Plodding Around Plovdiv

Bulgaria was pretty much the first country I had no idea what to expect from on the trip.  I had heard some very, very mixed things.  It being Eastern Europe, I expected some poverty, beggars, ugly grey communist buildings and terrifying bureaucracy.  It took a while to realize it, but I was very wrong.

DAY ONE

I was still in Greece when I last left off, and still in Greece is where we begin.  The bus ride was really pleasant.  I had a go at sleeping (nope, impossible) and watched a bit of the low-res films they were showing (recent films, which was surprising – Life of Pi and The Hobbit were playing).  They also offered food, which was nice – a stale croissant with chocolate cream centre for breakfast (accompanied by lemon Fanta) and a packet of pizza-flavoured biscuits for lunch (accompanied by Sprite).

My first experience of Bulgaria was a little off-putting.  Previous border crossings had consisted mainly of the following: crossing the border.  No checks, no security, no nothing.

Well, Bulgaria is a bit different since it isn’t part of the Schengen agreement.  The bus stopped and a border security officer got on board.  People took out their ID cards and passports to show him.  He seemed to be just glancing at them and then handing them straight back until he got to the guy in front of me.  He looked at the ID, looked at the guy, said something in Bulgarian, looked at the ID again, and pocketed the ID before approaching me.

I handed him my passport.  He gave it a once over, looked at me, looked carefully at the passport and took it with him.  Oh.

For a good five minute period the bus just kind of sat there, the border security guy doing something with the ID cards and passports he had collected in his office.  I started imagining the kinds of horrible tortures they would put some silly UK backpacker through (I was travelling on my UK passport of course) and had just decided I could probably survive without my toes when the bus conductor got back on the bus and gave us all back our passports before the bus started up again and crossed the border.

Immediately after crossing into Bulgaria we pulled into a rest stop with a toilet (thank God) and restaurant.  We were greeted, upon stepping down from the bus, but a bunch of eager stray dogs.

“Hmm, they don’t look too bad,” I thought to myself just before one of them started barking insanely, grabbed another by the throat and tried to murder it in front of me.

It survived, I went to the loo, and we kind of all stood around the bus for a bit.  Two of the stray dogs came over to me.  They were looking a bit calmer now, so I just stood where I was.  Well… they were basically just looking for someone to hook up behind.  I turned around to see the big one humping the other about thirty centimetres from my leg.  I moved away surreptitiously, but they stopped as soon as I had moved.  I’m not entirely sure what relevance my presence had to their horniness, but whatever.

I was kind of glad to get back on the bus, and we headed through some fairly dismal, flat grasslands and cities before arriving in Sofia.  Which looked a bit like what Logan would look like if it were a factory town.  Not the most pleasant city I have ever passed through.  I kind of decided at that point it might be a good idea to cut down on the time spent there.

(At the point of writing I haven’t actually properly visited Sofia yet, so you’ll get a more clear indication of what the city centre and such is like once I’ve done that visit.  As learned in Naples, the centre of public transport isn’t always the best indication of the value of a place).

My first impression of Plovdiv was a little similar to that of Sofia – it was quite industrial rundown and dull.  The bus stop that we arrived at didn’t help my impressions.

I was expecting to arrive at the South Bus Station (Yug), and had written down the instruction from here.  Well, I arrived… somewhere and thought it must be the right bus station and followed a path that seemed to be the direction I had seen in google maps.  I was kind of wrong about that.  When I suddenly came across the train lines, which was supposed to be on the other side of the direction I was going, I started to worry.  Looking at the sun, I was fairly certain I was going north, but if the train tracks were anything to go by, and if I had indeed been dropped at the bus station I thought I had, then I was in fact going south.

Fortunately, it turned out I had been dropped at a different bus station to the one I thought I had been dropped off at, one which was a little further south (which begs the question, why call a station the SOUTH bus station if it’s not the MOST SOUTH BUS STATION).

I was still a bit uncertain about where the hell I was, but followed a random street anyway that seemed to head in the right direction.  Along the way I changed some money into Bulgarian lev (exchange rate 1:1.95).  I pretty heavily overestimated how much I would need (and I thought I was underestimating…) The street headed to a large, open square that had a tourist information centre.

The tourist information peoples’ eyes nearly burst from their sockets when they saw me waltz in.  I went to the desk and said I was just looking for a map.  They had great big tearaway maps that I could just take, so I took one.  Having figured out my bearings, I realized that I was not as far off track as I thought I was, and off I went once more into the old town.

Plovdiv’s old town isn’t quite as old as some of the other old towns I have seen, which is a shame because Plovdiv is one of the oldest settlements in Europe.  Old Town itself, though, is a nicely preserved chunk of 18^th-19^th century architecture from the Bulgarian Revival period.  I’ll give you a bit of a rundown on Bulgarian history (what little of it I could figure out, anyway) later on.  Anyway, the houses are very cute and colourful, the pavements are very cobbly, and the area is just really rather pleasant to walk through.

I was on a mission, though, seeking out my hostel, which was called Hostel Old Plovdiv.  Actually, the sign outside the hostel read ‘Guest House Old Plovdiv’ and this was probably more accurate.

I have become accustomed to a certain level of comfort offered at a ten euro per night price range.  That level is probably best described as, ‘Just enough.’

Well, Hostel Old Plovdiv is a whole other thing.  It’s housed inside a refurbished 19^th century house, complete with creaky wooden floors and gorgeous interior design and spaces.  I was housed in a two-bed room.  That is, I shared with one other person (and it almost looked like I would have the room to myself at the start!)  I was greeted with a little welcome sign on the chalkboard (“WELCOME ANDREW COUZENS” it read) and the receptionist referred to me by name the moment I walked in.  The owner, Hristo, came out of his office to greet me and offered me a Bulgarian herbal tea as a welcome.  Now, in most hostels they have some kind of free tea/coffee available.  Here they make you your tea and serve it to you in your room.

I was looking forward to a sleep in a bed at that point, so I didn’t go out for dinner or anything like that.  I just stayed in, collapsed, and was asleep by 8pm.

DAY TWO

My first proper day in Plovdiv began at around 4am, when my roommate arrived.  I didn’t actually meet him that morning, since he went straight to bed and didn’t rise again for quite some time (I don’t blame him – I later found out he had arrived at 3am on a bus from Istanbul).

I got a bit excited when I went into the dining room for breakfast and discovered that the remains of a Roman wall kind of just sat in the middle of the room, with the plaster walls built around it to accommodate it.

After breakfast (which consisted of what seemed like half a loaf of bread and some cucumber, tomato, Bulgarian white cheese, ham, bee honey and jam) I started to come up with a plan of action.  What I wanted was a bit of a briefer on Bulgarian and Plovdiv history.  I knew a bit, for example that Plovdiv was old and had been settled by Thracians, Romans, and Ottomans at some point, but I didn’t really know what that meant, or how it fit together.  There was a free tour at 2pm that I planned to join, hoping it would provide a bit of background, but before that I decided that the most ideal course of action would be to visit the Plovdiv Archaeology Museum, followed by the Museum of Modern History next door.  (The latter was part of a set of regional museums that detailed the history of Plovdiv in different eras that were spread all across the city).

Off I headed, and almost immediately found myself at the rather sad river that runs through Plovdiv.  I watched a guy fishing for a while before continuing on.

Passing some kind of public building, I noticed one of those “NO ______” signs, the ones with a big red circle and line that covers things like smoking cigarettes or cameras or whatever.  This one indicated that handguns were not allowed in the building.  I was a bit surprised that… you know… they actually had to spell that fact out.

The Archaeology Museum takes you through a series of rooms containing various bits and pieces covering discoveries around Plovdiv dating from 5000BC up to the 14^th century AD.  That is, it covers the Thracians, the Romans, and the Ottomans.  It also had a bit of information on the museum’s history.  Actually, the thing that stuck out the most to me was a small sign explaining that there used to be an important death mask displayed there, but it was stolen in 1995 or thereabouts by masked gunmen.  They were clearly into their ancient history.

Reading everything that was on offer (as I always do in museums) I got through the entire museum in an hour and a half.  That is to say, it was small.  It had some impressive things in it, to be sure, and it did give me a bit of background, but not as much as I was hoping for.

