Well, Monday passed by in pretty good leisure, and I spent most of my day visiting my favourite places in Cobham with Tytti one last time before taking the bus to kitchener, then to Nikki's house. On Tuesday I finalised my packings and went for an afternoon whiskey with Nikki and her roommates in honour of St. Patty's day, and then went for a lovely walk in the beautiful sunshine. All these sunny days in a row in England really weirded me out! After one last dinner at my favourite London curry restaurant, I lugged my bags over to the train station for a good, long wait. You see, in order to make my 6:30am flight to Greece at the Gatwick airport, I had to take a 4am train from London Victoria station. The metro in London closes at about 12am and I didn't want to have to take a bunch of night buses to get there. So, at about 9:30pm I arrived at the train station with my bags and my books and I sat in the mild cold to wait for my train. Once I finally got on my train I was pretty cold and pretty tired, but I made my flight on time and (for once) managed to sleep through most of the flight. Genius! I got into the Athens airport at about noon, Greece time, and took the train to the metro to meet my couchsurfing hosts, a lovely Greek couple heavily into theatre, named Elini and Giorgos. I met them outside a gorgeous medeterranean style church and we walked over to their beautiful, centrally located flat, where I met their two cats Nina and Sebastian. Elini cooked a scrumptious lunch of traditional Greek lentil soup and hard bread with olive oil, feta, tomatoes, and olives, and then I took a much needed shower.
I just need to interject for a second here so I can absolutely gush about Greek food. What we in Canada call "olive oil" nothing but a flavourless lie compared to what they eat here! And our feta is nothing but a salty lie compared to the sharp, creamy deliciousness that is Greek feta. Also, real Greek salad doesn't use dressing, they just use oil with salt and pepper because the olive oil is SO GOOD that you don't need anything else. I really freaking lucked out in staying with Elini and Giorgos, because not only are they insanely cool people, but they have relatives all over the islands who give them home-grown everything and I ate nothing but delicious homemade food while I was there. Homemade olive oil- frigging yum!!!
Alright, enough food talk... for now... By the time I got myself fed and sorted out it was a bit too late to get much sightseeing done in the sunlight, so we waited until the sun set and Elini took me out for a "Athens by night" walk near the Acropolis. Even from the base of the mountain, the Acropolis is a sight to behold, and I was practically pinching myself to be there. Unfortunately it started pouring rain monsoon-style and Elini and I got soaked from head to toe and had to scamper back to the metro in puddles up to our knees. I found this really hilarious and got a stranger to take a photo of us in the metro in all our soiled glory. Once we got back and dried off, we headed out again to the super posh area of Athens where we met up with a friend of Giorgos' who was celebrating his Birthday in a cool bar that had an amazing live band. I wanted to take a photo of the bar, and when I went for my camera I realised that it was missing. OH COME ON!!! I had my camera in a hidden pocket in my bag, beneath my wallet and mobile, and yet somehow, through magic, somebody was able to get into my bag without me noticing, and take only my camera. This isn't even tragic anymore, now it's just funny. Okay Europe, you want all my cameras? FINE! Take them. They're yours... Sigh... After a drink at the bar, we headed over to a late-night cinema to catch a midnight showing of Slumdog Millionaire, since none of us had seen it and it's all the rage. After that I positively collapsed into bed and slept the sleep of the dead.
Thursday morning I had my first ever real Greek yogurt with honey for breakfast (holy crap, so good) and I planned out my day of sightseeing. Elini and Giorgos were both busy in the day, so I headed out solo-styles and after giong to the metro office to report my camera missing (just in case) I went to the beautiful National Gardens to bask in the sunshine and see all the pretty trees and flowers. Even in March there are many flowers in bloom all over Greece, and that made me very happy. After the National Gardens I tried to get to the Museum of Archeology, but I got nothing but bad directions ad very lost trying to get there, so I stopped for lunch then went to the Benaki museum, where I saw Greek artifacts from 1600 BC to present. Amazing!
When I got back to the flat, i had enough time to quickly eat dinner with Giorgos, then I was off to meet Elini downtown, where she took me to this cool little theatre to see a physical theatre performance. The performance was amazing, and since there was no talking I could understand everything (huzzah!). Oh how I love theatre so. After the show Elini and Giorgos invited a couple of their friends over, and we all watched some telly before heading to bed.
By Friday I had stalled enough, and I shot out straight to the Acropolis to walk around the glorious ruins all afternoon. Sadly, the Acropolis is no longer free, and I was pretty dissapointed to have to pay for it. Oh well, it was worth it. The temples are amazing, and I saw 2 ancient Greek theatres, one a bit newer, and one that was the original Greek theatre where every big event in the beginning of theatre history happened. i'm not going to lie, I definitely started crying when I saw it, and they had a few of the seats open so I got to actually sit in the stands and stare at the ancient stage. Wow. Yep. I walked around for a few hours on the moutain top, then I quickly zipped over the the train station to buy my ticket for Sunday, before going back to the flat. I had another lovely dinner, then went off in search of a puppetry workshop that Elini had heard about, but couldn't go to due to a rehearsal. It took about an hour to walk there, but the walk took me on a lovely journey across Athens, and landed me in an adorable old neighbourhood of narrow streets and close-knit orange and palm trees. The workshop was acutally a group of people building a giant marionette for an upcoming puppet festival. I'm down with that! Many of the people there spoke some English, so I had no trouble communicating, and I spent a few hours papier-macher-ing and drinking free coffe to the tune of crazy cabaret music. Afterwards I enjoyed another lovely walk back to the flat and spent the rest of the night hanging out with my hosts.
On Saturday it was heavily raining in the morning, so I left in the afternoon, once the rain had thinned out a bit, and finally went to the Archeological Museum. Unfortunately for me, they have ridiculous hours, and by the time I got there they were already closed. I wasn't sure what to do at this point, so I bought a map of Athens from one of the millions of street-kiosks, and planned a little journey for myself. I went to the National Gardens again, then to the Temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, the base of the Acropolis, up another side of the Acropolis mountain, down through the Monastariki market (the Monastariki area is so similar to Southern Spain, with little white houses, tiny alleys, and steep roads), up the major pedestrian road, and back to the Archeological Museum, where I caught a bus back to the flat. Whew, that's a lot of walking! At the flat I met up with Giorgos, and he and I went across town to a neat little theatre space above a restaurant where Elini met up with us. Giorgos was supposed to be performing a show there that night, but it started pouring rain again, and apparently no one ever leaves their house in Athens when it rains, so they wound up not performing (sad) and we all went out to a souvlaki restaurant. I had my first real Greek veggie souvlaki (yes, there is such a thing) and then we went back to the same theatre as the previous night to see a combination physical theatre piece and juggling act. The physical theatre piece was awful, but the juggling was spectacular and donewith humour and grace. We got back late, and I went pretty much straight to bed because i had to catch a morning train to Thessaloniki, where I am now.
Ah, okay I'm sick of typing, keep staying tuned and I'll actually catch up on this thing one of these days.j
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