Athens, Greece - Part 1

Hello again!

First things first: All the posts I make on this blog are saved. When a new post pops up (especially long ones, like this one) it may appear that the old ones disappear. Fear not! If you scroll to the very bottom of this page, you'll find the posts indexed by date posted. Click a month and you can see all of my past posts.

Okay. We have now arrived in Greece, after over a day (nearly 30 hours) of travel. Upon exiting our plane, we all comment that Greece had a unique smell to it. It smelled fresh. Hard to describe.

We get to the exit of the airport and begin looking for the easiest means to get to the metro. Turns out theres a bus that will take you to the metro for cheap. Great. We go to the ticket office, and are greeted by a sign saying that the buses are all cancelled because of a strike. Uh oh. We then decide we'll take a taxi to the metro. We ask the taxi service about the price, and he mentions that the metro is also not in service because of the same strike.

...

We end up having to take a taxi to our hostel (small hotel, not everything is included, generally no food served, you may have to share a room with a stranger). We have a group of 5. Of course, the taxis only hold a maximum of 4. We split up into two groups and take the taxi into the city area where our hostel is. Because they know the strike is going on, they charge a huge rate for the taxi, and we end up paying 100 euros for the two taxis. Brutal.

Regardless, after a long, trafficy, crazy-passing-motorbike ride, we arrive at our hostel. The place was really nice, and cheap. We had a room for 6 for 5 people, it was clean and had free internet access. Pretty cool. Later in our stay, a 6th person randomly showed up and claimed one of the beds. It would have been weird, I guess, but she was Canadian (eh) and pretty cool.

We decide to get some food that night and walk around a bit. Here's a night shot of the Acropolis, which sits perched on a large hill in the center of Athens. The night lights on it are quite nice.

I guess I didn't take many pictures that first day. Here we are on day 2, touring the Acropolis (which was free entry to anyone with a European school ID, rock on). To be noted: very rainy, very windy. Cold also, as a result. 

 Looking back as we scaled up to the Acropolis. Athens does not have many tall buildings.

 The monument on the green  hill, pictured in two photos above.

 This is the final climb before you reach the top which is mainly the Parthenon. I regretfully did not get any pictures up there, but there was pretty good reason: once you hit the top of these steps, on this particular day, you were nearly blown over by wind, and had stinging, stinging rain hitting your face. I didn't want to take a chance of getting my camera soaked, so I decided to just walk on through. I would like to say that the Parthenon was breathtaking, but I couldn't focus on much else other than walking by and not freezing/stepping in puddles. Also, they were doing some construction on the Parthenon, and the big crane in the middle takes away from the mystique of the entire thing. Still cool, though.

 At the bottom of the Acropolis, heading out.

 Here's my rain soaked group. Notice the dog. In Athens there were soooo many dogs of about this size littering the streets. They are very tame and sweet, looking for whatever food you can give them. They will literally follow you all the way home, crossing busy streets (safely). Pretty sad when it comes down to it, but the dogs were very sweet.

 One of the better shots I got of the Parthenon, shot through the window of the nearby Acropolis museum.

 Same shot, zoomed out.

 This arch has a specific name, but I don't know it! Tried to be semi artsy and capture the Acropolis through the center.

 This is day 2 of our time in Athens. This day it was quite cloudy, but thankfully no wind or rain. Here we are looking at a large area of ruins (also free entry). Used the self timer to capture this shot. From left to right: Me, Chet, Kaydee, Erika, and Jason. Fun group.

 It's crazy to think how long ago these pillars were put up, with very little technology, yet they're able to stand tall literally millennia later. 

 Another different dog that tagged along through our walk in this park. He was just having a good ol' time. He even got to eat a pinecone! Was pretty sad, however, when we left, he definitely gave us that sad dog look as we walked away.

 Acropolis in background again. I'm so good at this!

 After that area of ruins, we walked through one of the main parks in Athens. Very pretty and clean.

 I couldn't even believe it when I saw this. Someone after my own heart. Even better? Natural juggling balls on the ground in the form of oranges.

 I couldn't miss this opportunity.

 At the top of the hour, we walked out of the garden and headed toward the Tomb of the Fallen Soldiers. They have two guards outside dressed in rather silly uniforms, and they have a very regimented process of moving around every hour.

 City hall

 Note the leg lifting. Kinda weird.

 Our next stop was the downtown shopping area, where we looked around for a couple hours. Stopped in the absolute smallest cafe known to man and got some pretty good sandwiches for cheap. Being frugal was hard to do here, but very welcomed. This photo above was taken on our way home. Nothing special to note, I just like the photo.

 Gelato shop. On our way home. A minute from our hostel. 1.50 for a cup. So so so delicious.

 I tried cookies and cream, lemon, and chocolate, and they were all lip-smackingly good.

 Pretty cool - Even in the middle of winter (winter is a joke by midwest standards, though) they have outdoor seating areas. Nearly every little restaurant and cafe you walk by here has a similar layout: nice chairs, tables, an awning, and heat lamps like the one pictured that do a good job of keeping you warm. Creates a nice atmosphere.

That covers days 1 and 2 of our three full days in Greece. I'm going to stop here for now,  because on day 3 I took more photos than the other days combined. We went the port town very close to Athens and took a ferry to a nearby island by the name of Aegina. It was beautiful, and we had the best weather all week. Check back soon for that update.

For the next two days (Saturday/Sunday) I'll be in Ronda and Malaga, two towns about an hours bus ride from Granada. This will be the first of our planned trips, and I'm looking forward to it immensely.

As always, if you have any questions, requests, comments, complaints; anything concerning this blog, feel free to email me at RyanAndrewBaxter@gmail.com. Especially when I get into the later months here, I'll probably be fishing for things to post, so don't be afraid and ask me to take photos of something. Cuidate (take care)