Actually, the period I was most interested in was the more modern times, so I was eager to head to the Museum of Modern History next door.  Well… I kind of walked in and there was a group of Bulgarians already inside who seemed to be friends of the curator of the museum or something… They looked official anyway.  I sort of stood around, hoping someone would explain what I was supposed to do to enter the museum, but was ignored and ended up losing my nerve and leaving.  So don’t ask me about recent Bulgarian history (or ancient Bulgarian history for that matter…)

My path took me down a major shopping street, where someone seemed to try and persuade me to enter a McDonalds.  Admittedly, it was a bit of a novelty being heckled to enter a McDonalds, but… it’s McDonalds.  So no.  I got a bit of pizza instead.  Fast food seems to be a really popular Bulgarian lunch, as there are stalls selling pizza and kebabs literally everywhere.

The pizza shops tend to just be windows with a guy inside a booth.  When you approach they slide open the window.  I went up to a random one along the street and pointed at the pizza I wanted.  He shook his head.  I was a bit confused as to why he wouldn’t give me a pizza, but he told me I had to go to another window beside this one, pay the lady there, get a receipt, bring him the receipt, and collect my pizza.  So I did.  I can only assume that this is some bizarre hangover from the communist era or something.

Anyway, they were all very helpful so it wasn’t long before I, like the many others wandering the streets at that time, had my delicious slice of cheap, greasy pizza.

I still had quite a bit of time to kill at this point, and just walked around.  Somehow I must have looked like a total tourist (I’m pretty sure it’s the hat) and it wasn’t long before a middle-aged man came up to me.

I should mention, at this point, that other than Switzerland, Plovdiv has had the least hassle of anywhere on my trip.  There appeared to be no beggars on the streets, no-one tried to drag me into their restaurant, people would speak to me in Bulgarian with a big smile on their face, then look a little disappointed when I indicated I was English only.  People seemed to just want to strike up a conversation.

This guy launched into English immediately, asking where I was from and saying he loved Australians.  He pointed at a side street and told me there were some great Roman ruins down there, or something.

“Come, come, I’ll show you.  Only one minute.”

Here’s the thing.  People don’t randomly offer to take some person on the street to see Roman ruins.  And Roman ruins don’t take one minute.  Something was most definitely up.

I told him I knew about the ruins and that I was going to go and see them later, but really had to head off now to meet people.

“Ah, very good.”  He kind of stood there a moment, then said, “I have two big boys.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Two big boys.”  He held his palm to the ground at his waist.  I thought he must be talking about his balls, so got seriously worried at that point.

“Five and one!”

Oh, he’d gotten big and small mixed up.

Then he pulled the neck of his jacket open and showed me a necklace with a crucifix on it.

“Catholic,” he said, indicating himself.

“Oh.  That’s nice.”

He gestured with his hand.  “Come, I show you the ruins.”

“No really, I have to go, but I will see them later.”

He tried one last time before asking me to wait and pulling out a laminated sheet from a bag, which he handed to me.  On it, the sheet explained that he was a builder who had been in an accident and now couldn’t work.  He needed money for rent to support his family including the two small boys blah blah blah.

I told him I didn’t have any money.

“Please,” he said beseechingly.  His face had lost the smile and now just looked sad.  Really sad.  As in, ready to cry sad.

I stuck firm, though I have to admit my heartstrings were tugged.  He really did seem genuine, and there were legitimate tears in his eyes.

Once he had ascertained that I was a cold, heartless bastard he nodded, biting his lip, took my hand in a rather friendly handshake and walked off.

I blame that experience for the next part of the story.  See, I had been worn down, my defences were shredded, and so when I stumbled across the ancient Roman theatre, the devious old woman selling trinkets on the other side of the street set her eyes on me.

Once the two young German sightseers vanished, the lady approached and spoke in Bulgarian.

“Sorry.”

“Ah, English?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t speak English particularly well, but indicated that she was an academic from the Ethnographic Museum, and that I should visit it (I fully intended to, actually, and did so the very next day).  Anyway, she managed to drag me over to her stall, mumbling things that I barely understood and showing me some pretty drawings.

“They’re nice,” I nod.

Then she grabs a little piece of red and white rope and shows it to me.

“Oh.  Nice.”

She starts wrapping it up in paper.

“Wait… how much is it?”

“One lev.”

And that’s the story of how I ended up paying 0,50 euro for a piece of string.  I mean, I knew it was a bit of a scam at the time, but I just found it really hard to be firm with such a nice, wrinkly old lady.

Fortunately getting ripped off in Bulgaria is not really an issue.  I mean… 50 cents.  Come on.

It was, by now, time for me to seek out the tour.  It’s run by a voluntary organization based in Sofia called FreeSofiaTours, and they have spread to Varna and Plovdiv.  The route took me through a large park (well… not that large, and it’s only a park in the sense that it has a few drab looking trees, though I was assured it is much nicer in summer).  I was distracted for a few minutes here by something that looked a bit like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit, though I suspect it was just an East European squirrel.  It kind of darted back and forth nervously through the grass.  An old guy, seeing that I was interested in it, said something to me, but gave up when he realized I didn’t understand.

Ok, the tour.  It was a very small tour, consisting of myself and one other guy who was from Sofia and was visiting Plovdiv on business.  He was very interested in Plovdiv, asking plenty of questions about the buildings and history, many of which the guide struggled to answer.

The guide was basically a local student named Ali, who had an interest in showing people around the city – and for free, who needs more than that?  We went through the communistic building that now houses the Post Office and not much else, leaving Ali to complain that they were left with a big, ugly, grey building that wasn’t used for anything.

I got a bit of a better idea of Bulgarian history during the tour.  The Ottoman Empire basically occupied Bulgaria from about the 14^th century until the Russians came and booted them out.  Why the Russians?  Apparently the official answer is that the Russians like the Bulgarians (they share the orthodox religious beliefs and have Slavic roots) and the Bulgarians like the Russians back for that, though there is some recent controversy that suggests that actually the Russians wanted to establish a trade route through the Black Sea.

I also got a couple of details about the communist era, though this mostly consisted of anecdotes.  One that struck me in particular was about a violinist/entertainer, a very popular one, from Plovdiv.  He had a habit of making jabs at his audience.  Once he was performing at a dinner attended by a high-ranking Party official, and was playing at the official’s table.  The official, irritated by the music (because clearly communists hate music or something) asked him when he was going to leave.  The entertainer replied: “I’ll be leaving soon, but the question is, when will you be leaving?”

He was sent to a concentration camp where he died after eleven days.  And that, boys and girls, is why you don’t make fun of an oppressive regime in front of the people who enforce said oppressive regime.

The tour finished in quite heavy rain on the top of the hill in Old Town.  Plovdiv is sometimes referred to as the town of the seven hills, because it has seven hills.  Only it doesn’t.  It has six (in fact, I could only find four, and you’d think a hill would be pretty easy to spot).  The reason there are six is because one of the seven was dismantled in order to make pavement in Germany.

Luckily, this hill was about twenty metres up the street from my hostel, so I just went straight back out of the rain, where Hristo showed me where the umbrellas were and offered me a cup of tea.

It was around 4:30pm by this point, and I didn’t really see the point of going out again.  I did some housekeeping, like figuring out my hostels for Sofia and Bucharest, and doing a bit of research into how I was going to get to each of them.  Unfortunately the Bulgarian train timetables online aren’t all that helpful, what with them being incorrect (even the German Bahn website failed me this time, and that so very, very rarely happens).

I decided to go and reserve my ticket at the train station first thing the next day.  My roommate turned up around this time, a nice Italian (though he lived in London) who, as I mentioned before, had been on holiday in Turkey and decided he wanted to pop in somewhere else on his way back.

My mind was starting to ponder on dinner by that point, and I had been a bit worried that I would end up going out to eat alone, which is something I try and avoid.  Particularly in countries where I can’t even pronounce the menu.  I was relieved, then, when Antonio (I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his name, but it’s Italian-sounding) mentioned that he had seen a pizza restaurant on his way to the hostel that looked pretty good and had wait staff in traditional folk outfits.  He’d asked at the desk if they knew where it was, and we were directed to head down the street and ask the guard at the entrance to the old town where the ‘big glass pizza restaurant’ was.

Well… we got down there and asked, and the guard kind of gestured with his thumb vaguely over his shoulder.  We were near the main pedestrian shopping street now, and, following the guard’s directions, ended up at a dead end.

There was a young guy smoking on the corner, and Antonio went and asked him about the restaurant.  The guy enthusiastically took us just down the street and pointed out a little corridor leading to a doorway, promising that it was a great place.  It wasn’t the place Antonio had been looking for, but we were pretty much over searching by that point so went in.

The place was empty except for two fifty year old Bulgarian men drinking in the corner.  The décor was quite nice though, and the owner/waiter showed us through to an adjoining room where he lit a massive fireplace in a stone bowl in the middle of the room.

