Athens
I was sick today. I think i^ve caught the little bug spread around by our little friend in Santa Marinella. Ah well... So got a gallon of orange juice from a little side vendor. I slept all morning and felt a bit better when I got up. Good enough to attempt the tram into Athens from Glyfada.
The day is simply divine. The view from our hotel is simply divine. The doors open all the way up so that your whole hotel room is open to the Sarconic Gulf. It is so heart achingly beautiful that it looks fake. There are sailboats. They look fake. We drink in the view. Its like a painting. We want to remember it. We try to take a picture in our minds. We watch all the people eating below our balcony. There goes a guy paragliding from the dock of our hotel. Its so relaxing who would want to get up? I drink about 10 glasses of orange juice, take an excedrin and a fizzy drink of Airborne vitamins for travelling health. I think I can venture forth.
We ask the front door dudes at this 5 Star Hotel how to take bus 114. They tell us to go down to the old guard gate. Huh... Some things are definitely lost in the Greek to American translation. They are not sure what time the bus comes or if you have to have a ticket before you get on the bus. {I read that you do}. So we shrug and take a taxi to the Tram Station in Glyfada. But it is one hour he tells us I take you in taxi for 25 Euros. No, we want to take the Tram because its only 1 Euro.
We hop on Tram 5 to Syntagma square and figure out where the Bus Tickets are. Well, really we ask someone because mom likes to ask people stuff. Its faster. I tell her I like reading stuff to figure it out. We shrug. The Tram Lady tells us we can^t by from her we have to by from the Bus Lady. Where^s That mom asks. Around the corner. We buy a couple of bus tickets. Where^s the metro we ask the bus lady. Across the street. We figure out how to buy those ones and scoot ourselves with all of our three kinds of tickets into the Metro and head to acropoli.
The evening is just beautiful, warm, cool breeze. We stroll down the street and there are lutes and accordian players serenading us on the road. We touch the old stones from the base of the Acropolis and admiring the night view of the parthenon all lit up from below.
We make reservations for Dinner at Daphnes in half an hour and stoll through the Plaka looking at jewely in the shops. The streets are so quant, with little rambling alleys and beautiful big wooden doors. There are balconies everywhere and little flowers hanging from the balconies. All the shops sell greek beads, and vases with greek images on them. Quite quant. Quite! There are all kinds of people from everywhere. Every culture every language we hear swirling around us.
Dinner is in a beautiful outdoor cafe. We have a funny moment where we help ourselves to the wine left from the last diner at our table. Our waiter comes over and starts ýelling at us. NO! That is not the wine left over! That is the wine for everyone! Well it tasted terrible, and they probably didn^t like it and thats why there was half a bottle left. Mom orders greens. We don^t have greens, mr. mean waiter says. We have cold greens. Are they good mom asks? Greens is greens. He barks. Fine! Mom barks back. Well, the greens sucked of course, but my salad of artichockes with stewed carrots and potatoes with dill and lemon sauce was tasty tast. Mom had moussaka? I Think? She loved it. It was light and moussey and light. The courtyard is so lovely and the evening is perfect despite mr mean greens.
We have a slight mishap getting on the wrong tram to the wrong direction before we get back off and figure we better figure out where we are going before we just hop on any train. We wait for the next one, the right one. There are ALL sorts of Greek Teenagers heading out to party on Saturday night on this train, and they are worth the hour long ride to watch them. Everyone wears black. And the HAIR! The hair is the funniest thing of all. It has to be teasted to hell in the crown for the girls, so that it is standing straight up like Marie Antoinette movie, but the bangs are slicked down over the forehead. And the men are just all slicked and gelled up in every direction so that everyone has LArge, large hair. Like at least 4 inches high. But of course they act like the teenagers in rome and teenagers everywhere all giggly and hyper, especally the boys. They have to stand close and they have to be touching each other and hitting each other at all times. They get off at a stop that mom mentions has a sign that announces {Athens number 1 Dance Spot} Ahhhhhhh.... We decide to stay on.
We make it to Glyfada and are ready to use our bus tickets, but alas, our spot does not have the number 114 bus. There evidently seem to be 3 Glyfada stops and the one we got off does not have 114 bus. However, we have managed 2 out of 3 means of public transportation in a town where we know not a soul and can^t read the language so we are MIGHTY proud of ourselves.
