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Athénes, Greece
37° 59' N 23° 44' E
Apr 25, 2006 16:38
Distance 3288km

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Other entries in Athens

Marooned in Athens

Text written in: English

we arrived to the 1st world yesterday around 2 pm. man, it was nice to have cleanliness, fresh air, familiar brands, and many overpriced items again. and naturally, our first experience in greece was one to remember. we hired a taxi to take us to an address we found in a 4 year old version of the Lonely Planet travelers guide for Europe. when we got there, the hostel no longer existed. we decided to exit anyway and walk around to find another option. then the cabbie demonstrated that scams do not only exist in developing nations and asked for 48 Euro when the meter read 34. i asked him what the extra 14 euro was for and he explained taxes and tolls. i again didnt believe him and wrote down the difference and looked confused. he then proceeded to write down numbers and say words like tax, toll, and baggage and then the total came out to 44. the math in his head must have been off. then we said ok and started to pull our money but when we only had 20s and he would have had to make change, he said he was fine with 40. what a generous guy.

we then walked for about 200 m when we realized that we didnt want to walk far with our newly acquired friend, Mr. 40 kilo bag of goodies (the plastic crap bag we got in Delhi to dump all of our purchased items in and have David bring home in a week). we were carrying it between us and ran into some equally lost looking people and asked them for hostel help. they told us of an area bustling with options and we were on our way. we found another taxi who was of similar ethical backgrounds to the first and he quoted us a 12 euro price for the drive which we saw on the map to have been quite short. he didnt want to use the meter and when we showed the first signs of disinterest, he tried the "walk away" method (how dare he use our technique!) and we let him go cause he was a scumbag. we found another taxi who used the meter and the total, including tip, came out to 5 euro.

again, we found ourselves in a foreign place with no real idea of where to go so i sat with the bags while david walked around looking for a good place. while sitting reading a book (Life of Pi. excellent read), I was about eye level with any child that was walking (or being dragged by a parent) by. it should be noted that i quite enjoy the antics and behavior of children. i witnessed two events worth mentioning here. the first was of a grandmother holding the hands of two children with a third attached to the end of this human chain. the toddler aged boy on her left and isolated side got distracted with something behind him while they were standing at a crosswalk. he began to smile and tilt his head slightly. then the light turned green, the grandmother started walking and the connection with the idle child yanked him into movement but he landed walking and continued, already forgetting what he had been engrossed with moments earlier. the second child encounter that left me smiling was when a family procession passed with only one child in tow. this one, a girl, was occupied with a vanilla ice cream cone and a meteor landing in the middle of the street could not have shaken her resolve to eat her treat. as she passed and we made eye contact, i noticed that she had been utilizing a poor method to eat her ice cream. it must have been none other than the "shove cone into mouth region and hope most of the cream goes into the orifice". the result was that only part of the food made it into her mouth and the rest came to reside all over her face. she didnt seem bothered by it but i was tempted to grab the cone and demonstrate the proper, nay, the best method for icecream disposal but opted to let the young one learn on her own.

david appeared sometime later and told me he had found a place. we were looking to buy a ferry ticket for the next day to get over to the Greek Island of Santorini but found that by some horrible coincidence, we had arrived on St. Georges day thus making everything closed. that was frustrating and disappointing. we tried to call our hostel on the island and inform them of our delay but the phone number provided didnt work. at this point we were fed up and david was still feeling pretty bad from drinking the tap water in Dubai so we rested. by rested i mean we went to sleep and didnt wake up until 8 this morning. the two long legs of the trip from delhi to athens really took it out of us and we were in desperate need of some down time. and the beds were very comfortable--always a contributing factor for lengthy horizontal vacations to dreamland.

this morning, david was feeling much better so we continued with our plan to purchase ferry tickets and then see the famed Acropolis. we went to a travel agency and were given a price that i felt was inflated with commision despite their claims that it was not. still, we had missed the early boat and were left with one leaving at 5:30 this evening so we had time to shop around. we went to other places, found the same price, called the port authority but also had an incorrect number, tried again to call our hostel this time with numbers from their own website and this time also had trouble reaching them, and eventually decided to walk to the port to find out the actual price of a boat ticket. we had found infrastructure signs pointing to the port so we figured we were close. an hour later, we were still walking and becoming doubtful of our finding our destination. we eventually got on a bus that said it was going to the port and discovered the greeks have a strange method of charging fares on public transportation. everyone entered from the middle of the bus, most didnt punch tickets or even have anything resembling a pass. everyone just found seats and rode along. when people pushed the button to signal a stop, they stood by the door and then exited without giving any money. very strange. so after a while when we figured we were heading in the wrong or at least undesireable direction, we too stood and went to the door adn then exited without paying. oops. but its their fault for not having a better method for receiving fares. we found that we were in fact very close to the port so we walked the rest of way, purchasing sun glasses along the way. for the record, david lost his 6th pair of sunglasses as we were leaving delhi making this purchase his 7th of the trip. his estimated expenses on sunglass related items is about 65 dollars.

the port was filled with boats loading and unloading passengers, vehicles, worthless item vendors, snack stands and lots of pidgeons. we found a ticketbooth and found out that in fact, the travel agency price was not inflated at all, and we had spent a good chunk of time and energy in order to discover this. but, we had a ticket and plenty of time to go see the acropolis. we gathered our stuff from the hotel and went to the ancient monument. it was filled with tourists and under a lot of construction to either restore or just maintain it. i was somewhat disappointed with its appearance because it was surrounded with so much modern equipment. only certain parts were exposed entirely while most of it remained hidded in layers of scaffolding. we took our time since we had plenty and walked around the ruins in a mild daze. one spot that was pretty cool was the theater of dionysus where fatty imparted some of his wisdom on the subject by telling me about some of the world reknown plays that had once been performed here, viewed by people sitting in the very seats we were occupying. good stuff.

we left when it was time to be at the docks and took the well designed metro over to the port. when we got there, we found that there was no boat moored in the place where we were supposed to board and discovered upon furhter investigation that "bad weather" had cancelled our trip. that was fantastic news for us because we really didnt want to be on a beautiful island in the middle of the meditteranean. so we were issued tickets for the following morning ferry and returned to our hotel, much to the staff's bemusement. so now we have not much to do except eat a good meal and perhaps read, listen to music, and bicker about something stupid. im sure we'll think of something. in fact, fatty already took issue with my estimated number of lost sunglasses. we're in for a great night!