>The flight was extremely early, so I was asleep for the plane and most of the taxi there. Upon leaving the plane I was feeling much better though! The weather was still nice and sunny, and it wasn’t much colder at all! Things had improved weather wise!!

Jon was tired, but I wanted to take the metro into town not a taxi. The metro was more than the bus, so it was a compromise in a way. The metro into the city took about 40 minutes, then it was time to get Jon’s photos off his camera. I was eager to meet my host and the absolute last place I wanted to be was another hotel, but I stayed in the lobby putting photos on my sc card while Jon freshened up in his room.

My hosts were going to be working at a bar in the center of the city, so I was going to leave my backpack in the bar and go walk around the city. The bar was really easy to find; I left the hotel lobby with Jon and passed this:

One of my hosts was working at the bar, and turns out Dimitris, my previous host, was also working there! We sat down for a coffee, and I put my pack down. Jon was able to get a hold of Josh, and he was on his way when Alexia showed up as well! It was great to be back around lots of people! Alexia had to take off though, but they left just as Josh showed up so we sat outside in the sun and caught up with Josh’s adventures in Athens!

Josh had brought along this British guy from the Hostel he was staying at, and we all sat outside. The combination of these three yielded tequila though, and then they started buying tequila for my host Chris and Dimitris! They seemed happy, but then we needed food. I was not partaking in the tequila, I was drinking water. Josh was also hungry, so we all went on a food hunt… Here is the main shopping street in Athens:

There are little old churches dotting the squares where they built new stuff around them!

Looking down side streets you could see the Acropolis. This was like a whole new city in the sunshine compared to the fog and rain!

We continued walking:

We reached Monasteriki – where we were heading for! There is a “flea market” which is not a flea market at all… it’s stores and restaurants but whatever.

We found one but it was a little expensive for Josh and I, so we went and got street food while Jon and the British guy stayed there and ordered. We wolfed our food down and came up for the cheap beer.

Josh took pictures of us on this balcony, so I am waiting on pictures from him I guess. He had a nice camera!

After food and hanging out listening to the nice traditional music they were playing on the rooftop restaurant, we went walking again. Josh took us towards where people were selling homemade stuff on the side of the street

I was still distracted by the Acropolis:

This church was along the way as well:

The view was really nice along this walk

I was back in my element, looking at dilapidated houses and nice scenery!

There was a rooftop bar at Josh’s hostel, where you could see a huge part of Athens and a nice view of the Acropolis. There was happy hour there too with beer for 1 euro, so that was an extra plus. We walked there to check it out and I saw this weird shopping cart. I have no idea why, but it was chained to the fence. Someone wanted this thing to stay there. I don’t know what to say…

The view from the Hostel was actually really nice! The weather was great too, so it was extra nice to be outside

The lighting was getting good for photos:

This one is kinda blurry sorry

I liked how these looked:

As it got darker, the lights began to turn on! It looked so nice!

I ended up talking to a bunch of people at the bar there, and met some nice travelers. I was supposed to meet my host at their bar at 9pm, so I had to leave to make it there in time. I ended up taking a posse with me though, since Jon and Josh came with plus some other people from the hostel! I arrived and Chris was there and off work. We stuck around for one small beer and then took off towards the Metro! It was Jon and Josh’s last night out so they were going to stay there and drink it up, so I said my goodbyes and went back to my host’s house.

Some people were still up! The house was quite pleasant and warm, so I sat on the couch and had one last beer talking to my new hosts (there were three girls and one of the bf’s was over) for a while. They were really nice! They fed me I believe before everyone got tired and hit the hay.

>I woke up to sunshine, which was very welcome! It was supposed to rain all day, even thunderstorm, but it was nice so far

I got ready slowly, while talking to Josh. He and Jon were already in Athens, so that was cool. They were going to take off and see some sights, then take a ferry to Mykonos the next morning. I was to text them whenever I went into the city.

I had no phone to do that, so I’d have to get a phone number first. I went out the door and made my way to the bus stop. I still had that one Euro to take the bus in. When I got to the bus stop however, I was told by a nice woman that the buses were on strike today until 5pm, so there was no bus!