Looking at the menu, Antonio said, “Mmmm… Well, the menu looks ok.”  I think he was worried by the fact that the place was practically empty.  They did have traditional Bulgarian menu items (and, having done some research that afternoon, I knew that they were at least legitimate sounding).  I ordered a Shepherd’s Salad and some kind of cheese and sausage hot pot (and a large beer of course) and Antonio got some kind of aubergine salad and a chicken skwarma (like a stew). 

The salads came first.  Mine was a fantastic pile of chopped up salad vegetables, mostly consisting of tomato and cucumber, mixed with egg, white Belgian cheese (a creamy kind of feta) and yellow Belgian cheese, which has a texture a bit like a smooth mozzarella but has a bit more tang.

We were halfway through the salad when they brought out our mains.  See, in Bulgaria, courses aren’t quite as sequential as you’d expect.  They overlap, with food being brought out when it’s ready.  This doesn’t really matter with a salad, though.

The stews were served in these cute little earthenware pots.  I found mine very tasty, though I have to say I was a little cheesed out by the end, what with there being white cheese in both the stew and the salad.

All in all this cost about fourteen lev, which is the equivalent of seven euro (I’m talking about my food and drink only, not Antonio’s – total bill was 27 lev).  Yeah, it was a pretty expensive place.

I think Antonio was a tad disappointed at not having found the pizza place, but I was pretty satisfied by the meal.  On arrival back at the hostel we were greeted by the guy at the reception desk coming down to open the door for us (he had seen us coming on the security cameras – I should mention here that we had a key for the front door, so this gesture was entirely unnecessary) and asking whether we had found the place.  He seemed fairly hopeful that it would be found on the following day.

DAY THREE

The first task of the day was to head just up the road to the top of the hill that I had gone up on the free tour.  The reason?  The day before it had been foggy and raining, and the view hadn’t been all that good.  This time was a vast improvement, though I was a little disappointed to realize that the hill opposite was far taller and would probably offer the best view.  I quickly resolved to scale it after getting my train reservation.

The next place I went to was about ten metres down the street from the hilltop – the Ethnographic Museum.  It is housed in a beautiful wooden building and has exhibits detailing the lives of the people living in Plovdiv.  It only cost 2 lv entry, but they had an extra fee for taking video – 10 lv.  I briefly entertained the notion of pretending I was taking photos (5 lv), but then realized that I was paying so little to enter anyway I may as well just give them the lot.

Well, I made damn sure I got my money’s worth, anyway, taking video of all the exhibits and rooms (the interior of the house – all original – was absolutely gorgeous).  There wasn’t a huge amount of content (it wasn’t a very big house) but they did have some interesting stuff, including traditional Bulgarian peasant outfits and rooms lavishly decked out with authentic antique furniture.  I also found out that Bulgarians are famous for their honey, which explained why the little packets of honey I had been having for breakfast had been so good (for some reason they always called it ‘bee honey’ though – I wasn’t aware there was another kind?)

I took the opportunity while I was at the museum to use the toilet.  The toilets in Plovdiv have to be paid for, and what with the cold and me starting to get a bit sick (and having a weak bladder anyway) I was quickly running out of 50 stotchky pieces.  Well… I guess you get what you pay for.  Which is a nice way of saying this toilet had no toilet paper.  Unfortunately I only discovered this once past the point of no return.

I did, however, notice a small bin near the toilet.  Well, I reasoned, all I need is a bit of paper or something that isn’t too grubby.  Leaving it was simply not an option (I blame all the vegetable fibers from the previous night’s salad) and so I opened the bin and sifted through the spongy tissues within.  They were all a bit damp, which weirded me out, and some of them had strange brown stains (dirt, not poo) but I did eventually find one that wasn’t too bad, and as it was heading somewhere dirtier anyway I think I ended up slightly cleaner for the effort.

With that out of the way, it was time to go to the train station.

The Wikipedia page for Plovdiv train station proudly announces that it “has eleven tracks!” (exclamation mark included).  So… it’s basically a small, regional train station.  I had a look at the board and was pleased to see that a) it listed the Latin name alongside the Cyrillic, and b) that there were a number of trains to choose from to get me to Sofia (though they were all at different times to the ones I had seen online…)

I went to the desk to ask for a reservation for the midday train, which I reasoned was late enough that I could be a bit slow in the morning, but would get me to Sofia at a time when I could still do stuff.

The lady at the desk didn’t speak a huge amount of English, but I didn’t (and still don’t) speak a word of Bulgarian, so who am I to judge?  We worked things out eventually, which is to say, she managed to indicate that I didn’t actually need a reservation for that train anyway.

On my way out I grabbed a chicken gyros (actually pretty good, even after coming from Athens) and made my way to the big hill.  The big hill had a statue on top dedicated to the Russian soldiers that had helped liberate Bulgaria, which made it very easy to spot.  It’s kind of difficult to get lost in Plovdiv anyway – it’s so small that you’ll eventually come across something you recognize just by walking around.

The hill was a decent climb, though it would have been a lot easier had I realized there was a nice, easy, paved ramp that circled up it.  As it was, I made my way up vague steps and abandoned, crumbling pathways that were probably quite dangerous (I think a man at the top was trying to tell me that I was an idiot for walking up a crumbling cliff face, but he spoke Bulgarian so maybe he was saying something else).

The view was good.  I looked at it for a bit then went back down along the ramp.  I mean, there’s really only so much view you can view.

On my way back I went to get a closer look at the remains of the Roman Stadium.  It was kind of just open for anyone to walk in.  The ruins are under the main shopping street, making excavation, I would imagine, fairly difficult.  As you go down the street some of the buildings are marked as having bits of the stadium visible in their basement.

I bummed around the hostel for a bit after that before Antonio showed up and we decided to have one more go at finding the restaurant.  We were given instructions on the map, but Antonio was certain that the instructions were incorrect and wanted to go by instinct.  So we did.  And we found it.

It basically just looked like a decent family restaurant to me, though it did happen to have a proper pizza oven.  The ‘traditional clothes’ Antonio had mentioned the day before turned out to just be chef outfits – you know, the funny hats and whatnot.  Around the brim of the hats was the Bulgarian flag, which was interesting as it was the same colours as the Italian flag, so actually the chefs looked like Italian pizza makers.

We didn’t end up getting pizza anyway.  We both had a pork steak (they were pretty large…) and I had a Shopska Salad, which is apparently a Bulgarian salad variety, though I thought it was pretty similar to the one I had had the previous night except without the yellow cheese.

This time I made sure to order a Bulgarian beer, though I’m afraid I don’t remember the brand.  It was surprisingly good, with a very rich, organic taste.  Not that I’m a beer expert or anything, but normally I don’t really like beer that much and I liked this one.

Antonio was taking a taxi to the airport the next day and needed to get some cash out for that.  We went looking for an ATM and, after searching the area for some time, began to migrate toward the city centre.  We ran dangerously across a major dual lane road in order to avoid a late night walk through the underpass and turned around to discover we had just walked to the opposite side of the street to the nearest ATM.  We were so close to the city centre by this point, though, that we just kept on.

Antonio found himself an ATM and got some money out, but ended up having to take out more than he intended.  Since lev is pretty worthless in the UK, he suggested going to a bar to try to use some of it up.

This was a Friday night, so we expected to see some lively places somewhere.  The streets were dead.  I should mention that Plovdiv has a university, so it’s not like there’s no Friday-night demographic in the city.  We were about to give up when we found a small street with a bunch of listless smokers hanging out outside a bar.  So we entered the bar.

It was a pretty nice place.  I was a little surprised by the fact that it was table service for drinks.  Antonio, wanting to rid himself of the unwanted cash, paid for two cosmopolitans.  I have to say, cosmopolitans are considerably less classic tasting than I imagined – it was like alcoholic apple and blackcurrant juice.

They were singing karaoke in an adjoining room, and as we left the dance floor downstairs was beginning to heat up, but as we were both leaving the next day we decided we needed some rest.

The hostel staff were eager to know if we’d found the right restaurant this time, and were happy to hear we had (we tactfully left out the fact that it was a different restaurant to the one they had pointed out).  And then I went to bed.

The next day I would be on my way to Sofia, so I think I will leave this story

TO BE CONTINUED

In Athens it's All Greek to Me

As usual, I suggest scanning through to edit the following blog for young readers.  There are some minor references to drug use around day three/four, but other than that it’s pretty tame I think.

Greece was one of the first countries where I didn’t really know what to expect.  I had a vague idea of what to see, what it was famous for etc. but in terms of the feel of the place I was coming up blank.  Greece’s recent appearances in the news hadn’t been positive, so I was concerned I would find myself in a country slowly falling apart under the weight of its own financial woes, with public services difficult to impossible to manage.

