Athens, Delphi and the dreaded arrival of Erin and Jo.

Sorry it has been so long since the last update. Apparently I am terrible at this blogging thing.

So anyway, I arrived in Athens on August 13th from Prague via Berlin. It was a long day. I ended up booking a flight from Berlin to Athens because it was much cheaper than booking a flight from Prague to Athens, but in the end it was probably more stress than I needed. I had to take the tram from my hostel in Prague to the train station. Silly me, I didn't check which train station, so eventhough I was pushing it close for time as it was, I had to take a twenty minute metro ride to the other train station in Prague and catch my train to Berlin from there. Luckily for me, I made it by the skin of my nose, but not before have to elbow my way past some Prague paparazzi (they weren't there for me. I assume it was some Czech athlete they were following, but I actually have no idea). Anyway, I made it and I even got a seat to boot! Unfortunately, because of my unexpected train station mix-up I had no time to eat breakfast, but the lovely woman at my hostel sent me off with a chocolate bar and an orange juice, which was so sweet of her. If you stay in Prague, The Boathouse Hostel is amazing, even if it is a ways outside the city centre. Anyway, I made it to Berlin in ample time. It was weirdly pleasant arriving at Berlin Hbf. I think it's because it was familiar, and typically when I arrive somewhere it is completely foreign.

I flew to Athens on EasyJet, which is a budget airline where they don't assign you a seat. It is a free for all when you get on the plane. It's like in kindergarten where everybody wants to be first in line. I was near the end, but I still managed to get a window seat, which was exciting. It's always nice to have something to lean against while you sleep.

Anyway I made it to my hostel after only about half an hour of thinking I was going to die trying to find my hostel. All in all, not too bad for me. The hostel was in kind of a sketchy area, but I arriived alive, so all was well. I won't bore you with the details of what I did while I awaited Jo and Erin's arrival on the 16th (here's a hint: a lot of sleeping in and walking around Plaka). Let's just get to the good stuff, shall we.

On the 16th, I changed hostels in preparation for the arrival of Erin and Jo! I was very excited to see them, but it didn’t last long. It soon dawned on me, that, as Erin so eloquently put, my time with them came when they were almost too weird for human contact. They told me they were hoping I could put back them back on the path of civilized interaction with society at large. I sadly suspected, correctly as it turns out, that it was their weirdness that would infiltrate my brain and in turn make me join the ranks of the weirdoes. But who am I kidding, I was doing pretty well at being weird all on my own.

Anyway, our first night together we decided to go down to Plakas and try one of the restaurants recommended in the LP. It was a nice time. Then we went back to our hostel and decided to partake in our free drink. It was Ouzo. I'm pretty sure I've had it before, and we set it on fire, but Erin thinks I'm thinking of Sambuca. Mom and Dad, care to weigh in on this? We got some Greek beer as chasers. I think it was called Alpha. It was pretty good. Then we headed up to our room where I blew both Jo and Erin's minds by showering! Apparently showering every day is slightly weird, and almost unheard of in the world of around the world travellers. I think I've started to come around to their way of life a bit, although I really hate the feeling of being sweaty, so maybe this philosophy works better in a colder climate (at least for me).

We decided that the next day we would do the Acropolis and some other ruins. I'm gonna go ahead and gloss over this part because Erin and Jo covered it in detail on their blog, and if you really want to read about it it's linked on the left side of this screen. Frankly I am just being a lazy bones. I think we went to the Archeological museum that afternoon. That was a fun time. Jo was especially excited for anything Zeus related, or at least that's my story.

The following day we went to Delphi. Delphi was really cool. It is the site of the Temple of Apollo, where, in antiquity, people would make treks to ask the Oracle, who sat in the Temple and had the gift of site, to prophesise about anything from political matters to personal matters. There was also an ancient track (for running) and a theatre. Further down there was a temple to Athena, so we visited that as well.

While we were venturing all around Delphi we decided to try and name all of the states in the USA. I don't even know how it came up, but I mentioned how not one, but two Americans on two separate occassions had told me that there were 52 states. You'd think they would know, seeing as this is their country they are referring to. Anyway we spent at least an hour trying to figure out the last three states, before we decided that we would wait until we got back to Athens so we could actually write the list and make sure there were no repeats. Sure enough, later that night, we sat at a cafe and ruined our dinner by dwelling on those last two states that we could just not come up with. We went back to the hostel, all of us a bit put out by the conundrum laid out before. Thank goodness for Google. It turns out there are only 50 states. I think we all felt a bit stupid. No wonder Americans are so bad at geography. Fifty states and 50 state capitals is a lot to remember. We're pretty lucky Canada only has ten provinces and three territories.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get our ferry to Santorini. I can't speak for the girls, but I was pretty excited for some beach time. Despite a slight hold up, we made it in time. We even had time to get some street donuts. More on the ferry next time.