I was pretty far away from the metro. Even for my standards. I didn’t feel like sitting around the house until 5pm though, so I had little else to do but start following the bus stops mapless into the city.

It had started to rain. Turns out living on a hill in Athens when it’s raining means that the streets are insanely flooded and there is no way to cross the street except to jump across in water up to your ankles (I am not exaggerating!). I was soaked in no time. I had left my umbrella in the cab the night before, so I was borrowing Alexia’s!

I walked and walked and walked. I stopped into a phone store, but they wanted my passport to get a SIM card, so I couldn’t get a phone. That worried me, since I had no way of getting a hold of Jon and Josh now. They had a Canadian phone so I couldn’t harass people to let me send a text or call local.

I continued to walk. The phone people thought I was nuts to try and walk to the metro. It was another 5k there or something. I did it though, and made it into the city center!

I walked around trying to remember the name of the hotel they were staying at. I took a photo of this church while I was acquiring a map and such:

I wasn’t going to remember so I figured best to just explore and go to some sights myself! The most obvious one is the Acropolis. I wandered some streets in the old town making my way towards the mountain. I walked near some charming white houses on the way up:

The view from the top was spectacular, but it looks rather dreary in the picture. The rain was making it dark and misty. There was a Chinese tour group there, but not many other people. It was kind of cool to run around in the rain:

The clouds actually made for a cool intense look for the Pantheon I thought!

here is another angle:

I tried a couple shots doing the “hold the camera out” thing… I think it worked!

Now here I was walking back down, and you see the pink umbrella? I went over to her and started talking to her:

I asked her if I could borrow her phone if I gave her 50 cent for an international text. Turns out she had no phone to use, so that sucked. We did keep chatting though, and since she was also traveling alone, we decided to walk around together.

Turns out the girl was from Argentina! She was working in Rome, so she learned Italian and worked in an ice cream shop

We walked to a rocky thing and it had some nice views as well:

Too bad the weather disrupted the picture:

I tried to edit the photo to make it clearer:

Next we walked to the ancient Agora. There was a museum there with these lion heads on the roof. They were spouting out water off the roof – even thousands of years old this still worked! It was so amazing to see; I was even a little happy it was raining!

It was hard to get a shot of it though:

Sofie, the Argentinian girl, was super impressed with all the old statues. I was as well of course! She would look at all the names though, and exclaim how old they were and took more photos than me:

We continued to wander. Being around her was forcing me to appreciate where I was more, which was good. Normally the weather would be coercing me to gun through the place taking photos and walking super fast. I slowed down, enjoyed, and absorbed:

There was a mini pantheon thing here!

Here I am! I could get a photo in!

So after the Agora it was time to check the internet to see if there was any news from my friends from Vancouver. There was a free internet spot in a store in the center of town, so we walked there to check it out. We found these computers in a little nook! We finally got it to work, and it turns out that my friends were at the hard rock cafe very close to our computer nook. I ran out but they weren’t there! I checked their hotel next since I had looked up where it was, but they were not there either…

I had no idea what to do next. I went back to the computer nook but the girl was gone and the computers were in use. I stood around and tried to use my phone again. Somehow the Hungarian number sent a message (it hadn’t the last 4 times I tried to use it) and I got a response saying they were in the lobby! I went to meet them and we went for food and beer.

I hadn’t eaten all day, so one beer got to me while I ate my sandwich. They were going to Mykonos by ferry at 730am, so I had to get back to see if I could even get there in time… The timing would be perfect for Theresa and Lucien’s arrival, but would I make it?

I went back to the house and got online. Law and Order was on TV, so I watched that and Sex and the City with Alexia and Dimitris while I talked to Jon online figuring out what to do.

The dog was being so cute with it’s favourite pillow:

So the weather was looking iffy for our potential locations. There was, however, a flight to a different island named Cyprus for almost the same price as a ferry! It was only ten euros different, but the weather was ten degrees warmer. It also left at 1pm, so nobody had to wake up early. I was told to meet them at the hotel at 10am to go to the airport. I went to bed with a new island to go to tomorrow.