I needn’t have worried.

DAY ONE

As usual we start where we left off, and this time we left off with me feeling mightily relieved to have managed to make it onto a boat heading for Patras, the Greek port that I needed to get to on my way to Athens.

As I mentioned before, it was a cargo ferry that happened to offer passage to tourists as well.  The majority of the passengers were grizzly Greek truck drivers, and they stayed up for a little while before heading to their company-bought cabin room.  Being the cheapskate that I am, I had just paid for deck passage, which was almost completely covered by my rail pass (I still had to pay port dues and a fuel surcharge).  Deck passage allowed me to sit on the deck for the entire overnight voyage.  Fortunately the deck was quite a pleasant area, with a bar, restaurant, lounge and baggage area.  There were also some airplane-style seats, though it was my impression that you had to book these in advance.

I spent the first few hours sitting in the corner worried that I would go into the wrong place or use something that my cheapskate deck passage ticket didn’t cover.  After a while it became pretty apparent that the staff didn’t give a toss what you did, so I dumped my bags and went to the restaurant.

An Australian girl and American guy who I had seen getting on the boat were already at the restaurant, so after collecting my food (oriental meatballs… though they weren’t ball-shaped) I went to join them.  Only they were already having a conversation, and as I approached and awkwardly stood behind the American guy, the Aussie girl glanced at me.  I got ready to make my introduction in the gap in conversation that was sure to follow, but she just continued.

I kind of stood there for a moment, knowing I had been pretty clear about my intentions to join them, but also recognizing that I had been snubbed.  Sensing that the opportunity was lost, I sat at the table beside theirs, back to them, and eavesdropped on their conversation.  I had assumed that they were a couple of some kind, and therefore wanted to be left alone, but a few minutes of listening in told me they had only recently met one another themselves.

As they began discussing their intentions to go and have a nap, I saw a final chance and got up, stood by their table and introduced myself.

The girl’s name was Athena, and the guy was Peter.  They were on their way to Athens as well – Athena had been planning to visit for a while, and Peter had met her at their previous hostel in Rome and been persuaded to join.

After only a short conversation the topic of how to reach Athens came up.  I told them that I was going to be taking the replacement bus service, since the train line from Patras was being repaired or renovated or something.  Then Athena dropped the bombshell.

She had heard on the grapevine that the Greek public transport union had organized a strike for the next five days.  I knew about the ferries, but ALL public transport?  This changed things.  I was a little dubious, as I didn’t think even the Greeks would initiate such a wide-spread and inconvenient strike without some kind of announcement, but I had to recognize the possibility that Athena was well-informed and that my journey in Greece would be even more stressful and challenging than the one in Italy.

I had some time to mull over this, though, since the ferry would not reach Patras until 1:30pm the next day.  We went and stole a few of the airline seats in order to sleep (no-one seemed to care, so I have to conclude that we weren’t breaking any rules by doing this).  I managed to catch some shut-eye serenaded by some Greek film that was playing on the room’s TV about an American kid who is kidnapped by some kind of Greek crime syndicate and has to overcome cultural boundaries to become some kind of leader for them.  Or something.  It was in Greek, so didn’t make a lot of sense, though I know it was called The Greek Godfather.

At around 6am we had a brief stopover at Igoumenitsa.  They made it very clear that we had arrived there, with numerous announcements over the PA system and ferry staff walking around ensuring that everyone who needed to get off did so.  This would have been very handy had I actually wanted to get off, but as it was I wanted to get some sleep.  For a good half hour period, though, sleep was basically an impossible prospect.

It wasn’t long before the sun was up after that, so I left the airplane seats, had a quick breakfast from the restaurant and went outside to watch the scenery.  The water was beautiful, and on either side of the boat great mountains rose up.  In order to reach Patras, the ferry had to travel along a stretch of sea that was bordered on the north and south by Greece, so it was a pretty good view.

I had taken advantage of the time on the ferry to have a bit of R&R and had been putting out of my mind the prospect of travel to Athens.  As the boat pulled into port, though, my lack of preparation hit me, particularly when I got off the boat and realized the port was, in fact, nowhere near the actual city of Patras.  Hell, I could barely work out how to get out of the port area (Athena and Peter went in one direction toward a car exit, but I noticed a building and went there instead).  In the end I saw a bus and walked to it, as did everyone else, assuming that it had to go into the city since… where else would it go?

Not only did it go to the city, it went to the main bus station.  Large signs proclaimed that buses to Athens would leave every fifteen minutes.  Perfect!  Only the bus I needed was the one organized by the train company, not the bus company.  And it was supposed to leave every two hours.  I couldn’t work out which buses fell under my pass, so approached the information booth to find out.

Upon seeing my pass, the lady at the info desk pointed at a blue bus and told me that it was the one I was after.  I thanked her and checked the bus.  It was the bus back to the port.  She had thought I wanted the bus for the ferry.  Bugger.

The bus station was a small, grubby building filled to the brim with people, particularly young soldiers for some reason.  A chaotic scrum led to the ticket desk.  The buses would pull up right beside the building, three at a time, so people kind of just spilled out all over the road with no clear indication of which bus was going where.

Also, everything was written in Greek.  Most languages you can get by.  Greek is not one of those.  Place names are vaguely recognizable if you’re lucky and you already know what it’s supposed to look like.  Good luck buying a ticket when you don’t even know how to pronounce the words displayed.

By this point we had kind of concluded that the bus on our pass probably left from the train station, seeing as it was a replacement service for the out-of-service train line.  Not really wanting to have to go through the hassle of finding the train station, we just bought the earliest ticket to Athens that we could find (fortunately all the ticket sellers spoke basic English, far superior to our Greek).

Other than the quite spectacular scenery, with mountains on one side and ocean on the other (unsurprisingly reminiscent of Greek mythology) the bus ride was fairly unexceptional.  I kept falling asleep and, since I had no idea how long the bus was supposed to take, I would wake up and think we weren’t even close.  Peering out the window at one point I assumed we must be in the Corinth area.  Then I saw a sign announcing our entry to Athens.

It wasn’t quite as I expected.  It was actually quite spacious – we were still driving along what appeared to be a motorway.  The street was lined mostly with industrial buildings, so it felt a bit like the outskirts of Brisbane or any Australian city for that matter.

It didn’t take long before it was revealed that we were, in fact, on the outskirts of the city.  Unfortunately this was revealed by the fact that we arrived at the bus station, which was basically a shed on the side of the road.

The hotel that Dad had booked for us (I did mention that Dad was visiting for the weekend, right?) was on Syntagma Square, which was in the same basic direction as Athena and Peter needed to go.  I wandered vaguely towards something that looked like an information desk, which unfortunately took me right up to the taxi rank.

“You need a taxi?”

“Oh… not really.  I’m just trying to work out where I am.”  Stupid thing to say.

“Where you trying to go?”

“Syntagma Square.”

“Oh, ok.  About seven kilometres away.” 

SEVEN KILOMETRES???

“You could catch bus, then other bus, maybe two euro, take about thirty, forty minutes.  Taxi, most it will cost is ten euro.”

I was very aware that it was starting to get dark at that point.  Catching buses at night is hard enough when you know where you’re going, but being in a new city, trying to figure out the correct stop when you can’t even sound out the letters on the signs – well, let’s just say that for the first time on this trip I was seriously considering just taking the taxi.

I went back to the others and filled them in.  They agreed that, between us, ten euro was not a bad price to ensure we made it safely before nightfall.

We headed back to the taxi driver, who waved us to the front of the queue.  At the front of the queue, the lead cabbie said, “Syntagma Square?  For three, twenty euro.”  We called bull, saying the other guy had said ten euro.

“For three?  Twenty.”

Seeing as a taxi service that increases in price as the number of passengers increases kind of defeats the purpose, we went over to the bus stop.  The list of stops for each bus was written in Greek, but luckily the guy at the counter could speak some English.  For 1,40 euro each he gave us a ticket for the bus and metro we would need to take.  He explained that the last stop of the bus would get us to a metro station, from which we could easily get to Syntagma Square.

On the bus, Athena was trying to figure something out.

“I was told it wasn’t safe to go on a particular square, especially at night.  I’m not sure, maybe it wasn’t Syntagma.  I think it started with ‘O’.”

The bus stopped on a narrow little street that looked pretty much the same as every other narrow little street.  Everyone got off.  The engines turned off.  Looked as though this was the end of the line.

