Athens

We landed in Patras around noon, and I heard that the bus was less expensive, and the best way to go. Liar, but oh well, we would figure that one out by the time we were ready to go back to Italy. But we took the bus, it was so crowded, but we got seats unlike the guy who sat next to me on the floor. On the bus ride, I listened to the Mighty Boosh, of course and made Danielle and Kathleen jealous. I was listening to a Radio Session that Kathleen does not have, so whenever I would silently laugh, well when my face would be screwed up trying not to laugh loud enough for people in the cars next to us to hear, she would glare at me. Awesome times.

While waiting for the bus, we met up with Jack from Michigan State. He was on the ferry with us, and apparently to stay warm, he and his friends along with the two Australians partied all night! I heard them, but I didn't think that much of it. We talked with one of the Australians, sh was pretty tired, but also excited to get to Athens. She and the other Australian were pulling all nighters. Haha. They were taking the 2pm bus to Athens, I guess it was an express, but we took the 1:15pm, we were just eager to get on the road.

My first impressions of Greece are good, full of mountains, and alternating between big of green grass, to these neighborhoods where there was no room to move, the houses were so close together. Most of the houses had the same reddish orange roof on them, which was really cool to ee later on in our trip when we were on top of the mountain in Athens. But anyway, it was an interesting ride, when we would be in a town with streets and businesses, most of them were Greek, and not American stores. I believe I saw like a Shell station, and a MacDonalds, but there is nothing knew there. The bus ride took about 3 hours. I slept a little bit of the way. I enjoyed the ride that I was awake for.

On the bus we sat next to a few more Americans, one from Hopedale, MA. I cannot remember her name, but she goes to RPI. She asked if I knew where that was, and I said personally. I have never been there, but an RPI player sure tried to get friendly with me, when she sent me across the ice. Hahaha, oh well. She was with some guy, and he is from Colorado. They had another friend or two, but I never really learned that much about them. I did talk to the girl from Hopedale, she was cool. When we got to Athens, we tried to find a way to our hostel, and the seven of us stuck together, and stumbled our way around Athens. They were going to the train station to drop off their bags, and explore. They were taking an early flight out of Athens to some island. We made a merry little group, we walked single file, all of us with our huge bags. We did make it to the metro, and make our way to our hostel. The directions that I had for the hostel were horrible. We did make our way though, we had to ask a few people, but we made it.

The hostel is okay, nothing special. We were in a room for four people, and when we got there, we found a girl sitting on one of the beds. Her name is Nguyen, she's studying abroad in Paris, though she usually goes to Hamilton College in NY. I feel bad for her, she is not very happy with Paris. Paris is a dirty city anyway, but it is not what she thought it would be like. She's cool though, after we got to Athens, we all took showers, and then got some food. I invited her along, and from that second she joined our little group. Monica Buccini joined our group too. She got to Athens earlier in the day, and when we got to the hostel I went down to her room, and brought her up to ours. It was good to see her again, I haven't seen her since she left to go to Europe. She's good, been having a good time traveling.

When we were all ready to go, we walked down to the old part of Athens to find food. It was cool, I got to catch up with Monica, and got to know Nguyen. We had a really good time walking down to the part of Athens where we would spend most of our time. Of course, while we were walking down the street, and all a sudden, I believe it was Monica who just stopped. She was looking to her left. The rest of us stopped, and walked over to Monica. She was there staring up at the Acropolis. Yep, the Acropolis. Ummm amazing. We all just stood there staring, mouths opened wide, at this 3000 year old building and big hill. If you think about it, I have watched travel shows on Athens for oh a while. It's just so amazing, being in these cities that I have dreamed about for so long.

I felt at that moment that yes I was in Athens, and yes I was seeing the Acropolis. I looked at Monica, who I have talked to about seeing Athens, and the Acropolis since high school. We have talked about this moment for so long, and here we were. I was in complete awe, and of course it was all lit up, so it was even more beautiful. We stood there for a little bit, just staring and enjoying the view. We did move on, and found a place to eat. It was so good, we ate with the Acropolis and the Agora. The Temple in the Agora was lit up, and of course the Parthenon was. We had a great time, we all got along really well, and we ate for hours.

After we ate, we walked around, but I don't think my eyes left the Acropolis. It was just amazing. Well actually, my eyes did leave the Acropolis... when I saw Hadrian's Library. I guess Hadrian loved Athens, he has an arch and a library. Yeah well the library got my attention. I must say that Greece reminds me a little bit of Spain, marble everywhere, but thankfully no smell. They have orange trees everywhere, I don't like oranges, but the smell was so nice and refreshing. We walked around for a little bit, and then headed back to the hostel. It was about 11pm or maybe later when we got back, and we went to bed right away, because I was getting everyone up really early to go visit the Acropolis.