Friday 3-06 - Greece

We got up and packed and said our farewells to Israel. We grabbed prepackaged Momos´ pastries and grabbed the bus for the train station. I considered how I had hardly a thought about bus safety the whole time I was here. I hadn't really worried about bombers or attacks. We sat at platform 6 of the station, waiting for the train to the airport. A few minutes before it was due we heard an announcement over the loud speaker ¨the train to Ben Gurion Airport leaves from platform 3¨. So we hurried up the stairs to get to the right platform and got there just as the train was pulling in. Phew.

During my waiting time I started flicking through the greek section of the phrase book. The alphabet is Cyrillic there, was I attempted to memorise the new letters and their sounds. They have capital and lower case letters, so there was a bunch to learn. Most I recognised from my days in maths and chemistry. Delta and alpha and sigma and so forth.

At the airport we decided to save the pastries for a later snack and have actual food. Josh got McDonalds and I had a mushroom omlette and salad. It felt really great to have decent food with some diversity.



In Greece we set out looking for another train. The metro line to Syntagma square, where our hotel was located. The trains were really nice and clean. The square is the central part of Plaka, the main tourist area. We saw it had free wi-fi thourgh out the park. I thought we might come backlater.



It was blinding hot and we were lost. The maps in the square didn't have our street labelled. The train station information desk wouldn't help us, as it wasn´t train related. We found an upscale hotel and asked there. Finally someone helpful. We found the Hotel Achilleas who then directed us to their sister hotel, Hotel Plaka. The man at the desk was nice and showed us on a map how to get there.

The rooms were good, I had been missing rooms like this.



We cleaned up and went to explore. Our initial plan had been to find a cinema and see if the Hulk movie had come out here. Also a supermarket. We walked around in the afternoon, but found neither. I was feeling hot,tired and despondent. We returned to hotel for Ozymandias and went to use the squares wi-fi. It was a 5 minute walk from the the hotel.



We checked our mail and set off to do more exploring. We found some shopping areas with small cinemas with some old English movies.



For dinner we strolled around west of the square, on the egde of the acroplois. In that area there are markets. They were closed when we got there. We passed through empty streets like in Jerusalem. I imagined that the streets would be more lively and market-like during the day. We could see temples on the mountains above. They were brightly lit against the dark sky. You could them from anywhere in the area. It was so atmospheric.



We got to a long street on tavernas and restaurants. It seemed to stretch on forever with tiny tables taking up most of the open street and leaving a small path down the centre. One side of the street was cafes and the other side was greek ruins. The columns were lit up and glowed.

I loved the vibe of the street. Well, except for the disney-style train with tourist trams that barged their way down the street every few minutes. It spoilt the street a bit.



We found this cafe-restaurant grill place. We got chicken gyros (cheap, 1.80eu), red wine and beer (also cheap). The gyros were so, so,so good. The pita wrap was flavoured and toasted. The chicken was properly grilled. There was a tzatziki style sauce. and salad in it. And then chips in the pita also. Yum.





We only got to eat at about 10pm,but thats when everyone else started turning up to the cafes. They stay out late here..