We got out and had a look up the street.  Then a look down the street.  Then a look around the street.  No metro station.  Balls.

We approached the driver.  He couldn’t speak English, but I suspect ‘metro’ is universal, particularly when accompanied by a ‘vvvhwwwooooosh’ noise and a wriggling hand motion.  He directed us up the street and left, so we went that way.

The metro station appeared about two blocks down – Omonia Square.

“Oh, that’s the name of the square I was told to avoid,” Athena said.  It’s probably worth mentioning that it was most definitely night time by this point.

We made a quick dash to the metro station and I made sure not to look too much like a tourist by dawdling around the metro map, but then realized the backpack probably gave it away and ended up studying it carefully for a minute.  Syntagma Square was two stops away.

Athena and Peter parted ways with me at this point, as they were better served by reaching a different metro station.  I promised to join them later on and headed directly for the metro.

The Athens metro is actually very good.  Having said that, it’s small.  I’m pretty sure it was built specifically for the 2004 Olympics and is still slowly expanding.  Probably even slower now. 

I only went about two stops.  The metro works on a kind of honour system – unlike other metros where you have to insert a ticket to be allowed in, in Athens they trust you to validate a ticket at the entrance to the metro.  Not wanting to contribute further to Greece’s economic decline, I did the honourable thing (plus I’d already validated my ticket on the bus anyway).

Arriving at Syntagma Square (something like two stops – I later discovered it was about a five minute walk away) I went into seek-my-hotel mode.  I have become used to hostels being extremely difficult to find, often just a door in an alleyway with the only indication being a small business card on the doorbell.  Walking out of the metro I was greeted by a gigantic sign that took up half the skyscraper in front of me that stated, in big clear letters: HOTEL ARETHUSA.

Well, that was easy.

I was pretty tired by this point, so basically went straight to bed.  Oh, that’s a lie, I washed my underpants.  Soon the room was nicely decorated with my soggy undies.  THEN I went to sleep.

Wait, no, then I was hungry (hadn’t eaten all day), so decided to go out and find something Greek.  And by ‘something Greek’ I of course mean GYROS!  I kind of walked down a couple of streets, not wanting to go far, when I found a little place that had a lot of locals inside and advertised gyros.  So in I went.  Unfortunately I took one look at the menu and went… oh bugger.  All Greek.

But hell, that just means it’s authentic, right?  So I went up to the counter.  Or I would have done if there hadn’t been two counters, one in front of the spinning meaty chunks and one at the cash register.  Everyone seemed to be paying first, so I went to the register counter.

“Is this where you order?”

The guy said something, which may have been in English.  I asked him if he spoke English, and, in keeping with the trend, he indicated a basic knowledge of the language.

I wasn’t sure what they had, since the menu wasn’t particularly helpful on that account, but I was pretty sure they had gyros, since the Greek for gyros is gyros (rather helpful that – though note that I’m fairly certain the ‘g’ is pronounced like a ‘y’).

“Lamb gyros?”

He didn’t seem to understand my order, which was admittedly mumbled rather incoherently and phrased more as a question than an order.  He just started listing the menu.  Unfortunately, lamb wasn’t on it, but pork was, so I got a pork gyros.

“Two euro twenty.”

Awesome.  I paid and he told me to wait at the other counter for my order.  So I did.

One of the ladies behind the counter spoke to me in Greek.  I smiled and shook my head.  “Sorry!  English.”

“Bah!” she waved an arm and walked off.  There was one other guy behind this counter, and he now came up to me and spoke in Greek.  I kind of stood there, a little unsure how to approach this, when the customer beside me offered his assistance.  I took it gladly.  It turned out I was being asked to repeat my order (had I known the menu a bit better, I could probably have said I had ordered something more expensive, since there was clearly no communication between kitchen and register).

Long story short I ended up with a pork gyros with everything.  It was delicious.  THEN I went to bed.

At around 2am my phone started ringing.  I have it on good authority that before this, there was a great deal of knocking on the hotel door, but I was pretty deeply asleep.  Anyway, there was a brief period of me kind of lying there going, “I wish that arsehole would turn his alarm off – some of us are trying to sleep.”  Then I realized I was the only arsehole in the room.  Then I realized that Dad was still to arrive.  So I picked up my phone and let him into the room.

It wasn’t long before I was unconscious again.

DAY TWO

ARISE, screamed Helios, driving his chariot through the sky.  So I did.  Dad was already up.  After a quick Skype attempt to Australia that kind of failed partly due to poor internet in the hotel and partly due to the fact that Mum and Katrina weren’t actually home we went down to breakfast.  A hot breakfast.  After a month of stale cereal, jam and yoghurt (and a lot of coffee…) you wouldn’t believe how nice it was to have soggy bacon, greying eggs and unusually gritty chipolata things in a somewhat lukewarm state!

After eating probably way too much, but also much less than most of the Greek guests, we went out to find some ancient Greek ruins – specifically the Acropolis!

Dad had downloaded some walking directions, so we headed off down the street, aware that it could potentially be some distance from the hotel, and might not be that easy to- Oh wait, no, there it is, just around the corner.

Yes indeed, walking down the street we rounded a corner and were stunned to see a very dramatic Acropolis on top of a very dramatic hill rising very dramatically into a dramatic blue sky.  We took a few dramatic photos (the first of many) and dramatically continued on.  See, despite the fact that we could see the Acropolis just ahead of us, we couldn’t actually get there directly because there were buildings in the way.

On our way around the buildings we accidentally stumbled across some more ruins, this time Hadrian’s Library.  We weren’t quite jaded enough at this point to turn our noses up at something as recent as Roman ruins, and as the site sold a combined ticket that included the Acropolis we thought: “Eh, might as well.”  So we did.

An adult ticket to the Acropolis plus six other ancient sites around Athens (most worth seeing) is twelve euro, for international students the cost is six euro, and for EU students the cost is nothing.  That’s right, if you have a student card and an EU passport (or an identity card issued by an EU university… or you just lie to the ticket salesperson about where you attend university) you don’t pay anything to see any of Athens’ famous ruins.

I didn’t feel like taking advantage of a floundering economy, and Dad was paying anyway (hehehe…) so I let the salesperson know I was Australian.  We were given a sleeve of tearable tickets that could be used for any site, with the exception of one, which was specifically for the Acropolis.

I don’t know what to say about Hadrian’s Library.  Let’s be honest, if I detail every single ruin we saw we’ll be here all day.  It was a decent start to the weekend, but there was something better around each corner.

One thing we did notice was the presence of a very lazy and probably quite well-fed dog just hanging around on the ruins.  Actually, I’m pretty sure there were two dogs.  There were definitely two at the next site we visited, which happened to be just around the corner: the Roman Agora (thank goodness we got the Roman stuff out of the way early!)

Ok, they were nice, but the Acropolis was kind of just sitting up there on the hill, tantalizing us with its dramatic…ness.  We thought it was about time we stopped getting dramatic photos from below and started getting them up close.

After a couple more dramatic photos (they are not an easy thing to give up with any speed) we followed a sign that said ‘Acropolis’ and came to a dead end.  Backtracking, we discovered a staircase that kind of looked as though it was part of a café, filled with seats and tables, but actually also served as the main thoroughfare taking you up to the Acropolis.  Or, at least, taking you to the road that lead to the main thoroughfare taking you up to the Acropolis.

After sacrificing a few dramatic photos (there was a big rock that just screamed ‘climb me for a great view of the city’) we got to the Acropolis.  As we approached the entrance gate, a motorcade overtook us.  It kind of looked like something related to the Olympics – they had the rings on the side of the main car, anyway.  A bunch of important-looking people got out and kind of bummed about in the entrance.  Unfortunately, this is the kind of story strand that kind of goes nowhere, since we ended up having to go back down to the ticket office to get a fast entrance ticket since we had bought the ticket at another site, and by the time we got back up they were gone.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of getting the fast entry tickets was, as it would have been faster just to walk straight in.  Whatever.

The Acropolis is pretty cool, and is still dramatic up close.  Reading some of the informative signs, I was rather amused by the amount of restoration work going on that was made necessary by previous restoration work.  Unfortunately, a lot of the impact of seeing such an ancient site is lost when the ancient site is surrounded by scaffolding, though I’m sure what they are doing is very necessary.

The view was great, and it was a clear day so you could see Athens stretching out towards the sea, the mountains, and the horizon.  The whole city was white as far as the eye could see – actually, Athens is probably the brightest city I have been to so far.  It was also hot.

We kind of had a vague idea that we would head towards the Ancient Agora at this point, but we were sidetracked by the Theatre of Dionysus, which was just at the bottom of the Acropolis hill.  The ticket collector didn’t collect our ticket for the theatre for some reason, so we sneakily got in for free.

