Athens

We stumbled into Athens from Piraeus, bright and early, at 7:30 in the morning, after a pretty horrible night on the ferry boat from Lesvos.  The boat never hit a storm or anything, but for some reason it was incredibly windy and and we were stuck outside on the deck, being splashed by water and rocked till we couldn't take it anymore.  Unfortunately we were stuck on that boat for 8 hours.  Jessie slept for most of the night, except when I (Jen) woke her up at 3 am because I was scared!  I didn't really sleep at all...I don't like boats anymore, not all of us our blessed with Jessie's unique gift of sleep.

When we got to Athens we found out that we couldn't check into the hostel until 12pm, so we got a free breakfast at the hostel of toast and nutella, (yum!) and then headed out for some light sightseeing before we could take a nap.  We headed to the national gardens because we heard there was a free zoo there.  There was, but it was lame!  Lots of ducks, cats, pigeons, goats, birds, and peacocks.  The gardens were beautiful and Jen napped for a while on a bench.  Then we headed over to the flea market to do a bit of shopping, though we didn't find anything.  On our way back to the hostel we stopped for lunch and got douped into paying too much for a touristy meal, "authentic family greek cuisine" which just turned out to be 5 small plates of appetizers.  Though the food was pretty good, and there was plenty of it, we were too tired to really care about the overpriced meal.  Finally we made it back to our hostel and napped in the incredibly sweaty heat for a couple of hours, and then woke up not much better from the horrible heat.  We had then planned to head out to the planetarium which is supposedly the biggest in the world, but it turned out to be too far away for our trouble at the time, so we just ended up heading to the Plaka (the upscale touristy area of Athens) for some take away souvlaki which was named Athens best.  It was indeed quite tasty and cheap.  Then we did what any good tourist would do, we went to the movies!  But it was an open air cinema under the acropolis, and it was quite magical and well worth our money.  We saw the Da Vinci Code, which somehow both of us had managed to escape seeing all summer, and unfortunately since the movie was subtitled in greek, we couldn't understand a good third of the movie.  Though this only added to the magic of the whole experience because it was like we were actually living the movie!  It certainly added to the suspense!  For all the horrible reviews, we actually really enjoyed the movie, though being in Europe and not understanding half of the movie probably helped.  Plus we had just seen almost every sight that was in the movie! Yay! Then we had to walk back to our hostel, and though Athens is supposed to be relatively safe, it is dead at night, and completely unlit!  We probably will not stay out late tonight cause it is a bit creepy.

You know it's time to move on from a city when you spend two days in a row at an internet cafe...for the air conditioning.

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Today we decided to have our big sight-seeing day.  To our infinite delight, when we got back to our hostel last night, the room had air-conditioning! So we had an amazing night sleep in some of the comfiest beds we've slept in so far and then headed out a bit later this morning for a trip to the Agora and Acropolis.  We started with the Agora (the greek marketplace) and went to the museum where we saw the ostrasism chips (ostraka) with people like socrates' name on them.  We also saw an old jury system machine and tons of pottery and art.  Then we actually expored the ruins and saw the Temple of Hephaestes (one of the most complete temples from antiquity).   By this point in the day it was too hot to stay outside so we got lunch in a cafe, after first getting lost in the meat and fruit market just a bit outside of the main touristy area.  It was sort of sad how once you leave the touristy area, there are such a marked change in the quality of the city.  Needless to say we didn't like it much, so we headed back to a cafe with air-conditioning.  After cooling down, we headed back out and got a little sun-delirious while we waited out the afternoon by shopping, before we headed up to the acropolis.  We finally headed up there around 4:30pm when the sun had died down slightly.  We started off by checking out the Dionyses Theater which was really cool, but it was still a little too hot to appreciate it fully.  Then we climbed the giant mountain and almost passed out.  But we made it too the top, and saw that the trek was well worth it.  On top of the mountain was an entrance monument that we can't remember the name of, the Parthenon, and another gorgous temple that we can't remember the name of.  (It's all greek to me!)  All of the ruins were breathtaking, and the Parthenon was really startling, even after seeing all the pictures.  The other temple was also gorgous because it had 6 statues of women decorating the outside.  It was too bad that the elgin marbles were in London, because it definitly took away from the Parthenon, but there was also an acropolis museum on the mountain that showed a reproduction of the front and back frieze, as well as the left over marble (which were not nearly as well preserved as the ones in london).  All in all the whole experience was amazing, and makes Athens a serious tourist attraction, even if the city is lacking a bit.  After we spent some time on the mountain we headed down and climbed the famous rock where greek gave speechs, and St. Paul converted many people to christianity.  Then we came to the internet cafe and chilled out in the airconditioning. Yay!

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Tommorrow, we are planning on going to the beach and the poseidon temple which is about an hour away from athens.  Hopefully we will have a relaxing day before heading to our next farm.  So far Athens has been fun, but it is considerably lacking in significant sites other than the Acropolis and character as compared to the other Italian cities we've been to.  On our way to do some other minor sight-seeing of ruins today, we found that no one else was around, and another tourist stopped us to ask us where they were.  It was like there was just a wasting away pile of rocks taking up space in a huge city.  it was really sad.  We decided not to go in, because we could get a view of it all from the outside.  Oh well, at least the acropolis was amazing! 

