| Erin's Athens Journals 5-4-02 We found a place in our book that looked good, but couldn't figure out how to get there - the signs were in mostly Greek, of course, and looked incomprehensible to us. When we called, the hostel clerk suggested we take a taxi. After enquiring about bus tickets and being told they wouldn't be sold until 6am (an hour wait), we decided to do that. We went to the long line of waiting taxis and showed the driver our book with the address of the hostel in it. He looked perplexed, and began showing it to several other drivers, one of whom finally decided he knew where we wanted to go and gave our driver directions. We got in and hoped to find it! We arrived at the street we desired after our driver stopped twice to ask locals for directions, and gladly got out. We'd asked him where his meter was, and he'd replied 'Kaput!' with a grin. Shady...or 'dodgy,' as our friends from Australia would say! The guy at the hostel was not very helpful and told us we'd have to come back after 8:30am to check in, but we at least got to leave our big packs in his storage room. We went looking for the McDonalds he'd vaguely mentioned, as it was a 24 hour joint and we needed a place to sit & rest, as we were completely pooped. We didn't find it, but did end up spending the next 2 hours shopping for hotels. The prices were in similar ranges, and not as cheap as we'd hoped, but we eventually found one that seemed nice, and went back to the hostel to grab our big bags. The clerk remained unconcerned about us and barely noticed our departure. After returning to the hotel of choice, we sat in the garden to wait for a room to be cleaned for us, and dozed a little while we waited. In a haze of exhaustion, we gladly went up as soon as it was ready and slept soundly for about 4 hours. For the afternoon, we went looking for a travel agency to set us up with some island visiting. We found one near the hotel and sat for a couple of hours planning where to go, settling on Crete and Santorini. We decided to head over to Crete the coming Monday night, transfer to Santorini mid-week, and return to Athens for our departure back to Italy. We asked the nice agent where we could find internet, and were directed up to the university district, which was a nice walk. We spent a couple of hours checking emails and adding a few small updates to our site, then made our way back to the hotel, doing a little window shopping along the way. We went to bed early, as we were both still tired. |
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| Acropolis hill |