July 19

To everyone that has been reading this online and making comments on the blog page, I apologize. I just found out yesterday that people were able to post comments, so I haven’t been reading them. I will look at them for now on and try to reply if anybody has questions or anything.

(13:00) This morning we woke up at around 8:30 am. Our fans had quit working sometime in the early morning, so we were sleeping in our own sweat for the last few hours. I had to hound Ben a little bit in order to get him out of bed. He claimed he was still tired because our roommates were so loud last night and this morning. I agreed, but convinced him that he didn’t want to walk up to the Acropolis at noon in this heat. That got him out of bed relatively quickly. We started walking and I stopped to buy a doughnut from a street vendor. It wasn’t a very good deal, but I don’t do well without breakfast, so I was going to have to deal with it. It was only a little after 9:00 am while we were walking and already the heat was unbearable. On top of the heat, the Acropolis is was located on the top of a small mountain overlooking the city, so the entire walk was a climb uphill. Once we got there, it cost us 6.00 Euro to get in with our student cards. Unfortunately, we had forgot a free pass that another backpacker had given us back at the hostel. We definitely weren’t walking back all the way to get it. The hostel claimed on their website that they were only 800 meters from the Acropolis. They also claimed to have free internet as well, but they are just stealing it from the place across the street and the signal is very weak.

Once we were inside the Acropolis, we realized how little it actually was. There were about five ancient buildings to see, but none of them were astounding. The amphitheater was probably my favorite part, but it still only took a minute or so to observe its structure. I’m pretty sure the steps aren’t actually original; just the surrounding building. The Parthenon would have been more spectacular had it not been littered with scaffolding. Nearly the entire thing had reconstruction taking place on it. The hole thing took less than an hour to see, and that included our fifteen minute water break. I guess it was worth it to see, but it was a little disappointing. I actually thought this would be one of the cooler tourist sites to see. It still is pretty interesting to think back to how old these structures actually are though.

After we had made our rounds inside the Acropolis, we headed back down the mountain and made sure to check out all the street vendors on the way back. I went into a small grocery place and was about to buy a pre-made cheeseburger that I would just need to warm up back at the hostel. Then the store owner yelled at me for having the refrigerator door open too long. I told him I was looking at buying something in there and he told me to look from the outside. I laughed and walked out. Then I went to a street vendor selling all kinds of souvenirs and was looking at a chain of beads. I couldn’t get one down so I asked the vendor to unhook it for me. Once he got it down and let me look at it, I asked what the purpose of it was. He showed me how to swing the beads back and forth around your finger. I didn’t understand how that was supposed to be amusing so I told him I wasn’t interested. He then rolled his eyes and mumbled something in Greek under his breath. I guess he wasn’t happy about taking five seconds to unhook a strand of beads for me to pass on. The next place we went to had a sign out front for hot dogs and hamburgers for 1.50 Euros. We both went in and got a hot dog which turned out to be pretty big. I was pretty full when I got done (which shows how small my appetite has gotten). Then Ben went back to a vendor who we had passed on the way to the Acropolis and he ended up buying a hat for 3.00 Euros. It was a pretty good deal. The only thing was that it said Greece on it, which neither one of us are too fond of yet. A short while after that, we saw two people getting taken away in handcuffs near the subway station. We’re not sure what they were in trouble for, but they didn’t seem to upset about it. We finally made it back to the hostel shortly after. I took a nap while Ben updated his photos. We are looking into taking a ferry to the island of Hydra tomorrow. I hope it works out, because we could use a vacation.

(23:00) Well we laid around for the better part of the day. There really was nothing appealing about going out into the heat just to check if anything cool was going on. Eventually, I went online to check what the internet had to say about fun things to do in Athens. It told me that there was a flea market about a half mile away from our hostel. It said that Sunday was the big day, where everyone came down to sell their “antiques” in the streets. The word “antique” in Greek apparently means “junk” in English. We went down there around 6:30 pm to see if we could find any hidden treasures. I asked one vendor how much a broken pocket watch cost. When he told me he would sell it for 110.00 Euros, I stopped asking for prices. It literally was junk, but you could tell that most of the people there were tourists, so I’m sure they made their money by preying on unsuspecting passersby. We spent about a half hour down there walking around before heading back home. We spent the walk home scouting out places to pick up breakfast on the way to the port in the morning. I’m excited to visit one vendor I spotted who looked like he had a couple good deals. I noticed the doughnut I bought was half the price at another vendor as well.

Once we got home, Ben had to go use the restroom. I knew this because he had been informing me of these plans for about an hour before we got back to the hostel. He came back from the bathroom with a funny story. Apparently he had to go so bad that he broke the golden rule of using a public facility. He forgot to check for toilet paper before it was too late. Once he checked the bathroom across the hall and saw a similar situation with the other toilet paper dispenser, he made a decision to which I am still laughing. Apparently he decided his best option was to use water as a substitute for toilet paper. He then jumped in the shower to finish up his business. Needless to say, I decided to go with another shower when I took mine. I actually just took my third shower of the day. I am still finding sand in places on my body I would rather not disclose from our night on the beach. However, I didn’t take three showers to wash the sand off, it just seems like it’s the only way to keep cool. I turn the water as cold as it gets and just let it run over my head for a few minutes. I still don’t have a towel, so I just run to a fan in the room to dry off. However, I’m always sweating about fifteen minutes later, so it’s a never-ending battle.

Right now, we are getting ready to go to bed. It’s almost 11:00 pm so it’s a pretty late night for us. I just got done watching Ben make a fool of himself all over facebook. He just learned how to leave video messages with my webcam, so his face is plastered all over everybody’s facebook pages now. I apologize to all those people; I should have tried to stop him.

Well the guy running this place that we’re staying at just now decided that he was going to come in and change the sheets for the next two guests. Ben was already asleep and I had just put the computer down to go to bed, but it doesn’t look like anybody wants us to sleep around here. I guess we can just add this to the list as to why this is by far the worst place we have stayed so far. We will be happy to be out of Athens tomorrow for sure.

Well anyway, we plan on getting up early to get to the port as soon as possible. It looks like the only thing to do to get a ferry is to go down to the port and try to get on a ship. I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but what’s the worst that could happen? At least we will be out of here.