The Acropolis

The next day, affectionately known as Acropolis day, I moved to another hostel. Not gonna lie -- the name had a lot to do with me staying there. 

I stayed in a four bed hostel that far and away was the crappiest place I've stayed (it only cost 12 Euros a night ;p), but, had far and away the best staff.  I really bonded with a couple of guys working the desk, and one helped me get to Delphi; without his advice, I'm not sure I would've made it there.

I roomed with a fairly cool cat -- a stoner / musician named Chris from Portland (via Denver). More on that later; let's head to the Acropolis first.

At the base of the Acropolis, the agora lined the grounds.  I wandered around for a bit before I found an entrance.  Right outside the agora, I counted 8 homeless people chilling, and one guy peeing in the bushes (no, it wasn't me).  Classy. 

I did see this cool statue (I like the way the light hit it in the picture -- oh yeah, I meant to do that ;p)

I paid my money and entered the agora.  Here it comes -- lots and lots of pics.  There were tons of ruins, statues, and other buildings. Interestingly, high school and college aged artists littered the grounds armed with their sketchbooks, and they drew either the landscape, ruins, or both. I remained in the agora for an hour or so before I started to make my way to the Acropolis.

Ascending the hill to the Acropolis required a certain amount of fitness. It was surreal to think about an ancient Athenian making his way up this path in his toga and sandals. I stopped about halfway up to enjoy the views from Areopagus (named after Ares) or Mars Hill (named after Mars). 

The wind whipped around on this particular day, and at one point, I had to walk hunched over to fight the wind. I think Zeus was pissed. Once I got on the hill, a group of 32 really annoying American bible thumpers that appeared to be missionaries of some sort, huddled around a speaker spewing some tale about Jesus or Paul or blah.blah.blah.  I stepped away from them and took my pics. The most annoying thing was trying to keep them out of the pictures.

I made sure to speed towards the Acropolis ahead of them; I didn't want to get caught on the stone stairs behind a slow, slovenly American wearing thermal wool socks with sandals and huffing and puffing while trying to ascend the steps.

Right before the Acropolis, a theater was cut into the side of the hill.  Truly amazing to see and imagine that people used this thousands of years ago...

The peak of the Acropolis beckoned...I continued my way up the Acropolis, and said, "Hello" to the Parthenon. Unfortunately, scaffolding and other construction supplies dotted the area, but it still amazed me to see it in person...

                     [Of course, the Parthenon is the crown jewel of the Acropolis]

Again, there were stray dogs and cats on the grounds -- seemingly oblivious to the people all around.

[The cat in the center of the picture was about to pounce another cat who was trying to hide.  They didn't do a very good job of staying still for the camera.  Boo.]

I can confirm however, that none of these roamed the Acropolis.

Also amazing were the views of Athens.  Truly spectacular -- Athens was one of those cities with virtually no skyline, so nothing impeded the view of the hills and mountains in the background. 

I made my way down a different way than the way I had ascended (a path wrapped around the hill, so it was possible to walk completely around the hill).  I stumbled across random caves and nooks that had interesting stories.  Some caves were used by strategically, but most had random purposes like being places where servants entered.   

After descending the Acropolis, I walked a bit through Plaka -- one of the older parts of the city.  Who's ready for some graffiti??!

 

I loved this image -- so, naturally, I had to take a pic. Read the brown-ish sign and then check out the blue sign; uncomfortable! Gotta love them Greeks ;p

The ol' stomach growled at this point, so I settled at a cafe (somewhat of a mistake -- it was freakin' 50 degrees and when the sun went down, it got really freakin' cold).  I was entertained by a cat, though, he set he beady little yellow eyes on my lamb souvlaki.  He actually would put reach his front paws onto my table and try to knock off a piece.  It was comical and petrified the waiters. 

I eventually headed back to the hostel and met up with Chris. We decided to grab some food at a nearby Greek place and he shared some of his crazy travel tales. He had been traveling up and down India for the past 3 months and decided to try Athens and then Istabul before going back to Portland (Oregon; not Maine). He was 28 and described his work with what I thought to be a classic phrase, "nothing of signficance" -- isn't that true about 93% of us??

We got along well, and hit up a bar for some Mythos. While we were hanging out at the bar, an Argentinian guy performed a really bad "fire show" in the street that included throwing a flaming stick in the air and subsequently missed catching it. This happened a couple of times before I gave up on him and adverted my eyes. I did hear some laughing and sympathy applause later, so I can only guess that he actually caught one toss...

When we got back to the hostel, we went to the hostel's roof and met a couple of really funny guys from Holland (they were quick to say not Amsterdam). The guys cracked me up, and we decided to grab some more Mythos, hang and play some random Holland card game (I sucked tragically at this game).

Eventually, we were joined by a hilarious Australian guy and his wife, a Brit, and two Americans (one from Tennessee ) -- I'll let you guess who was the most annoying out of the bunch ;p Overall, it was an entertaining bunch, and we had a great time!