Unfortunately, our detour had taken us to the other side of the hill from the Ancient Agora.  On our way back around we thought it was high time we had some lunch, seeing as it was about 2pm.  Returning to the little staircase of cafes we had walked up previously (which turned out to be in a district called Plaka), we had the kind of lunch that I had been missing for nigh-on one month.  Dad had a look at the menu, decided he wanted a bit of everything (who was I to argue?) so we ended up with Greek Salad, fried cheese, meatballs, souvlaki, fried potatoes (for some reason this is what the Greeks call chips) and Mythos beer.  Oh yeah, and olives and bread.  It was a pretty comprehensive lunch, all things considered, and while Dad tended to think we could have done without the chips, and he was probably right, I left the table feeling very satisfied.

The restaurant seemed to have a cat that owned the place, going from lying in the sun to cooling off in the shade of the restaurant.  Every now and again a staff member would give it an affectionate kick, but that didn’t seem to discourage it.

We kind of took our time with lunch (well, we needed to) so it was close to 3:30pm by the time we stumbled out of our seats to go and find the Ancient Agora.  And find it we did!  But it had closed.  At 3pm.

This was my first experience of one of the most irritating aspects of Athens – ALL the attractions close at 3pm.  After that you’re basically left to just bum around or go eat or drink something (the restaurants don’t close, of course).  What with the enormous amount of food we had just guzzled down, neither of us was really up for more, so we opted for the bumming around.  From the Acropolis we had seen another hill (well, two actually, but we were closer to this one) with what appeared to be an impressive monument on the top.  So we went to have a look.

The walk was actually very nice – Athens has a great deal of green space, and this hill was kind of like a park or garden of some kind.  There were olive trees, too!  Unfortunately the monument itself, while certainly impressive, was a little more two-dimensional than it had appeared.  Somehow it had gone from looking like a building from a distance to looking like a big arch up close.  Well, at least it was close to 2000 years old.

The route back to the hotel took us along an enormous pedestrian (I say pedestrian, though you’d still see the occasional car) street lined with outdoor café spaces.  It was very busy, and for good reason – the view of the Acropolis was spectacular from that angle.

Well, we walked through a kind of market thing and eventually reached Monastiriki, where I noticed a sign advertising the famed Athens Flea Market!  Well… unfortunately a quick glance down the street revealed that the Athens Flea Market is just a bunch of chain stores selling shoes and jeans.  We could definitely give that a miss.

A bit of R&R at the hotel got us ready for going out once more.  Dad had decided that he wanted to return to Plaka that evening, as we had been promised by some of the street hecklers that there would be live music from 9pm.  Well, 9pm is a bit late (even after Spain I haven’t gotten used to that) so we definitely needed the brief rest in between.  9pm sharp, though, we headed out.

All along the way, waiters waited outside their restaurants, trying to entice us inside.  Dad had a rule – any place that spelled ‘taverna’ with a ‘v’ (the Greek uses a ‘b’ instead) would not receive our custom.  Dad made the mistake of telling one of the hecklers, “Maybe later,” which came back to haunt us briefly.

When we got to the staircase again, we started to consider the restaurants a little more seriously.  Well, the first one, at least, since the heckler for this one was really quite good.  In all fairness, he didn’t lie or cheat to get us into the place – he just saw we were looking, told us, “Very good food,” and half-dragged us in through the door.  Once you’re in, there’s no going back (unless you’re the group of American twenty-somethings who arrived a little after us, sat down for about a minute and suddenly marched out, much to the confusion of pretty much everyone).

Anyway, Dad wanted live music, and asked the door guy if there would be any.  He informed us that, yes, indeed, there would be.  At 10:30pm.  He saw we were a bit concerned by this (and also wary of being duped as tourists) so he basically just told us we should eat slowly and wait for all the locals who had reserved tables for that night to arrive.

He wasn’t lying about the reservations – the place slowly filled up while we were sitting there, sucking on our drinks.

Ah.  The drinks.  Dad was smart.  He got a beer.  I was dumb.  I went, “Hey, raki’s on the menu!  I’ve heard of that, it’s supposed to be a proper Greek spirit!”

Urgh.

UUUEEEEURUUUGUGUGGEHHRHEEHHHEUUEUHEUHEUEHG!

When I ordered it the guy was like, “Raki?  In a glass?”  Not taking the hint, I nodded.  He brought out a small, thin glass with about fifty milliliters of a clear liquid at the bottom.  He also brought a small metal bucket.

No, it’s not what you think.  The bucket was filled with ice and came with a set of ice tongs.  I dropped a couple of cubes in, wondering why they’d given me so much ice (the bucket was full).  One sip revealed the answer.  It tasted like I would imagine rubbing alcohol to taste.  Not quite as bad as tequila (what is?) but definitely in the vicinity of whiskey in the things-you-should-not-order-if-you-value-your-tastebuds hierarchy.

The next hour basically consisted of me constantly packing ice into the glass, waiting for it to melt, and then packing more in to try and get rid of the godawful taste of the drink I had ordered.  Once the mix was about 95% water, 5% raki, it started to taste a bit like liquid vegemite.

By the time I had finished my drink (I definitely took my time) the band was starting to set up.  We decided this was a good time to order mains (neither of us was prepared for a binge like the lunchtime one, so declined to have any starters, though some free nibbles including grilled octopus had been brought out with our drinks).

About thirty minutes after this, we managed to get the attention of the waiter.  The Greeks are very friendly, and the waiters are all eager to serve, but they certainly don’t push you.  It’s basically up to you to indicate when you are ready.  We made eye contact a few times, but this clearly wasn’t enough.  In a way, it’s nice not to be rushed into making a decision and getting out of the place to make way for more customers.  On the other hand… food.

It turned out that the thing I wanted (not sure what it was, but I bet it was meaty and delicious) was not actually available that day, as it was in the specials list.  Well, I could deal with that.  The waiter listed the specials for the day.  I understood, “Today we have…” but after that it kind of turned into a blur.  I just nodded and said, “Yeah, I’ll have that then.”

“Which one?”

“Which one?  Uh… the first one.”

The waiter nodded and left.

“What did you order?” Dad asked.  I shrugged.  First the raki, now some mystery dish – I was really playing Russian Roulette with the meal that night.

It turned out I had ordered some kind of chicken and cabbage and cheese (I think) stew thing.  It tasted pretty good, actually.

The music started a little before we got our food, and was, to our untrained ears, very Greek sounding.  I’d seen a walnut pie listed in the desserts menu, and, assuming they had just translated ‘baklava’ poorly, wanted to give it a shot.  They didn’t have any, so I had chocolate pie instead.  It was more of a chocolate fondue cake, actually, and was very tasty (but definitely did not beat the one in Lyon).

By this point it was pretty late – around 11:30pm.  Though the party’s just getting started at that time in Athens.  We left yawning, feeling quite satisfied, and foolishly headed back to the hotel the same way we had come.

Back past the restaurant hecklers.

Well, the guy that Dad had said, “Maybe later,” to was still there, even though it was two-and-a-half hours later.  And he eagerly approached us, saying, “Maybe now.”  I think I noted a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“Oh, you’ve eaten already then?  Maybe tomorrow.”

Ha.

DAY THREE

As Dad was leaving the next day, we needed to basically do all those little things that we hadn’t been able to fit in the previous day.  We wanted to start with a small breakfast of a pastry and a frappe.  The pastry being baklava.  Unfortunately everywhere seemed to be closed.  We saw some people heading home after their night out.  It was 9am.

We ended up having breakfast at the hotel again.  After saying I only needed a small breakfast after all the food from yesterday, I made sure to cut myself down to only two courses.  Big courses, of course.

We made our way fairly lethargically to the Ancient Agora, which was the one site that we felt we really, really had to see of the ones left on our ticket.  The main reason we wanted to see it was for the temple that we had noticed from a distance, a temple that looked extremely well preserved.

For some reason entry was free that day, so once again we got into a site without using a ticket (we ended up with quite a few left over).  It was like the Greeks didn’t want to give us an opportunity to support their economy (though in all fairness we had already paid for entry).

The Agora was big, and we made sure to read every single placard in the place, though I can’t remember any of the information on any of the placards anymore.  The temple we had seen was actually one of the most complete ruins I saw in my whole time in Athens.  The reason for this?  It spent some time being used as a Christian place of worship.

