One Rainy Day in Athens.

I woke up to sunshine, which was very welcome! It was supposed to rain all day, even thunderstorm, but it was nice so far :)

I got ready slowly, while talking to Josh. He and Jon were already in Athens, so that was cool. They were going to take off and see some sights, then take a ferry to Mykonos the next morning. I was to text them whenever I went into the city.

I had no phone to do that, so I'd have to get a phone number first. I went out the door and made my way to the bus stop. I still had that one Euro to take the bus in. When I got to the bus stop however, I was told by a nice woman that the buses were on strike today until 5pm, so there was no bus!

I was pretty far away from the metro. Even for my standards. I didn't feel like sitting around the house until 5pm though, so I had little else to do but start following the bus stops mapless into the city.

It had started to rain. Turns out living on a hill in Athens when it's raining means that the streets are insanely flooded and there is no way to cross the street except to jump across in water up to your ankles (I am not exaggerating!). I was soaked in no time. I had left my umbrella in the cab the night before, so I was borrowing Alexia's!

I walked and walked and walked. I stopped into a phone store, but they wanted my passport to get a SIM card, so I couldn't get a phone. That worried me, since I had no way of getting a hold of Jon and Josh now. They had a Canadian phone so I couldn't harass people to let me send a text or call local.

I continued to walk. The phone people thought I was nuts to try and walk to the metro. It was another 5k there or something. I did it though, and made it into the city center!

I walked around trying to remember the name of the hotel they were staying at. I took a photo of this church while I was acquiring a map and such:



I wasn't going to remember so I figured best to just explore and go to some sights myself! The most obvious one is the Acropolis. I wandered some streets in the old town making my way towards the mountain. I walked near some charming white houses on the way up:





The view from the top was spectacular, but it looks rather dreary in the picture. The rain was making it dark and misty. There was a Chinese tour group there, but not many other people. It was kind of cool to run around in the rain:



The clouds actually made for a cool intense look for the Pantheon I thought!



here is another angle:



I tried a couple shots doing the "hold the camera out" thing... I think it worked!



Now here I was walking back down, and you see the pink umbrella? I went over to her and started talking to her:



I asked her if I could borrow her phone if I gave her 50 cent for an international text. Turns out she had no phone to use, so that sucked. We did keep chatting though, and since she was also traveling alone, we decided to walk around together.



Turns out the girl was from Argentina! She was working in Rome, so she learned Italian and worked in an ice cream shop :)



We walked to a rocky thing and it had some nice views as well:



Too bad the weather disrupted the picture:



I tried to edit the photo to make it clearer:



Next we walked to the ancient Agora. There was a museum there with these lion heads on the roof. They were spouting out water off the roof - even thousands of years old this still worked! It was so amazing to see; I was even a little happy it was raining!

It was hard to get a shot of it though:



Sofie, the Argentinian girl, was super impressed with all the old statues. I was as well of course! She would look at all the names though, and exclaim how old they were and took more photos than me:



We continued to wander. Being around her was forcing me to appreciate where I was more, which was good. Normally the weather would be coercing me to gun through the place taking photos and walking super fast. I slowed down, enjoyed, and absorbed:





There was a mini pantheon thing here!



Here I am! I could get a photo in!



So after the Agora it was time to check the internet to see if there was any news from my friends from Vancouver. There was a free internet spot in a store in the center of town, so we walked there to check it out. We found these computers in a little nook! We finally got it to work, and it turns out that my friends were at the hard rock cafe very close to our computer nook. I ran out but they weren't there! I checked their hotel next since I had looked up where it was, but they were not there either...

I had no idea what to do next. I went back to the computer nook but the girl was gone and the computers were in use. I stood around and tried to use my phone again. Somehow the Hungarian number sent a message (it hadn't the last 4 times I tried to use it) and I got a response saying they were in the lobby! I went to meet them and we went for food and beer.

I hadn't eaten all day, so one beer got to me while I ate my sandwich. They were going to Mykonos by ferry at 730am, so I had to get back to see if I could even get there in time... The timing would be perfect for Theresa and Lucien's arrival, but would I make it?

I went back to the house and got online. Law and Order was on TV, so I watched that and Sex and the City with Alexia and Dimitris while I talked to Jon online figuring out what to do.

The dog was being so cute with it's favourite pillow:



So the weather was looking iffy for our potential locations. There was, however, a flight to a different island named Cyprus for almost the same price as a ferry! It was only ten euros different, but the weather was ten degrees warmer. It also left at 1pm, so nobody had to wake up early. I was told to meet them at the hotel at 10am to go to the airport. I went to bed with a new island to go to tomorrow.