Day two

5-12-2010

10:04pm Athens, Greece

We made it to Athens safely! We were delayed at JFK for 9 hours, and they re-routed our flight to fly way north over the Atlantic and come back down, so as to avoid the ash cloud that was over southern Italy. Normally that flight (from NYC to ATH) would have flown out south over the Atlantic, across Spain and under Italy, and hit Athens from the southern side. The flight was 10 and half hours.

We had both been hoping to get some sleep on it, but no such luck. Well maybe a little bit, but nothing substantial enough. There were a lot of free movies to watch though, so we both did that! We made it to Athens around 5 in the evening or so, and figured out how to ride the Metro, and how to get to our hotel. We were both pretty beat though. Add to that just the culture shock of being on the other side of the world for the first time (well for me, not Eli but he was a bit culture shocked as well) and I’m pretty impressed with our good navigation.

We didn’t want to just go straight to bed when we got here (even though we REALLY felt like) so we walked around the neighborhood to get acclimated. It was pretty cool. I’m already a pro at getting us around (on foot) and getting back to our hotel. Our hotel, called “The Marble house hotel” is a really cheap budget hotel in the Kakarou neighborhood, to the south east of the Acropolis. I was really shocked (for what ever reason, I’m not sure what) to find Athens to be such an urban city…Our hotel is in a regular neighborhood, almost kind of seedy looking (but perfectly safe) and lots of apartments all around. When we’re walking around the neighborhood, the buildings are all really close together and tall so you don’t get a lot of sun light. It’s strange, in a kind of dirty, but still beautiful way. I like it.

The climate reminds me a lot of San Diego, and there are a LOT of similar plant life all around….There are orange trees all over the place (portokali=orange) like just lining the streets. It’s kind of weird..but cool! And the smell good! Though I don’t know that I would eat any of those portokali…. :D

Today we did the Rick Steves Athens City walk. Which starts at Syntagma Square, across from the Parliament building, and then winds all through the Plaka district, then takes you up to the base of the Acropolis and down through the neighborhood of Anafitikos, which was absolutely beautiful…very nice indeed. All the sidewalks are made out of marble. Which is really cool, but slightly treacherous if it’s slippery at all…which it often is. We had to come up with a couple silly rules for both of us for our own safety when walking. When we started out in front of Parliament this morning, there were no protests or anything like that. We didn’t go across the big street to see the guard change, but that’s ok. In the afternoon when we came back up there to get on the metro and go back to our hotel, there was a protest going on right in front of the building (across the big street from us at Syntagma Square) and it wasn’t that bad. At dinner however, our server was very friendly, and warned us not to go up to the square tonight, because there was another protest going on there…and if we did choose to go up there, to be very careful. We tipped him a little extra for the info.

Rule number 1. Always always look before entering the street…The streets are very narrow and although there are not a lot of huge vehicles to run you over, there are a LOT of small cars and motor bikes everywhere and they are all going FAST…also, coming from Portland, where it’s pretty ok to just walk out in the street because people stop, even when you’re not in the crosswalk, it’s been a little shell-shocking to remember that Athenian drivers are not like Portland drivers….Rule number 2. No looking around and trying to walk at the same time. This should actually be a rule at home too, but it’s a lot safer at home. The side walks are really uneven, and narrow, and slippery if you’re not careful. So trying to look around while you’re still moving, has proven to be asking for a sprained or broken ankle, or getting hit by a car, or just running into oncoming pedestrian traffic (who also don’t get out of the way).

We left pretty early this morning because we went to bed last night at 9 on the dot practically, and slept like a couple of rocks. I brought my trusty earplugs and had them in so deep; I literally could not hear a thing, except my own body. I don’t think I’ve slept that hard in months! We have a little balcony on our room, which looks into an apartment building’s balcony, I don’t mind that at all…but we left the door open last night so it would stay cool in the room, which it did, but also let some of the neighborhood sounds in…earplugs are a wonderful invention!

This morning we were both wide awake at 6am and decided to just get up and get moving. Last night when we had gone walking around, we found a bank, but couldn’t get any cash out of it, which worried us. Actually we tried three different banks. We had a few Euros on us, which our friends had given to us so were could get metro tickets and get dinner, but were a little worried that we couldn’t get any more money than that out. So we left the hotel around 7:30 am, found a little breakfast and some coffee (potent!) and found out what time the banks opened, which was 8. When we got down to the bank, we decided to try a lower denomination of cash than we had the night before and it worked, what a relief!

Also, our American phone card was a bust…We had told our parents we would call the night we got it, but couldn’t with our silly phone card. We had gone down the street corner and gotten a Greek phone card, that you insert into the phone, or payphone, but it wasn’t working last night either. After we got cash this morning, and stopped at a little market, we found a pay phone, and decided to try the phone card again, since it was still a decent time of day PST to call home. It worked! Another relief….It was good to talk to our moms and let them both know we were safe and figuring things out.

What a great adventure this has been so far, and it’s still just the beginning! Oh, also this morning, when we were downstairs talking to the hotel clerk/host Kristos, we found out we had free wifi from the hotel. We also told him we were on our honeymoon/1year anniversary trip, and he gave us a pair of tickets to the Acropolis that some other guests had purchased, but never used and had given to him. He said “we live here, we’ve been to the Acropolis, you take as our honeymoon gift to you, eh?” How cool is that? The Acropolis ticket covers 5 other sights as well, that we now have for free.

Tonight we wandered around a bit more, after going to the Acropolis Museum, and then found some dinner. Then wondered around some more, and stopped to sit out and have (another) beer for Eli, and a cappuccino for me. That’s why I’ve typed so much, ha! The super potent cappuccino has kicked in…That’s ok, we wanted to stay up past 9 tonight…mission accomplished…well for me anyway, Eli’s trying to sleep.

So I suppose that’s it for today. Tomorrow, the plan is the Acropolis, and Ancient Agora in the morning, and then off to the beach in the afternoon.