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On a really cool note, people think Jen is Spanish and that I am German!  I (Jessie) think we've been in Europe so long that we are starting to blend in!  It's great, when we walk into stores the vendors get really confused.  They see Jen and say, "Hola!", but then see me walk in behind her and say, "uhhh...Hello? Are you Canadian?!"  Plus I've had way too many people ask me if I "Sprechen sie Deutsch?" I don't even know how to say "no" in German.

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Today was a great day!  We woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, where we started earnestly planning what we were going to do.  We had talked about going to Cape Sounion to see the Temple of Poseidon, then going to the beach, and then going to the Vouliagmeni mineral springs.  Okay, we actually stole this idea from the "travel agency" that our hostel offered.  We wanted to do it on our own so that we would have more control over how long we stayed at each site, and so we didn't have to pay 45 Euro.  But as we enjoyed our toast and nutella, the tour guide came up to us and asked if we wanted to join - turns out they didn't have enough people to even go on the trip.  After talking the price down a little bit (35 Euro!), we decided it would be better for our peace of mind to go with the hostel.  That way, we didn't have to worry about transportation, since they would be driving us in an air-conditioned van.  Additionally, we got lunch and a stressless day of sightseeing.  It takes about an hour to get to the Temple from our hostel, so we passed the time away by talking to the other people on our tour.  Our tour guide, Mirham, was from Mexico.  The other three boys were from Portugal, Ireland, and London.  Then we got to the Temple of Poseidon, so beautiful that it was included in Lord Byron's poetry...and he carved his name on one of the columns!  We saw that, or at least, we saw the name "Byron" carved in beautiful script on the marble.  The temple was magical because it overlooked the place where the Mediterranean and Aegean seas meet.  Our tour guide shared with us some of the mythology surrounding Poseidon, and the origins of the name "Aegean sea".  After spending about an hour exploring the site, we got back in our van and went to a small local beach.  The water was delicious, and Jen got to use her newly purchased snorkel and goggles, which she purchased in Lesvos, for only 4.30 Euros (Most are priced above 10 Euro, but Jen assures me that she got what she paid for)!  After some lazing around, we helped ourselves to the "Portable Sandwich Bar" (the magic of Tupperware!), and headed to the mineral springs. Apparently, we went swimming in a volcanic crater!  The water is a mixture of fresh and salty, and contains many therapeutic minerals, as well as small traces of radioactive materials (!!), all supposed to heal you of various dermatological problems, arthritis, etc.  The place was just crawling with old people!  But we joined them for a long afternoon swim.  I don't personally feel much better, but the pamphlet we recieved informed us that this is very normal after the first few sessions of Bath Therapy.  Unfortunately, I probably won't be returning in the next few days.  As we left we found out that some side effects include: fatigue, and pain (specifically, in places that were bothering you, but not hurting you).  Luckily, we have not experienced any side effects.  All in all, it was a gorgeous place to have a swim, and we got to enjoy lawn chairs and umbrellas - all included in the price of our tour! The tour ended with a drink on the rooftop bar of the hostel, which has a breathtaking view of the Acropolis.  We said goodbye to the friends we had made, and headed off to our next adventure.  Though we might not have spent that much money had we headed out on our own, we did save ourselves a lot of anxiety, and in hindsight, we probably wouldn't have made it to all those places otherwise.  Our next adventure was hailing a cab!  Jessie did this with much flair and style.  We directed our cab driver to the planetarium, apparently the most technologically advanced in the world!  When we arrived, we were disappointed to find that the planetarium only offered 40 minute shows, and no exhibits.  But what a show!  We saw "Creation and Cataclysm", the story of the birth and death of our solar system.  The screen stretched in an enormous dome above our heads, but disappointingly, was not much bigger than the OMNImax in Chicago(which Jen says is bigger than an IMAX).  The show was mostly computer animated, and narrated by a very melodramatic voice speaking in Greek.  We paid for the privilege of headphones which offered a simultaneous English translation.  It was well worth it.  We learned about things like "inevitable planetary emigration", in which humans will establish colonies on other planets and moons throughout the solar system.  Other highlights were the horrible future of our planet caused by human pollution and corruption (I don't know why this matters because we'll emigrating to other planets).  The human race is going to end in three ways: through our own means, such as nuclear holocaust, through a meteor crashing into earth, or, in 5 billion years, the sun will explode.  The brochure promised us a hopeful ending, and we got it:  A Death Star-like Noah's Ark will carry us away from Earth in the hope of a brighter future.  Haven't these people seen Star Wars?  The Death Star brings...death!  But, despite its narrative shortcomings, the experience was very cool, thanks to both the enormous screen and the air conditioning.  Finally, we finished up our night with some take-away gyros and a delicious pastrami and cheese pie.  Tomorrow, we're going to wake up early to look at the famous Monastariki flea market before we go to our next farm in Halkida.  Yay!