Despite the fact that I wokeup a million times during the night I did wake-up to see the sunrise. It was incredible! Don't you think so?
Enjoying the quiet sunrise. Well, it was quiet other than the engine. Oh, well. *shrug*
I like lighthouses! This one is in such a cool place too!
The picture doesn't do it justice! The Greek coastline was beautiful!!
Choi and I enjoying a very windy deck! Not only was the boat moving, but it was a very windy spot that day on the sea. :-)
Feakin' awesome bridge by Patras! Rumor has it that it is the longest supension bridge in the world.
That's Patras in the distance!
The streets of downtown Patras.
Our train to Athens... I mean some random small village. Opps. The girls put it so nicely, "It looks like a retired New York subway car! Hehehe...
The girls from NYC studying in Paris.
There is snow on the mountains in Greece. Who would have thunk? I was even told a couple times that I missed a crazy amount of snow that snowed the previous week. It was a beautiful train ride until we were told by the conductor that we were going the wrong way, because then it turned into a beautiful adventure!
There goes the train... leaving us at some random little train station. The train station that had a small schedule written in Greek on it. We tried to ask a boy on a bike what time the train was coming back, but it ends up all he knew in English really was, "See ya later, dude!" Oh geeze.
So, Kate's brilliant idea originally was to ask an English teacher at the school how to get back to Patras, but then I realized that there is no school on Sunday. Bah! So we ended up asking these kids playing basketball. I figure they were about our age. This is how the conversation went: "Do you speak English?"
"Yes, a little."
"Okay. How do we get back to Patras?"
"You can take train, but that take very long."
"How about the bus? Does the bus go from around here somewhere?"
"Yes, yes,...(then all in Greek amongist themselves)... across the street... bus stop... every hour."
"Thank you."
Oh my goodness talking to people that do not speak very much of your language can be tiring. No wonder no one in Austria talked to me for a while when I first arrived in Austria my first time. :-)
The small little village we got lost in. When I figure out the name of it I'll tell you. :-)
Sitting and waiting for the bus to come. And if you squint really hard you can see the Superfast Ferry in the water. :-)
The right train! It does look better! I wish I had got a picture of the small train station in the little town we got lost in.
We did finally get there and after a nice search for the hostel we got there too. A nice Greek man who work there even gave Choi and me direction to a good place to eat... let's see if we can find it; it's all Greek to me. My mom would do well here, as Choi said while we were there, "everything looks like a mathematical equation." :-)
Not the place that the guy at the hostel had directed us to apparently, but after searching for what seemed like forever we thought we had finally found it. We still had a wonderful dinner though. When we walked in the guy told us straight-up that they only had seafood. Choi and I were perfectly fine with that, so we ordered a Greek salad and some shrimp. OH was it good! I did however spend the whole night trying to figure out the dinner culture of the Greeks. Hehe... I'm such a dork.
The room I stayed in... looks nice, but really I had a horible night. Cold and noisy, yuck!!
The Parthenon.
A theatre below the Acropolis that is used to this day by artists such as Elton John etc. (I can't remember the other names I heard).
Entrance to the theatre.
Me and the city of Athens.
Entrance to the Acropolis.
Athens is a HUGE city. It was named after the Greek Goddess Athena. The story goes that when the city was first being named and the temple was being built the Greek Gods Posseidon and Athena gave gifts to the city. Posseidon took his trident and created a spring from which water came endlessly and Athena gave an Olive tree. Since the Olive tree was a sign of peace and was created not by a weapon the citizen decided to name the city after Athena; Athens.
The stone hill where Saint Paul preached from.
Lazy stray guard dog at the Acropolis. :-)
Marble column of the temple of Athena Nike.
At the Parthenon. :-) The people I met here helped me to decide where I was going to stay for the night. Yay!
The Temple of Olympian Zeus.
Theatre of Dionysus which used to hold over 5,000 people. I thought it was pretty cool.
The Erechtheion of the Acropolis. The six maidens supporting the roof of the porch are the Caratids.
One of the little streets I got lost on. At least it's a cool little street that you could see the Parthenon from.
This the a subway station in Athens. You can't really tell, but across the way when they found ruins in the subway as they were building it they built around the ruins and put up glass where the ruins are so that everyone can see them. It's super cool!!
My new room at the Electra Palace. Yes, I'm pampering myself. I deserve it after the last place I stayed.
Tourist Athens is much nicer than the actual city.
The cool litte cafe I had lunch at and talked to some American exchange students that are speninding a semester in Greece and a semester in Itally.
