Athens!

Coolest thing ever: flat ground! I can walk around with my 23kg backpack and 9kg day pack on, and not have to stare at the ground looking out for live electrical wires, chunks of steel and random obstacles that they love installing in Egypt! Yeah I know- I'm easily amused. Also of great value: Elevator doors you don't have to close yourself, carpet without holes, signs in English and finished buildings without rusting scaffolding stuck to the sides. Egypt was awesome, but its nice to be in a developed country with standards again! After our 7- hour delay at Cairo Airport we got a letter offering a free trip on Aegean Airlines anywhere they fly. We now have the mission of finding the longest leg that we can do and cashing that puppy in. I tried to get them to fork out for a taxi to the hotel too, but they thought a few hundred dollars of free air flights was adequate. We headed out to jump on a train and got our first introduction to the Greek alphabet. The pronunciation is nothing like what it seems, and we have now learned to not even bother. The "Sum-Of" (sigma?) symbol is pronounced as an S, as is the C with a hook on it, as is some O's. Wtf.

We checked into the YHA in the City near Larissa Station, got an intro to our roomies, ouzo and the downstairs bar and crashed for the night. The next day we met up with a solo traveller, Louise and started touring around with her. She had told her husband she was taking off on a bit of a round the world tour and no one believed her till she had bags packed and was en-route to the airport haha. After a tour around town we hit the downstairs bar again and claimed our free "Welcome drinks"- Free Ouzo by the bucket load, and your shot glass just keeps getting refilled whenever the bartender says its time for another. At 3 EUR ($6.60 AUD) for a small stubbie, the freebies were needed too! We got a direction to a cheap souvlaki place up the road and ducked out. This place couldn't have been better- The blokes spoke a few english words, but on request fired up Greek music for us, did some Greek dancing, served up awesome $3 AUD souvlakis and after giving us some freebies, sold us a couple of bottles of cheap priced nice greek wine. We left that place laughing, well blurred and stuffed, before hitting another pub where I was bought another couple of beers by Costa, a Greek grandad. I like Greece, but I'm not too sure about this being shouted drinks by blokes...

Day 2 in Athens we signed up for a walking tour of town that took in all the monuments that sadly seemed to evolve into stacks of meaningless white rocks by the end of the day- The akropolis, Platia Kotiza, Theatre of Dionysus, Roman and Greek Agoras, The odeon of Atticus, Library of Hadrian... Most of the sights I navigated our way through the day before, but today was pretty cool because we had the tour guide to give the history of the places. It was also Oci day- A Greek national day where they showed their resistance to Mussolini, so everything was free entry and the entertainment on the streets was pumping. As were the crowds, and we became the salmon swimming upstream time and time again. Bizarre trait of Greek people: Oci (said: Ochi) means No- as they say no, they nod their head as in yes. You can imagine our confusion. Enter a bakery for brekkie:"Do you sell Coffee?" Person nods their heads. We try and order coffee for 10 minutes while the baker getting frustrated with us in greek tries to explain to these idiots that dont understand what nodding your head means. Same in reverse when we finally find a coffee machine in a bakery and they ask in greek if we want 3 coffees, I nod and they stop making the coffee.

After the tour we wound up the daylight hours kicking back on a rooftop bar in our group of 6 new friends. Sipping ouzo, watching the sunset over the Acropolis and surrounding ruins as the town below us resembled a mad ant nest as the festivities of Oci day heated up with street performers and live bands entertaining huge sidewalk coffee shop-lounge bars at maximum capacity. The sidewalks and malls crowded with people dressed to kill, speckled with vendors towing huge colourful bouquets of helium baloons. Somehow I became the group GPS and led the crew back to the hostel, while looking for an open supermarket to get some cheap brews. Not possible on a public holiday we discovered, so after getting home for a shower we reassembled and headed to the Indian Cafe where I met Costa to get some coldies at less than half the price of the extortion that was the hostel bar.

This cafe was pretty cool- decorated with American Indian decor, it was only a block away from our hostel, clean and cheap and they served free tapas with every beer. I had yet another chili eating contest with yet another Canadian and we ate the place out of chilis. After my first 2 rounds, another round rocked up for all 6 of us- bought by the Albanians at the table next door, including Andre the giant in the middle of them with fingers the size of sausages and hands that could crush your puny skull with ease. To say he was intimidating is an understatement. Im not a small bloke and he put me to shame- when he went to show us how to smash a glass bottle over your own head and we heard the glass crack we all slowly backed away. I got bought another round by a couple of Greek blokes again, had a chat to them about how much they hate Albanians and the number one souvlaki place in Athens, and came back to our group to find Andre the giant scaring the crap out of Louise. Somehow I became her husband to get the giant to back off, but all that did was get him to buy me more rounds. 2-3 hours later, the bill for 6 people drinking was 20 Euro. Oh yeah- Scotch here comes in a glass for $10 AUD and you get about 7 shots in the glass. We shot off from the cafe in search of our 1.50 EUR souvlakis, but when we found them closed were heart broken. Luckily another place was still pumping at 2am, and we settled on 1.55 EUR instead. Weird as it seems- Greeks put french fries and Tzatziki in their souvlaki- its out there with Germans putting green and red cabbage in their Doner Kebabs. Still a hell of a lot better than the English "Drown everything in Heinz tomato Sauce" crap though.

A couple more free shots of Ouzo later back at the hostel, we said a goodbye to Nathaniel- the guy politely stalking Elle, the stunning bartender and crashed out.