...Presidents Palace, National Gardens, Parliament, Syntagma, Lykavitos and finger food ;)
Wednesday September 19, 2007
First of all I’ve been abstinent (sober in OA) for 6 months today!! Wuhuuuu!!! :D
Woke up this morning and Yiannis came an picked me up on his motorcycle. This experience is something that I’m sure almost all tourists miss out on. We drove in Athens morning traffic, wizzing in between cars almost like they were not there. To have real pro drive you around like that is awesome. You see all the sites and the real part of the city, see the people themselves up close and personal (waved some of them and said hello to others), get to ride right through traffic like there was none and of course wearing shorts and no helmet, just sunglasses. I for one loved it a lot and had great fun!!!
We went to Yiannis’s second job, a life guard at a swimming pool where he also gives personal swimming lessons. He’s training swimming at another swimming pool in a city close to Athens. Anyway…I went swimming in the pool to feel the difference and again I could feel how spoiled we are to have our pools. The pool was a bit cold, even though it was 30 degrees outside, but I stuck through it and swam 1 km. :D
After that it was time for sightseeing. I decided that today had to be efficient so I was not going to meet a lot of people (hehehe…hehehe). I headed down to the direction of the Acropolis. On the way were the ruins of Hadrians Library and I checked them out. There I found out that everything in Greece that is historical or cultural is free for students in the EU so Steinunn thank you again for reminding me to get my ISIC card before I left…by getting yours ;). Found some good shorts for only 10 euros and the first pair I tried on fit me…thank you god for OA ;) After that I found a beautiful church and since I didn’t have much time for morning prayer I stopped there and prayed…was really good. Next was lunch time and I ended up having lunch at a beautiful place with a view of Acropolis and right next to the Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds. Lunch today was of course my favourite in the whole Greek world: Tzatsiki and Greek Salad :D Then checked out the Agora and the Tower and now it was time for the Acropolis.
The Acropolis was such a treat for me that I could write a whole blog just devoted to that.
(have to quit now…but I’ll be back ;) )
Of all the people I’ve met the most travelled ones have been Australians. But the ones that were all over Athens that day were the Polish. After getting some sun protection cream from some wonderful English ladies, I met polish people after polish people…like a lovely girl who didn’t want to be in her own picture and a couple with a pink camera who taught me how to say thank you in Polish, which I have now forgotten ;) All this happened while I was checking out the theatres below the Acropolis, the Herodes Atticus one and the Dionysous one, and the ruins in that area. Entering the Acropolis itself was like a dream come true. I gotta say that I didn’t expect it to have this much of an impact, especially since the heat was giving me a real experience of it’s own, but it really did! I’ve been to the cradle of civilization and stood where…and they…and then the…AHHHRRRHHH….wuhuuuuu. I’ve been to Acropolis!!! Up there I met great Australians and some nice New Yorkers that helped me photograph the are like I was a model getting paid for every picture.
But then the heat got to me and I needed something to drink. Outside Acropolis there is small store…don’t buy anything there and come prepared with drinks when you come to visit this amazing place, otherwise you’ll have the same experience as me. I paid 4 euro 50 cent for a glass of lemon juice (only thing I thought would quench my thirst successfully…and it did…and of course it was sugar free) but compared to how thirsty I was I would have paid more.
When I was walking away from the Acropolis I could see a Jewellery museum and since all the other museums at the bottom of Acropolis were closed for some makeover I decided to check it out…and do not regret it. Not only is the staff amazingly wonderful (had a much better drink of LOADS of water and a coke zero at their cafeteria and got the water for free from an old Greek woman who taught me Greek without speaking a word in English) but the exhibit was actually really interesting and beautiful for me. Ladies…a must see for you and gentlemen, watch your purses at the gift shop if you are taking your ladies there :D
In a direct line from the Acropolis with the Jewellery museum as the middle, you’ll find Zeus’s Temple, a really cool monument and since I’m a Greek mythology buff it was a must. Of course I met some polish people there, a lovely family and I think the mother was trying to get me to date her daughter… ;)
Then really close by I saw the Zappeion, a wonderful monument indeed, and helped some people from Taiwan take some pictures there…find it so funny that most the Asian people here seem to have tripods, big ones, for their cameras. Then there was the first Olympic stadium EVER and it was kind of great to go there and touch a part of greatness. Walked past the President’s palace after that and saw the royal guard. They are wearing like a big fluffy thing on their shoes and a skirt…really funny and hard to describe, but I’d rather go up against some of the really tough guys in Iceland then the guys in those costumes.
Then the park….National Gardens to be exact. The garden is quite beautiful to say the least and it’s really great to see all the people there. There is also a small zoo there with farm animals. I saw some ducks there and a mother and her children feeding them and immediately thought of Iceland and the pond there…seemed like just the same and now I know where the Greeks go to do this ;) After walking around I decided to do some breathing exercises. But then I thought that I had to try sleeping on one of the benches in the park…all the homeless people do it so it had to be a good experience. I fell asleep for about 5-10 minutes and it was great and nothing like I expected: No one tried to rob me, rape me or fool around with me in anyway. ;) But a new experience for the bank :D
Next was Vouli (the parliament) and then Syntagma square. I was gonna walk right through the square but then I remembered what one of my friends told me. She said that I had to remember to sit down every once in a while and check out the people around me…and I did and it was really nice. Thank you Sólrún! ;)
Yiannis, yes…the amazing Yiannis, came straight after work (6 pm) and picked me up on his motorcycle. We went to the hill of Lykavitos and saw the amazing view all over Athens there and also the big theatre up there. We drove around for a while after that, went to a church built into the hill (prayed a little there), and then we climbed the Lykavitos from a lower position and went all the way to the top, to the church of St. George.
After that it was time for something that I would say was my favourite experience of Athens, riding around on the back of Yiannis’s motorcycle through almost all of the city (going to the place we were gonna eat). I could see so many things that you almost never see as a tourist, like the Greek people arguing (the hot blood hehehe) almost fighting, I could get a feeling for what all the different streets were like and what kind of stores and people were where in the city and since the most important stimulus for memories is smell then I have to tell you that I smelled the whole city, luckily more good then bad ;)
Then we arrived at a lovely restaurant where the food was served a little different. We of course had some greed salad and Tzatziki, then came the real food. There were no plates at this restaurant and the food was meat and French fries….really good :D Thank you again Yiannis.
After that we went to his place for some internet connection and melon time ;) And of course checking out a ticket for my next flight to Germany. There was a real struggle inside me because Yiannis and Fani, being the amazing people that they are, offered me to stay longer in Greece and come during the weekend with them to another smaller town and see some of the sites around there. I couldn’t make up my mind so I didn’t buy any ticket then ;)
The rest of the evening was lovely. Went to Fani’s and there we played some darts and Fani let me use her computer and download the pictures from my camera and burn them to cd’s (which were hers). Yes, we are talking about the amazing Fani. Then it was sleepy time at Fani’s place, after having decided that tomorrow I was going to go to a Greek Island since I had seen the most important sites in Athens. :D
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