Athina

The city view
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Kalımera!

Forget Italy, Greece is way better!!!  The Greeks can now be added to the list of favorite people along with Newfoundlanders for whom I have always had a soft spot for!  Besides the pollution and overpopulation this place is something else.  I did not go to the islands as the locals advised me not to.  I guess in the winter everything is boarded up and very deserted.  A waste of money.  June is the best time to see the islands, so in a few years I will make a trip out of that.  I want to see the Greek Islands the way they were meant to be seen.  Hot and overcrowded!  Went to Acropolis, disappointed I have to say.  The site overlooks the city which is fantastic but all the construction took away from it's beauty.  They said it will be like that for a very long time as they are fixing a previous restoration project that went bad.  Everyone here thinks that I am greek, they can't believe that I am born and bred Canadian girl.  The same thing in Spain, France and Italy.  Everyone stares at me and they don´t break their stare when I make eye contact with them.  It has to be because I am so damn adorable OR well there can be no other reason!  Hehe.  I don´t look like a tourist as I am a traveler and blend in with the locals!!! The people are great, except for that hag at Nafplio post office.  She would not sell me a box because she thought I was American.  After a lot of yelling, on her part, I stood my ground and found someone who will sell me a box.  I go back to her to mail the parcel and all she could say is "Canada".  She must have repeated herself about 5 times, after that she was my new best friend.  A little old man named Christo took me around on his scooter to show me the sights.  He stunk really bad as he just got back from a hunting trip.  Really cute sweet ol' man, who loves Canada! Getting around Greece is not as easy as I thought.  Tonnes of mountains which makes travel very time consuming and the bus connections are not the best to the smaller places.  I went to Nafplıo it is suppose to be the best looking city in Greece.  They have monasteries all over the place and I walked up 910 stairs and when I got to the top it was closed!  It was a good workout to say the least!  I did a day trıp to Mycenae where they have the Lion Gate it is suppose to be Europes oldest monumental sculpture.  It was pretty cool.  I then headed off to Olympia to see the sights of the olympic games that was held in 776 BC.  I skipped over some places as I was running short on time (I know I have a year) but I wanted to get to Turkey to visit some new friends I met in Brasil.  The north is nothing to write home about but the south of Greece is spectacular!  I will hit the spots I missed on the next time around.  I met this other old guy at the bus stop, he kept kissing my hand and squeezing my cheeks.  Cute at first then it got out of hand.  He squeezed himself beside me on the bus with his arm around me and kept kissing my cheek.  Did I mention old Greek men smell??  It was the longest 14km of my life (40 minutes to be exact).  He gets off the bus and I carry on to the bus station where I go and disinfect myself.  Not even 15 minutes later he sneaks up on me and would not let me go.  He sits down, practically on my lap, and grabs my face and starts kissing my cheek again.  This time he was trying to turn my face to plant one on me.  I backed away and he got the hint.  He then gives me 10 Euro, I felt like I was being pimped out or something.  He walks off and I go and disinfect myself again.  I felt like a dirty little, you know what after that!  That is it for Greece and now headed for Turkey!!!

Dırty old men everywhere!

The back of the Panthenon
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Adıo!