I was pretty keen for a frappe, as this is a truly authentic part of Greek culture (no, really!)  The idea is to order one and just sit somewhere nice for a long time, sipping away and chatting with friends.  A Greek frappe is made with instant coffee, ice and water, with the option of including milk and sugar, which we went with.  They do something to froth it up so it has a nice thick foam on top.  It’s quite refreshing, and it was nice sitting in the big café space (the one we had passed by the previous day) and marveling at the Acropolis, watching the lady next to us continually lose control of her dog and perving on the young couple opposite me who were snuggling on one of the café lounges.

We spent about an hour there, just sipping away at our drinks, but still somehow managed to leave before any of the locals who had arrived before us (and ordered exactly what we had ordered).  The café culture seems to be good and strong in Athens.

We had some more ancient sites to see, though!  Up we got on our way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  Which was closed, because it was 3pm by the time we reached it.  There was a fairly nice garden next to the site, though, so we ended up wandering through there instead.

Dad planned to head back to the airport around 4pm, and so we just had enough time for a gyros at the place I had first visited (which turned out to have an English menu after all – thanks for letting me know, guys) before picking our bags back up from the hotel and saying our goodbyes.

In a move that has my budget (and stomach) singing praises to the highest heavens, Dad is planning to join me again in Budapest, which’ll be about a week away by the time I actually finish this blog entry.

But it was off to City Circus, the hostel that I had promised Athena and Peter I would meet them at, that I now headed.  It was much, much easier to find the hostel having been in Athens for some time already, though it was in a part of the city that was just outside the area I was most familiar with (that area being the area around the Acropolis).

Checked into the hostel, I met Alex, a Brit who was about eight and a half months into his round-the-world trip.  He had recently been in Egypt, which he said was fine apart from the violent insurrection going on outside his hotel room.  He got some good video of it, though, so at least he can keep the memories.

After a brief chat we got a new roommate.  The very, very first thing the large, middle-aged woman said to us upon entering the room was, “Either of you got any skunk?”

Both of us replied in the negative.

“What, do neither of you smoke then?”

Nope.

“Why not?”

Alex must have felt as though this question actually deserved an answer, because he gave one, explaining he had given it up some time ago when he gave up smoking.  I didn’t really feel the need to explain why I didn’t partake in the regular usage of illegal, addictive narcotics, though one of the reasons was so I didn’t end up becoming a grotty old person who went into hostels and introduced myself by looking to score.

Eventually I found out her name was Emily, that she was bipolar (I bet the marijuana did wonders for that) and lived off the disability benefits she received from the British government while squatting somewhere in Kent.  I mean, I’m not one to judge, but… No, actually, I think you can make up your own judgment from the provided information.

So Emily went off to score some skunk (feel for her – she hadn’t had any in almost a DAY!) and Alex and I quickly left the room, partly in order to avoid her when she got back, but also in order to hang out with two guys from Perth, Dave and Justin.  We all went out for a bite to eat.  The hostel was in a kind of youth/underground culture area, so there were some neat little places.  We found ourselves looking at one place before being dragged in by the owner.

It turned out that the place didn’t have an English menu, which made us fairly confident in our choice, so we had to go by what the waitress said was available.  I had a spinach pie and it was pretty good.

We were all kind of tired by this point (well, except for Dave, who ended up going out that night – not sure how he managed it) so off we went to bed.

Emily found her way back to the room once we were already in bed and kind of clambered around for a bit, then left again.  Huh.

DAY FOUR

Breakfast was actually really good at this hostel – they had a list of where all the different products came from (some guy’s mum made the yoghurt, the olives were from Crete, or was that the honey?) and I kind of just kept getting up for more.

If you remember, on the day Dad and I had scaled the Acropolis, we had spotted two hills, one in either direction.  We had scaled one to discover a Triumphant Arch from the Romans, and it was now time for me to scale the other, bigger one.  In the afternoon I planned to visit the National Archaeology Museum, which only opened from 1pm on Mondays for some reason.

Alex also planned to scale the hill, but he was going to go to the Museum of Cycladic Art first, so there wasn’t really an opportunity to go together.  Emily showed up and revealed that she had successfully found some skunk (“I asked the guy, and he said to head down the shady street behind the hostel where there were a bunch of Arab/Indian guys” – her words – “and he told me not to pay more than five euro for a matchbox, but I ended up paying ten because that’s a pretty damn good price” – she proceeded to show us the matchbox full of weed, which was hidden in her tobacco pouch.  I had to take her word on the price angle, since she was the expert having grown it for many years.  Did I mention that?)

Well, she seemed much more relaxed now, though was no less irritating, with a rather unusual habit of just butting into conversations with a completely irrelevant comment.  She also had a really weird laugh where she would throw her head back, make absolutely no noise, and her whole body would kind of shudder, mouth open to provide a stunning view of her rotting tonsils.  And she would just randomly do this whenever, even if nothing funny happened.  Probably because she was high.

Anyway, this is starting to turn into a blog about bashing on Emily, which could probably go on and on all day, but it’s starting to feel mean, and she is, to be honest, a very easy target.  So let’s move on!

I didn’t get lost trying to find the hill (it being the tallest thing in Athens helped on that account) so speedily found myself at the top, where I saw a bunch of cats.  And a café.  And a little church with an old woman wearing a headscarf sweeping, which is exactly the sort of thing I want to see around a tiny church on the top of a hill.  The view was unfortunately not great because for some reason I had decided to scale the hill on the one smoggy day I experienced my whole time in Athens.  I think the strong winds the day before had something to do with that.

At a distance I could make out the first modern Olympics stadium, and decided that it was high time I saw something that wasn’t two thousand years old, so I went and had a look.  On the way I (quite accidentally) passed parliament and the national palace, at which there were numerous military personnel and police, with a police van looking ready to start a raid.  Apparently there was no raid – there is always a police van there for some reason.

I also got to see the Greek National Guard, who guard the palace.  If you thought the British ones were silly looking… My God, these guys had pompoms on their shoes.  And the way they had to walk… it was like watching a crane.  They would raise one knee, then swing their lower leg out straight and bring it back so the foot was against the other knee, then swing forward and take a step.  It was the Ministry of Silly Walks before Monty Python ever existed.

I saw the Olympic stadium, nodded a bit with the appropriate amount of awe, and headed for the Archaeology Museum.

The National Archaeology Museum is interesting mainly for one key exhibit – the Mycenaean Treasure.  Basically, this is a treasure discovered inside a burial site in the Peloponnese within the ancient, mythical city of Mycenae.  Mycenae is where King Agamemnon supposedly ruled.  To give you an idea, this was ancient by the time Homer was writing about it; we’re talking 3000 years old.  The treasure basically consists of a lot of golden death masks (hence Homer’s description “Mycenae rich in gold”) and bracelets and things.

The museum also contains an impressive collection of Greek statues, which are displayed in such a way as to kind of reveal ancient Greek history, starting with Neolithic times and taking us through to the Roman conquest.  All the bits of ancient Greece started fitting together, and I realized that, actually, ancient Greek history was not quite as homogeneous as I had come to believe (when most of Greek mythology is based on civilisations that existed 1000 years before the ancient Greeks… well, that’s bloody old).

They also had a pretty good Egyptian section, though I only got a brief idea of how Egyptian history fit together (I had a similar impression of ancient Egypt as I had of ancient Greece in that it was one homogeneous period – wrong!)  Maybe a trip to Egypt is in order… though maybe I’ll wait a bit.

The museum was closing early for some kind of concert, so I left and returned to the hostel.  After a bit of time just kind of bumming around in my room, Alex arrived.

“Please don’t leave me with her again,” was the first thing he said.

Yes, he had spent the entire day dragging Emily around.  They had gone up the same hill I had, and Emily had apparently complained about how tough the hill was to climb the whole way (let’s put it this way – the climb up is an easy, paved slope).

We planned to head out with Dave and Justin again that night, so went up to meet them on the roof (oh yeah, the hostel had a rooftop with a view of the Acropolis) and also met some Taiwanese girls.  Dave had been conned that day, meeting a guy in the street who asked for the time, then invited him to his bar.  At the bar a hot Greek girl had joined him and ordered a drink.  Of course the girl was a plant from the bar who disappeared once the bill arrived, which turned out to be somewhere around 30 euro.  Dave refused to pay, tossed something like five euro at them and ran out.

Talking about scams, Alex had some of his own to contribute.  He’d known of one New Zealand girl in Thailand or Vietnam or similar who had been conned into somehow becoming involved in a card game and forcefully persuaded to go to an ATM to take as much money out as she could to continue playing.  She’d lost something like $13,000, which to give you an idea is considerably more than my budget for this entire trip, including airfares.

