I've always been more of an ancient Greek and Roman fan than I am a fan of ancient Egyptian civilization, so Athens was one of the places that I was most excited about visiting. Seeing the Acropolis in person and imaging how ancient Athens must've looked thousands of years ago was awe inspiring to me.
I stayed in two different hostels while I was in Athens. The first hostel was located about 40 yards from where I took this pic. Once I checked in, I spent some time touring the city.
The area immediately around Monastiraki was ridiculously touristy. One particular street, Ermou, ran a mile or two, and was filled with every sort of teen clothing store; ice cream parlor (I'm not gonna lie, I may have had some ice cream on this trip ;p); overpriced cafes; and fast food establishments. While I navigated the shops, I did pass some pretty amazing looking churches before Ermou met the Parliament building.
For some reason, Zeus decided that it would be a good idea to freeze me after the Egyptian heat, so he decided to keep the temperatures right around 40 degrees F for the majority of my stay in Athens (one night it dropped below freezing -- in Athens??!!). Naturally, I only had a light jacket, so in the evenings my body really froze -- again, in Athens??!! Damn you, Zeus!
While I walked in these cold temps, I noticed almost immediately that either the Greeks love graffiti, or their graffiti busting budget must've been slashed during their financial meltdown. I thought there was a lot of graffiti in Berlin; Athens eclipsed Berlin mainly because the graffiti in Athens was as (or even more) prevalent, but offered no sort of artistic sensibility. It amazed me that the government allowed government buildings to be tagged. That's right; the equivalent of our Congress building was tagged with graffiti as was pretty much every other structure that wasn't organic.
Also interesting to me was the number of stray dogs and cats that loomed throughout the city. Most of the dogs were of the "big" breed variety, and for the most part, the dogs just hung out, sleeping on the street as thousands of people passed them. Weird.
I continued just north of the main touristy areas, and was impressed at how even crappier this part of the city became. I guess I just had a more romantic view of Athens in my mind. At one point, I walked down a shady block where I stepped past a guy who had passed out against a fence. I stopped to take a picture -- something about the way his body slumped was photo-worthy to me -- then noticed that in his left hand, he clutched a needle. Holy crap -- he must've shot up right here on the street...Crazy...At that point, I just felt sorry for him and decided that I didn't need to take a picture (well, that, and some scary hookers started yelling at me from down the street -- time to bolt!).
Once I found a place to eat, and wolfed down my fairly nondescript meal, I decided to head back to my hostel. I made my way to the rooftop bar, and was welcomed by a gang of five.
Particularly funny was a guy from Latvia who told me that Texas was his favorite part of the States. I asked if he had ever been to the US before, and he said he hadn't; one of his good friends was from Texas and he decided that Texas was his favorite state -- makes sense to me :)
The group and I participated in an amusing chat. The highlight was when the conversation turned to the first movie everyone could remember seeing in the theater. One girl vividly described the events leading up to seeing her movie. When she mentioned it, I almost fell over laughing -- The Lion King. Luckily, the question died before it got to me -- I'm sure I would've blown their minds when I mentioned that mine was Return of the Jedi -- I can still picture my dad watching the end of the credits when the rest of us pleaded for him to leave the theater ;p
The conversation took a weird turn when the lone American girl made everyone uncomfortable by going on a rant about how America is the greatest country in the history of the world; how she's ever so proud to be an American, and how American history is more interesting than any other country's history. Mind you, she spewed these comments to a group that included a guy from Latvia, a guy from Australia, a girl from Canada, a girl from Finland, and me. She was too drunk to notice, but the crickets were chirping at a painfully loud decibel level.
I pretty much ditched the group at this point, and decided it was time to take an amazing night-time pic of the Acropolis.
Next up -- I hike up to the Acropolis and then head to Delphi, a place that held the most beautiful views that I've seen on this trip.
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