Eurotrip: Athens (or the city of dogs, pretending to be dead)

BY FAR my favorite. Absolutely fell in love with Athens. We flew in around 13:00 and met up with our host, Jannis. He showed up his apartment. So amazing! It was one of the nicer apartments I've been in. We had our own room and and had full use of the kitchen. He unfortunately had no coffee machine...
Anyway, he was a yoga instructor so he couldn't really show us around but gave us all sorts of tips and maps. He was also in his 40s so I guess we would have gone to different joints to hang out in but the maps and tips were incredibly helpful. The first day we unpacked, went to dinner at this Greek restuaurant whose name I don't remember, nor could I spell it cuz it was in Greek. By the way, Greek is a ridiculous language! Since LC has no Greek system, I have never had a reason to learn the letters of the Greek alphabet and I had a lot of fun walking around looking at funny shaped letters that looked like toys to me. Jana didn't find the letters nearly as amusing or confusing as I did, but she's in a sorority and deals with them in math so she had seen them before. Me. no idea. Really want to learn the Greek alphabet though.
Regardless that was so off-topic. The Greek restuarant was really good and the feta cheese in Greece in unbelievably good! It helps that I love cheese, but the feta was amazing. Anyway, got dinner that night, walked around the area where Jannis lived, found a bank and then came back and watched a movie and passed out.
The next day was Wednesday. This was important because Wednesday happened to be the day when everyone in Athens was on strike to get better wages. Great for them, bad for tourists. Jana and I walked around more of Athens, walked up to the Parthenon but it was closed due to the strike. We walked to Zeus's Temple, which was also closed due to the strike. We then walked to the Stadium, that had been renovated for the Olympics and is never closed to observers. It is closed to work out in, but we just wanted to look at it so everything was ok. We also saw FC Barcelona there. Really cool. From there we walked to the top of Lycabettus Hill. Three remarkable things about it: 1) The walk to the top of Lycabettus Hill is very long and constantly uphill. 2) The view of Athens from the top is one of the most jaw-dropping things I've ever seen. It was so pretty! The only minor downside is that there was a minor layer of pollution but it was still beautiful. 3) We saw three turtles on the walk up and down. Three! We asked someone about the turtles later and they said they hadn't seen one in a couple of years. Maybe we just got lucky.
Anyway, we got done admiring the view and walked down to catch a bus to Syntagma, the main square in Athens. We finally made it into the square after some directional issues and ate dinner at another good restuarant that I can't write down. Getting home from there was the fun part. So...this is still Wednesday. Which means the entire city was still on strike. Which meant none of the subways were running. Which meant we were more or less stranded in the middle of Syntagma where all of the signs were written in a language with a different alphabet. We ended up working past all of these roadblocks and finally catching a bus to our stop. However, we couldn't really tell where our stop was so we ended up getting off two stops early and had to walk to our stop. And once we got there, we realized we didn't recognize anything cuz we normally got there by subway and not by bus. We resorted to calling Jannis and he gave us directions, which were actually amazingly simple. Life is never dull when Jana and I travel.The next day we successfully went to the Parthenon, where we discovered that entrance to any historical site in Athens is free if you are a student at a European university. Go us. So we walked around the Parthenon, saw the Theatre of Dionysus, and drank in the beauty of the ancient Greek ruins. It was amazing. I loved all of it. And the day was beautiful and clear so it made walking around enjoyable. After that, we explored the area at the base of the Parthenon, including Ancient Agora. Another really beautiful experience. I even did push-ups in the former Roman gymnasium. I'm so cool. :) Ancient Agora was the old city/city center. It was really cool to walk around. Like most of ancient Athens, a lot of Ancient Agora was in ruins but it was still neat. I prefer old Greek churches to most European styles of architecture. The only downer to this day was that Jana's wallet got stolen. Whoever stole it was really sneaky because we can't figure out how they ever got a chance or could fit their hand in her bag. But somehow her wallet dissappeared.
On Friday, we visited the Acropolis musuem. Really cool! They have a reanimation of the history of the Parthenon and what it would have looked like when it was first built. There was also all sorts of artifacts and little tidbits about Greek history. I really enjoyed the musuem a lot. Also, it was interesting because the musuem was built on ruins, what archeologists believe to be part of the ancient road of Greece, and you walk over clear glass panels to look onto the ruins below you. Quite a unique experience. After that we went to the beach and spent a couple hours there. Except for a really creepy encounter with one dude, it was a great afternoon. We "swam " in the Mediterrean (February = cold water. Shock right?), drank wine, hung out, and just relaxed. It felt so good. And watching the sunset over the Mediterrean was amazing! So pretty...I never wanted to leave. Except the sun did actually set and it got cold, so that was kind of a buzz kill.Anyway, Saturday was (supposed to be) our last day in Athens. So we got up early, walked to the Temple of Zeus and explored that area for a little bit. It was cool to see but almost completely destroyed so there wasn't as much as I wanted there to be but still cool. We went back to Jannis's, got our bags and went to the airport.
Here's where it gets fun. So supposed to be our last day? Turns out we had misread the time
when our flight was and so we got to the airport right as it was taking off. Needless to say, I was livid. I had had a great time on the trip, it was amazing and fun and excited and I learned a lot, but I was ready to go home. I wanted my own room, different clothes, etc. So we sitting in the airport trying to figure out how to get home, me trying to control my temper. Turns out the only thing that we can swing financially is getting on the next EastJet flight the next day (Sunday) and spending another night in Athens. Cool.
As luck would have it, there happened to be a CS meet that night in Athens. So we roll up with all our shit and we're tired and hungry and I'm still sort of angry and start talking to all these people. We meet Tareq and Elias, who kindly offer to let us stay with them for the night and take us out to a club. So we drive out to their place, the others go out and I stay in cuz I was too tired to go out.
Anyway, the next day we pack our bags, head to the airport and FINALLY get to Berlin. It was cheaper to fly to Berlin than it was to fly to Munich, cuz Munich is annoying that way. So it then takes us all of Monday to get back to Munich (the day Jana was supposed to start work) and when we finally got back, I was so happy. I've never been happier to see Stusta. It was a convulated, exciting, and frustrating adventure at the end of our amazing trip. So many good stories and memories, even the ones that were less-than-positive at the time.