The saddest one, though, was in India.  It wasn’t nearly as much money, but it was a bit of an emotional con.  A friend of Alex’s had been in India and had been guided around by a local.  Over the course of the four days he was there, he got to know this guy, and very, very slowly a sad story about how the Indian man had used to be a shoe repairman, but his repair kit had been stolen and now he couldn’t support his family.  Well, the guy, before he was to head out of India, offered to buy the guy a new repair kit.

“I know just the place!” the man beamed.

By throwing numbers out and confusing the exchange rate, the guy ended up being duped for around $350.  The next day he saw the same man targeting a new tourist.

Emily joined us a little later and we all went out to the cool bar part of town for some food.

We had gyros.  What else were we going to have?

There was a short, embarrassing period during ordering where Emily struggled to say “souvlaki” and asked what it was, and asked one of the Taiwanese girls to order for her even though the waiter spoke perfect English, but we got the food eventually and it was delish.

The only thing of note that occurred during dinner was a lady came and tried to sell flowers to the girls.  She was fairly forceful, smilingly sticking the unwanted flowers into the collars of Emily and one of the Taiwanese girls.  Emily contemplated the flower for a while before, surprisingly tactfully I thought, handing it back and advising the woman to sell the flowers and make some money for herself.  Then she went and bought some tissues off the next little salesperson (a seven year old girl) that came up to us.  I got the feeling she had quite a bit of empathy for these supposed street urchins, but it’s difficult to feel sorry for them when they’re dressed better than you (this girl certainly didn’t have a massive tear in her jeans, I’ll tell you that).

Dave had an addiction for some kind of vanilla pastry coated in melted chocolate from a particular store, so we headed there next.  He promised we’d love it.  I got a nice big tray of it, and it was good.  Very, very filling though.

DAY FIVE

My final day in Athens got off to a fairly lethargic start.  I packed, had breakfast and checked out.  My train out of Athens to a city in the north called Thessaloniki was to leave at 23:55 that evening, so I left my bags in the hostel in order to avoid having to drag the around the entire day.  I have to admit to being a little nervous about this train trip – it was an overnighter, but not a sleeper (that is, it didn’t contain beds).  I had assumed it would be practically empty, but found a website that suggested that the train would be full of “vagrants, illegal immigrants, soldiers and other seedy characters.”  Not exactly comforting for a trip that would be taken from midnight until six in the morning.

Anyway, that was for later.  There were still two ancient sites I hadn’t seen yet, and I didn’t want to leave Athens having missed them.  The first was actually a great deal more interesting than it had any right to be – an ancient graveyard dating back to 3000BC or thereabouts that also happened to double as the ancient gate into Athens AND an old pottery site.  There were also a few tortoises, two large and one tiny.  Only one of the big ones left its shell to perform for me, and I got a good 15-20 minutes entertainment watching it slooooooowly plod from one end of a five metre strip of grass to the other.  I was a fan.

The other site that was a total necessity was the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which I had technically seen from the outside but wanted to get through the fence a bit.  It used to be an immense set of columns – a lot of columns – but only eight or so are still around.  One of them had collapsed a few decades ago in a massive storm.  Even the collapsed column was impressive, if decidedly… well… collapsed.

I went back to the park, saw a pile of turtles in a pond (they were all sitting on each others’ heads) and found the dirtiest toilet I had seen the whole time I had been in Greece.

I still had about ten hours to kill, so I went back to the hostel and tried to work on this blog entry.  Unfortunately it was not long before Emily returned from her day.  I was in a bit of a focused, selfish mood, so I responded to all her comments with rather terse, short statements.  She didn’t get the hint for around three hours, at which point I was too tired to keep writing.

I’d hoped to see Alex at the hostel again, but he didn’t show, having spent the day at the Archaeology Museum.  I left at about 9:30pm to head for the train station, planning to grab something to eat on the way.  I passed the pastry shop from the day before and bought some more of that pastry.  I mean, I hadn’t actually thought it was that good, but somehow I was craving it.  Being basically fat rolled up in dough and soaked in sugary fat, it was exceptionally rich and filling.

I still thought I ought to pick up something savoury, so went to grab a gyros from a place outside the Monastiriki metro station, from which I would catch the metro to Larissa train station.

I spotted a gyros place and headed for it, but was intercepted by a woman selling flowers.  Well… selling might not be the right word for it.  She kind of shoved a flower into my jacket and said, “Free for you, you are sexy young man.”  She was probably in her twenties, so I would have taken this as a compliment if it hadn’t immediately made me think that she was a prostitute (take note ladies, if you call me a sexy young man and give me a flower, I’m going to assume you want me to pay you for sex).  So I shoved past her, pushing the flower away, and headed into the metro station (“Free for you, free for you!” followed me the whole way).

As I was buying a ticket for the metro, a lady approached me nervously.  She was selling tissues for 0,50 euro, as well as a sob story about having lost her job.  When I declined, she looked extremely embarrassed, waving her hands and repeating, “Sorry, sorry!”  I kind of felt sorry for her – she was clearly new to the game and was probably in legitimate (recent) strife.  However, I am firm with regard to beggars, and my policy is that a) there are some who take advantage of the goodwill of others and fake it, and b) providing small amounts of money to individuals doesn’t solve the problem, and really just gives the local government an excuse not to enact some kind of decent social policy.  I did feel sorry for her though.

The metro was as simple as it had been on day one, and I soon found myself at Larissa station.  Which is basically just a small, dirty building with a few train tracks next to it.  The Greek train company is not doing so hot, as I think I mentioned previously, so a lot of services have been cut.

For the first time in my European train experience, other than on the fast train in Spain, tickets were checked BEFORE arriving on the platform.  This was kind of fortunate, as all the information I had seen previously had suggested I did not need a reservation for this train.  Turned out I did, which the (very friendly) ticket inspector indicated to me in the best English he could manage (I didn’t learn one word of Greek the whole time I was there).  The reservation was free anyway, so that hardly mattered.

The train journey was much nicer than I had expected.  Far from the train being filled with vagrants, I was accompanied in my cabin by three middle-aged, plump, wrinkly Greek men, all of whom sat in an amusing, serious row opposite me.  Unfortunately there is really no comfortable way of sitting in one of those tiny, cramped carriages for six and a half hours with four other people between midnight and six thirty (the train was late) while trying to sleep.  I was also feeling a bit weird – dehydrated and hungry, probably because I hadn’t eaten or drunk enough that day.

Some background information is required for the next part of the story.  See, I was trying to make my way to Bulgaria, the city of Plovdiv specifically.  Unfortunately, due to the Greek railway’s financial problems, all international trains had been canned.  This meant no train to get me to Bulgaria.  No worries, though!  There was a bus, and I was informed by the eurail website that the buses were organized by the railway company in tandem with a Bulgarian coach company, and that there was a ticket office somewhere in the Thessaloniki train station.  I had one-and-a-half hours to find it, buy a ticket and get on the bus.

Well.  If you’ve been following my journey from the beginning you’ll know that things have a habit of not going to plan on most of my train journeys (so far on two thirds of my transit periods something has gone wrong).  I searched all over the train station.  No ticket office for buses.  The information desk was closed, so I went and lined up at the train ticket desk and asked the guy there where the desk for international buses was.

“There are no international buses here.  Only the trains.”

Well, that didn’t help.  I walked outside the train station and saw a gigantic sign saying “International buses to Bulgaria!” on the other side of the road.

Oh, thank God, that must be it.

I got over and the office was closed.  Seeing as the one I was looking for was supposed to be open from 6am, and it was now 7am, it was clearly not the correct office.  I walked down the street, hoping for something else, but there was nothing else.

I went back across the street to a bus station directly beside the train station.  Maybe, I reasoned, the bus station will have the correct place, and it is considered part of the train station.

I went and asked the guy at the ticket desk.

“No buses here.  In the train station.”

“I asked in the train station, but they said it wasn’t in there.”

“I don’t know about tickets, I only know the buses, they come and they go.”
“Where do they go from?”

“Some go from the train station, some from the other side of the street.”

I thanked him and went for one last wander.  Worst came to worst, if I knew where the buses would be I could try and buy a ticket on the bus itself.  At this point, I happily noticed that the ticket office on the other side of the road had a light on now.  I went across and discovered that, while I had been wandering around, panicking, the office had opened.  I bought a ticket for the next bus (which ended up being cheaper and leaving at the same time anyway) and got on.  It wasn’t the one I had planned to catch, but it was good enough.

So off the bus headed towards Bulgaria, which is as good a time as any to state the fact that this story is

TO BE CONTINUED