but it was quality stuff.

We found a funky bar called Bretto's which professes to only stock hand-selected specialties. Dave had this rose liquer which tastes like rose turkish delight - sweet and drinkable. His second drink was potent though - a honey liquer (Rakimelo) which didn't go down well. Despite the 'don't like it, we'll get you another' mantra of Bretto's, the guy just kind of balked and said Dave had chosen it himself. I had some nice wines though.

I'll cut this short to share lots about our Spanish adventure. Good news is we got out second flight arriving in Madrid the next day. Bad news is our run in with Greek metro tranport people and the big fines they slapped us with. Ouch!

Acropolis Now (19 July-20th)

The Acropolis is a must. We missed it due to the workers' strike but despair not, we did explore this sexy structure in the end. Aegina, a €7 slow ferry ride to Piraeus, took only just an hour and a half of travelling time. Relishing the slow ride, we sat on the deck looking out to sea. We really noticed the contrast between the slow enjoyment of this ride and the bus-like stultification inside the hydrofoil we took to get to Aegina. Following the Greek mantra of 'sigha sigha' (slowly slowly) we decided slow ferries would do us. Pulling up to Piraeus it was fun talking to the ship workers in Greek and watching them prepare for the port.

Hoping to secure a ferry to Santorini, on arrival at Piraeus we marched straight into a ticket office. Slow ferries were booked up for the next few days, with the exception of an overnight journey leaving at 10pm that day to arrive at 1pm the following day. We booked that option which left us some sweet afternoon hours to kill. Only a 30 minute metro trip from Piraeus to Athens, the Acropolis beckoned.

Another random rendezvous (RR) occured at the Piraeus port occured as we wandered out of the ticket office.

Dave acting apocalyptic!

We'd overheard a guy in the the ticket office with a highly unusual New Zealandish/Pommy accent who talked in the coolest of colloquialisms. We scored a travel companion and a new vocabulary! Damo introduced himself and asked where us guys were headed. Our plans of visiting the Acropolis were met with an honest 'What's that?'. Damo thought this 'apocalypse' thing' sounded like a good way to spend the day, so he joined us.

Operators and workers had returned from strike, so the Acropolis awaited us. We dumped our bags for a steep €10 charge at Athens backpackers. The day was sweltering but the Acropolis was worth it. Reconstruction was occuring (ugly metal obscured the hot bits) but this ancient centre of city life was resplendent.

It was rushed but interesting to explore the 'apocalypse' with our temporary travel buddy Damo. Despite not knowing the history he took some awesome shots and he was a cruisy guy. We picked up some Greeklish vocabulary from Damo - 'apocalypse' for Acropolis and our personal fave - JAI ROWS for greek kebabs (gyros). We now joke about our constant craving for JAIROWS; 'aww yeah mate I could really go for them gyros you got'. We are pretty much turning into kebabs in our pursuit for the perfect gyros. Some of the best were found in Thira, Santorini.

After our Acropolian adventure we headed to Athens backpackers to pick up our bags and some beverii - beers for the boys and girl. Upstairs at Athens backpackers they have an awesomely chillaxed rooftop bar. The coloured seat cushions and funky tunes made this a mental must for our next Athens stay. We chatted to some fellow travellers including an Oxford physics scholar with an unconventional examination approach. This phD student was doing a European trip despite his exams approaching in 3 weeks. Also talked to his friend James and Dave chatted to a girl called Mola who

Rooftop Bar at Athens Backpackers!

was shattered owing to the theft of her pretty dress shoes. With little time left before our Piraeus passage I headed out for some really good authentic Atheninan jairows (kebabs) with James, Hugo, Damo and Dave.

Relaxed and refreshed we caught the metro back to the port of Piraeus. On the journey Damo had strong words with a man on the train who had tried to unzip his bag. The man didn't take being caught out well - he pressed his face up close to Damo's and evil-eyed him until his stop came up. We arrived with only minutes to spare and ended up running with our packs to the ferry. We secured comfy twin seats each which were great for relaxing but not comfy enough for quality zzzzs. It was a long ride with only 4 hours sleep. Santorini bound, we arrived eventually safe but sleepy.