Athens
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
16
38
Trip End
Apr ????
Athens,
Greece
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Go and I travel to the heart of Athens to Acropolis, where all the ruins are and search for the hostel we had selected, which was no where to be found. We asked many for assistance however the only lead we received was that it wasn't in a good neighborhood and it is at a specific metro stop
Acropolis
. You get what you pay for, we were determined on the hostel, as well as the price - the West of Europe sure can take a toll on your budget. We locate the hostel, area wasn't so bad and many affordable Gyro stands everywhere, every meal was a Gyro for a Euro. The Hostel was, well, Spartan. Cut and dry, but there is so much to do in Athens, we only need a place to sleep. The following days we visited the Acropolis, the Acropolis is an area of Athens filled with Greek ruins and some of the most famous. First we visited the theater of Dionysus and followed through with a hike to the top of Acropolis where lye the Parthenon. Dionysus was cool looking, it is where plays, poets and concerts were held. The Parthenon at the top was big, as well as the restoration, perhaps because it is down season right now, the scaffolding sure takes away from its natural beauty. Speaking of natural beauty, here is a controversial subject. Currently they are rebuilding the Parthenon and most of Acropolis, reconstructing the ruins and sections in the buildings that are missing will be manifestations of our generation's current stone. Should Acropolis remain historic ruins or should we recreate the fallen empire? The view from the top of acropolis, overlooking the spread of Athens is stunning, in a 360, houses as far as the eye can see and patches of ruins lye on each mountain top.Following acropolis, Go and I head to the fallen ruins of The Temple of Olympia Zeus. To get here you must pass through the infamous Hadrian's Arch
Acropolis
. The temple (Grand in its day) took 700 years to build just for it's sheer size, however is about a 7 minute look, with about 7 standing pillars and two fallen. After this we strolled to the Ancient Agora which was a market place and the center for social life. It is said that Socrates pondered his philosophies here. A stroll through the ruins is a blast to the past, the Ancient Agora covers a lot of land and to the North West in the Agora is the Temple of Hephaestus, well preserved in it's integrity and natural beauty (much like me when I begin to surpass my youth). Also we seen Parliament, and the very large garden in front of Parliament. In Athens there are stray dogs everywhere, walking around just like humans - 1/3rd of the population I am sure is K9, I made a K9 friend who walked with us through the parks. On the opposing end of the parks is the first Olympic Stadium. Well not the first, I seen that a couple days before here, the first stadium since we decided to start the Olympic games again in 1889 or so. At night, Go and I walked through the markets, many people were trying to sell us stolen goods (tempting) and I bought a rain jacket for 10 bucks! Hopefully I wont have to wear the same sweatshirt everyday anymore and I can start alternating clothing. I brought along a party favor from Italy, bitter Campari - go thought it was orange soda at first, heh. After finishing the bottle we hung out and talked on some ruins of an old theater at the bottom of Acropolis for a couple of hours before grabbing supper (yes gyro's) and signing off to our hostel - where the electricity was out.The couple of days in Athens was great, there are so many ruins there, not as many as Rome, however Athens is a very nice place to visit - especially in the tourist areas, where there are beautiful sceneries and cafés everywhere
Acropolis
. Go was going to the same place I was heading to, Turkey and he had one valid day left on his Euro Rail pass, so he needed to go today to avoid full train costs to Turkey. We arrive at the station, the clerks are right where I left them, the same way I left them several of days before, kickin it behind the glass. We tried to book our long train to Turkey, something crazy like 20hours or so, they told us that the train to the transfer station was full, no movement until tomorrow. I did my best to bargain with them, requesting standing room or any alternative trains, the told me it just wasn't possible, period. Well, as I told go in Italy, you stick with me and I will get you to Turkey and considering he had one day to use his pass - I wasn't going to give up now! I was now search for alternate routes to various cities to keep making forward progress to Turkey. At the station we met another backpacker that is going to the transfer station, she got the same spiel but was told that there is another train, a slower train in which there is room to stand in. The three of us caught lunch and drank a beer outside of the train station before boarding our 6 hour train to Thessoliniki, Greece. The slow train to Thessoliniki was literally standing room for 6 hours. The only thing to keep my sanity was to read my book while standing for the 6 hours. We tried sitting in the halls but with everyone constantly walking in the isles, you can only sit for 5 minutes max before you have to get up and move again
Theater of Dionysis
. The seat I got about 5 hours in I gave to Sarah (the other backpacker) and I took the next open one, we sat for 5 minutes before we gave our seats up to an elderly couple who had just boarded the train - we are young, we can stand. We arrived at Thessoliniki at 10pm, where Go and I were going to sleep at the train station until the next train to the boarder station to Hungry I found at 7 AM. Sarah was meeting a couch surfer that was picking her up, we met him as we were saying goodbye to Sarah in the station and he insisted that we too stay with him! He warned us that we may not get much sleep if any because he planned to go to a party tonight, after standing for 6hours straight, I could go for an all-nighter party. All three of us backpackers cram our houses (packs) into his very tiny car, much like a VW rabbit and off we go to drop the load of at his place. At his place we sipped tea, Mario (the host) is too an fellow 'Lost' addict, in which I am missing all the new shows of this season - he has been downloading them off the internet and he then transferred them to my laptop to enjoy on my travels! We head to his friends party, the party is an international University party! There is a program in Europe called Rasmus(?) which is a University exchange program, so we partied with Student from all over Europe such as Poland, Germany, Portugal, Sweden etc. and the common language between everyone is English, so the party (all inclusive) was great, free drinks and free supper! We were done partying at 5am where Mario drove Go and I to the train station to catch our very early train to the boarder. Our train to the boarder wasn't really to the boarder, I got us to about one hour before the boarder by train where I caught us a bus to the boarder station where the only train going to Istanbul, Turkey was at 3:30. The bus got us there at 3:25, at a station in the middle of no where, we were the only people at the remote train station, besides boarder control police, one conductor and a single car train - I guess they don't get too many travelers catching this train. We hopped on and off we were to Istanbul!
Comments
Rasmus? Erasmus
Jason, I believe the international education program you mentioned is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERASMUS_programme