Day 125: Athens, Greece

Few times since we left on our RTW adventure has Saben’s perpetual tardiness (I bet he heard that a lot in grade school) presented a problem. This morning we were late for our flight. Then we got to the airport and went to the wrong gate. A 15 minute shuttle bus ride later, we were finally in the right terminal but couldn’t find the gate. No one at the ”Information” (ha! now that’s a joke!) desk would help but finally 4 electronic screens and 2 useless staff members later, we spotted the specific gate (turns out ”HJK” is a building, NOT a gate! Thanks ticket printing people!).

Five dull hours later we arrived in Athens. First stop, info desk. Mission: barrage the poor multi-lingual lady there for our missing Greek phrases (World Nomads language mp3s are pretty limited). Fifteen minutes later: mission accomplished…but then we had to figure out the Greek word for exit. So we finally made it out and onto a bus that dropped us in the middle of Syntagma Square around 7pm. Despite being armed with a map, we had absolutely no idea where to go for a hostel. We hoofed it around for a while and ended up in the sketchiest part of Athens trying desperately to find a place for the night. It was getting dark fast and the only people on the street were scruffy looking young and middle aged men, most of whom tried their best to sell us all manner of drugs and prostitutes. There were literally no women of any age out and certainly no tourists. We were frustrated at not being able to find any hostels–there seemed only expensive hotels in this “hood”. Why? No idea! Anyway, we had to settle on a nicer place a whopping (painfully so) $26/pp. Of course it was nice and clean and had TV and real beds and even great pillows but it really hurt the wallet!! Even so it’s nice to not still be wandering that particular street fully loaded with packs and obviously no place to go.