We have a celebretory glass of juice and hit the sack! What a beautiful night.
The day is simply divine. The view from our hotel is simply divine. The doors open all the way up so that your whole hotel room is open to the Sarconic Gulf. It is so heart achingly beautiful that it looks fake. There are sailboats. They look fake. We drink in the view. Its like a painting. We want to remember it. We try to take a picture in our minds. We watch all the people eating below our balcony. There goes a guy paragliding from the dock of our hotel. Its so relaxing who would want to get up? I drink about 10 glasses of orange juice, take an excedrin and a fizzy drink of Airborne vitamins for travelling health. I think I can venture forth.
We ask the front door dudes at this 5 Star Hotel how to take bus 114. They tell us to go down to the old guard gate. Huh... Some things are definitely lost in the Greek to American translation. They are not sure what time the bus comes or if you have to have a ticket before you get on the bus. {I read that you do}. So we shrug and take a taxi to the Tram Station in Glyfada. But it is one hour he tells us I take you in taxi for 25 Euros. No, we want to take the Tram because its only 1 Euro.
We hop on Tram 5 to Syntagma square and figure out where the Bus Tickets are. Well, really we ask someone because mom likes to ask people stuff. Its faster. I tell her I like reading stuff to figure it out. We shrug. The Tram Lady tells us we can^t by from her we have to by from the Bus Lady. Where^s That mom asks. Around the corner. We buy a couple of bus tickets. Where^s the metro we ask the bus lady. Across the street. We figure out how to buy those ones and scoot ourselves with all of our three kinds of tickets into the Metro and head to acropoli.
The evening is just beautiful, warm, cool breeze. We stroll down the street and there are lutes and accordian players serenading us on the road. We touch the old stones from the base of the Acropolis and admiring the night view of the parthenon all lit up from below.
We make reservations for Dinner at Daphnes in half an hour and stoll through the Plaka looking at jewely in the shops. The streets are so quant, with little rambling alleys and beautiful big wooden doors. There are balconies everywhere and little flowers hanging from the balconies. All the shops sell greek beads, and vases with greek images on them. Quite quant. Quite! There are all kinds of people from everywhere. Every culture every language we hear swirling around us.
Dinner is in a beautiful outdoor cafe. We have a funny moment where we help ourselves to the wine left from the last diner at our table. Our waiter comes over and starts ýelling at us. NO! That is not the wine left over! That is the wine for everyone! Well it tasted terrible, and they probably didn^t like it and thats why there was half a bottle left. Mom orders greens. We don^t have greens, mr. mean waiter says. We have cold greens. Are they good mom asks? Greens is greens. He barks. Fine! Mom barks back. Well, the greens sucked of course, but my salad of artichockes with stewed carrots and potatoes with dill and lemon sauce was tasty tast. Mom had moussaka? I Think? She loved it. It was light and moussey and light. The courtyard is so lovely and the evening is perfect despite mr mean greens.
We have a slight mishap getting on the wrong tram to the wrong direction before we get back off and figure we better figure out where we are going before we just hop on any train. We wait for the next one, the right one. There are ALL sorts of Greek Teenagers heading out to party on Saturday night on this train, and they are worth the hour long ride to watch them. Everyone wears black. And the HAIR! The hair is the funniest thing of all. It has to be teasted to hell in the crown for the girls, so that it is standing straight up like Marie Antoinette movie, but the bangs are slicked down over the forehead. And the men are just all slicked and gelled up in every direction so that everyone has LArge, large hair. Like at least 4 inches high. But of course they act like the teenagers in rome and teenagers everywhere all giggly and hyper, especally the boys. They have to stand close and they have to be touching each other and hitting each other at all times. They get off at a stop that mom mentions has a sign that announces {Athens number 1 Dance Spot} Ahhhhhhh.... We decide to stay on.
We make it to Glyfada and are ready to use our bus tickets, but alas, our spot does not have the number 114 bus. There evidently seem to be 3 Glyfada stops and the one we got off does not have 114 bus. However, we have managed 2 out of 3 means of public transportation in a town where we know not a soul and can^t read the language so we are MIGHTY proud of ourselves.
We have a celebretory glass of juice and hit the sack! What a beautiful night.
posted by Rojo at 11:42 AM
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