Athens, Greece

Stepping off the plane from Cairo into Athens was like entering another universe. Tiny dresses, Eurorail, designer clothing stores… But we couldn’t enjoy the familiarity without some sort of dramatic adventure first. Wanting to save money on cabs, we decided to take the metro from the airport into downtown Athens. Great idea, until the train became so packed we could barely move, let alone hold all our luggage and maneuver it out the door. We were in physical pain from carting around our lives from the past two months, and annoyed by the stares and unhelpful attitudes of the other passengers as we struggled to depart and switch lines. We had planned to stay in a cheap hotel we found online, but once we were there it was cheaper, (read-scarier), than we realized, and we left to find my friend Hashim, who was staying in a much nicer part of the city. Hashim is one of my best friends from Persian class. He’s from Pakistan, but just graduated from UW-Madison. It was so nice that he met us to travel in Greece! Unfortunately, his passport was stolen his first day there, but he was able to get a new one the next day, (things happen quickly when your uncle is a chief minister in Pakistan). The hotel we stayed in was small, but the old Greek couple that owned it was nice and funny. We spent our first night sampling appetizers and salads, (fresh vegetables were finally safe to eat!!), and walking around the city. Athens is very pretty at night. The Acropolis is lit up, squares bustle with street musicians and vendors, the steps in front of Parliament provide a nice spot to sit and chat, and the beauty of the old buildings is shown more in the moonlight. By day, Athens actually reminded us of Irbid in some areas. A bit run down, tattered and dirty. Other areas in the center, namely the Plaka and Psiri, were slightly nicer and full of clothing stores and cafes.
Thursday morning we set out for real coffee, which after weeks of instant Nescafe was amazing, and traditional Greek raisin cinnamon breakfast rolls. Then Brianna and I shopped while Hashim took care of business at the embassy and met us to trek around Athens. Our wandering was interrupted by riots in front of Parliament. On Thursday, Greece passed a pension bill to overhaul their debt, by reducing benefits and increasing the retirement age. Central Athens were shut down, as riots estimated at about 12,000 people erupted. The best part of our trip came Thursday night when we ate at Paradosiako. The restaurants in downtown Athens were all touristy and served overpriced, not very authentic food. We wanted something better, so we looked up local reviews and found this place. The food was amazing. The Greek salad was fresh and delicious, the cod melted in our mouths, the grilled squid was excellent, as was the zucchini, octopus, and of course, fresh bread. The presentation was beautiful, and the seafood was what we had been craving for weeks. Everywhere we went in Greece, (and also often in Jordan), melon was served after the meal as a complimentary dessert. A trend I think we should adopt in the U.S.!! Along with more olive oil, hummus and falafel, my favorites. :) Friday we hopped back on the bus and actually stopped at each site. We climbed the acropolis, which was really impressive. We’ve seen a lot of ruins over the past two months, but it’s still amazing to think of the history, and how we’re taught about these places, and then to actually see them. We also stopped at Zeus’ Temple, the site of the first Olympics, and the National Gardens. These were pretty, but have nothing on Olbrich Gardens, the Arboretum, or any of my dad’s gardens…we were not impressed by them at all, but we did enjoy the turtle pond!
Saturday was our best day in Greece. We woke up early, (Brianna is getting really sick of me waking her up “freakishly early”), and took a ferry to Poros, an island about two and a half hours away from Athens. The ride was beautiful! The mountains and Mediterranean are gorgeous, and we stopped at two smaller islands on the way. The islands are much nicer than Athens, (think Mama Mia the movie), and we enjoyed a lazy day of tanning and lemonade and lunch. For once I’m actually tan– it’s a miracle!
We took the metro to the train station, said our goodbyes to Hashim, (I’m so sad he graduated and won’t be there next semester to entertain us in Farsi class), and left on the midnight train to Thessaloniki. And the next 36 hours were the worst of the entire 8 weeks. We expected our sleeper car to be small and cramped, but we did not expect to not be able to fit inside it with our luggage. So, we traded with Andy, who had a (barely) better room set up and a couch under one bed. Sunburned, tired and annoyed, we settled in to watch our pirated, only 3 euro copy of Sex and the City 2, and went to sleep. The train arrived in Thessaloniki at 7:30am, and we were told the train to Istanbul departed at 8am. At least, Andy swears that’s what he was told. But when Brianna and I went to buy tickets, we found it was 8pm, and thus we had 12 hours to waste. Fuming, and annoyed that Andy had gotten this wrong, we left him on the platform to watch our luggage while we explored the city. In hindsight, this was a little mean, but we were tired, dirty, our clothes were severely wrinkled, our sunburns killing us, our luggage much too heavy to drag around… Besides, we needed a place to stay in Istanbul, so we went in search of Internet, convincing ourselves we were doing Andy a favor. Internet is hard to find in Greece, which surprised us. It was easier to find in Jordan. Finally, after asking many people, after several awkward language barrier encounters, after espresso at a café that said it had Internet but didn’t, after wandering around and holding up Brianna’s phone trying to get a signal, we found wireless. BUT, the restaurant wasn’t opened because it was Sunday, and Greece is very Orthodox and NOTHING was opened on Sunday. Luckily, the owner was sitting outside and he let us sit at an outdoor table and use the Internet anyway. We found a really nice hotel in Istanbul for almost half-price on a last minute Web site, and in much better moods went for a walk by the water. We walked, got ice cream, and started the 45 minute trek back to the train station, our sunburned shoulders in pain at each step and movement of our bags. Then…we waited. For 5 hours. In a train station with nothing to do. Finally 7:40 pm arrived, and we crawled into another small car, finished our movie and slept. We woke up at 4am to banging on the doors and “PASSPOOORTS” being yelled in thick Turkish accents. We handed ours to the conductor that came to our door with our eyes still closed, only to be woken up a few minutes later to have them returned. And then a few minutes later again to have them taken away. Then, we were forced out of the train to a hut on the side of the tracks at four in the morning in our pajamas, in the cold, on the border of Greece and Turkey with nothing around us for miles. Bewildered, half-asleep and kind of nervous, we stood and shivered until we could pay for our visas and go back to sleep. But in another half hour we were woken up for a customs check. And lastly, to have our passports returned. Moral of the story: DO NOT take overnight trains, especially across borders, especially when the night before you could only sleep one hour due to another train experience. From wherever the train stopped, we had to take a bus to Istanbul. This was supposed to take an hour, but took two. Finally, we arrived, and took a cab to our hotel. From here, the trip, and our moods, improved greatly.