Athens: Land of Raki, Beards, Souvlaki, Islands, Krystal, and Olympian Gods

In exploring this great continent, it’s no surprise that this past Friday I landed in Athens, Greece with my roommates Sarah and Courtney.  This was a trip that I needed some encouragement to join them for.  For whatever reason, I had decided that Greece was not a place I needed to see right now.  I’ll forever be grateful that they changed my mind, as Athens was exactly what I needed for a perfect weekend of travel.

I’ll be honest, beyond the ancient ruins and the nicer areas of the city, the scenery of Athens does not appeal to me.  I much prefer the coziness of Dublin to the arid city of Athens, but after some initial disappointment—the outer areas of Athens (where we were staying), and its port Piraeus have striking similarity to some areas of Florida—I found beauty in this place. 

Our CouchSurfing host! The amazing Kostas!
(bad pic, but it's all I got)

This trip marked my first attempt at diving into CouchSurfing.  The whole premise of CSing is that you contact a local who lives in the city you are looking to travel to, and stay in their apartment (free of charge!).  To anyone who reads that description blindly, it might sound sketchy, but there are online profiles where you can look at someone’s pictures, their references and reviews, learn about them and their experience—it’s not completely random!  Obviously, as a broke college student, I am completely drawn to the idea of a free place to stay, but I like the idea of CouchSurfing down to the core values that it promotes.  CouchSurfing connects (somewhat likeminded) people from all over the world, allows us to share ideas and culture, and allows travelers to see a place through the eyes of a local.  

What’s not to love? 

Street market:
crazy, loud, fresh!

We had trouble getting in contact with our host, Kostas (my fault, not his—problem solved with Sarah’s smart phone!), but after this initial trouble, the weekend proceeded to go perfectly!  After settling in and meeting his roommate Thanases, we all went out to a local and cheap souvlaki place for some great Greek street food.  That night we were introduced to a traditional alcohol called raki.  It is very strong, and extremely pure compared to all other spirits; I liked it best when Kostas served it hot with honey!  It was amazing!  That night, we went out with Kostas, Thanases, and their friends to a really fun bar called Transistor where we sat outside on a small street right off Monastiraki Square (a central point in Athens).  We had great conversation while we were out, learning about Kostas’ travels to Nepal, his 22 years of experience in motocross, and the past six years that he’s explored contemporary dance, as well as Thanases’ crazy MMA training experiences in China!  We were really lucky to be hosted by such great guys, who gave us blankets and mattresses to put on the floor, and trusted us enough to give us free reign of keys to their apartment for the weekend. 

Me, Sarah, and the view from halfway up!

On Saturday, we were recommended by Kostas’ outgoing couch surfer (a girl named Keren from Israel, Kostas has hosted over 20 groups of people this past summer) to take a walk through a park, up to Likavittos Hill, which she said had the best view of Athens.  She made this journey sound like a casual stroll, so after getting some food at the local street market, we set off for the park.  To our surprise, this walk suddenly became a hike.  After struggling for who knows how long, our sweat paid off!  We were surprised by the gorgeous views that surrounded us, and the chapel of St. George, which was equally as beautiful.  We cooled off in the nice breeze, and ventured downwards, stopping on the way to carve out initials into a cactus plant, as many before us had done. 

All the way at the top of Likavittos Hill!

cacti carvings!

Greek Salad in Greece! 

View of the Acropolis from Mars Hill

After this adventure, we made our way to the port of Piraeus for a great lunch—authentic Greek salad for me!  Before going back towards Monastiraki to look for souvenirs.  We decided to walk around, and we found ourselves in yet another park that we eagerly entered, following dirt paths until suddenly we were on top of a hill.  We later found out that this is known as Areopagus, or Mars Hill.  From Mars Hill we could see the Acropolis.  All lit up at night, the Acropolis is absolutely amazing.  We had a gorgeous view of both Athens and the Acropolis, and were very happy about this, but hunger pains set in after a long and exhausting day of exploration, so we went back to the apartment to shower and make dinner.  Another great thing about CouchSurfing: you save money on food and get to cook delicious meals!  We made bowtie pasta with zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and feta—a dish I definitely need to recreate some day soon!

Grub

Court and Sarah
causing major ruckus
on the boat! 

 After dinner, Thanases came home from work, and we spent the night happily hanging out in the apartment and relaxing before passing out: we had big plans for Sunday.  It felt like we woke with the sun on Sunday as we left the apartment super early to make a trip to the small Greek island of Agistri.  Kostas recommended this island to us, saying that it was his favorite (and the most beautiful) local island.  After hearing about how great the island life is, we were so excited to see it with our own eyes.  The island greeted us with the cliché white-wall and blue-roof church that must be required for all Greek islands.  It was breathtaking, and set the bar for the rest of the scenery.  All of my expectations were surpassed by this trip. 

First view of Agistri! Woah.

Ghost town!

Agistri was a ghost town in the best way.  It’s easy to imagine the hustle and bustle of the villages during the 5-month tourist season, but we saw an empty and closed-down town with many stray cats and dogs, the occasional person on a scooter, and a couple other locals.  We were lucky to have visited the island on such a perfect beach day, as it felt like summer.  It was so warm and beautiful that had we brought our bathing suits, we would have swam in the impossibly blue waters of the Aegean Sea.  We put our feet in and stayed on the beach for a while before finding one of two open restaurants on the beach!  We sat on the beach, and had an incredible meal before feeding our scraps to some of the strays.  All of this was so relaxing that I swear my heart was barely beating.  I have not felt that way in a long time, it was incredible! 

Quick dip in the water...

Da Church

The clearest water I ever did see! 

Doing our thing on the beach! 

Krystal and Mama

"Don't leave me here!"

By this time, it was time for us to head back to the port—a good 30-minute walk, to make sure that we could catch the last boat back.  On the way, a tiny kitten turned the corner and it was love at first sight.  I coaxed the kitten towards me, and picked her up.  She was so gentle and loving, and her eyes were crystal blue—prompting me to name her Krystal.  After 10 minutes of obsession and cuddling, Courtney and Sarah had to pull me away.  I would have brought her back to Budapest if I could.  She did not want me to leave (I didn’t want to either) and tried to follow me down the street.  I’m not a cat person (making this all the more surprising)—but it hurt me to hear her meows.  

Walking to the port! 

Little port

Arriving back in Athens, we reminisced about the day for a while before meeting up with Kostas for dinner.  He drove us to a pizza shop and we got pizza and drinks to go.  From there, Kostas drove us up a mountain on the edge of the city.  We ate our food and stood there in awe of the beautiful nightscape before driving back to his apartment where we hung out with Thanases and some of their other friends before going to bed.

View from A for Athens

Our Monday started even earlier than Sunday.  After an early buffet-style breakfast on the top floor of a hotel with an amazing view called A for Athens, we hiked up to the Acropolis for a tour of the ancient ruins.  The best part of this grueling walk was being accompanied by a dog we named bRuno all the way into the gate of the Acropolis: he actually followed us for the entire twenty minutes.  We started at the top of the hill, touring the Propylaia (impressive main gate), looking down on the Theater of Herod Atticus, the Parthenon, and the Temple of Nike.  

Theater of Herod Atticus

Parthenon Chillin'

Restoration

It was both disappointing and amazing to see all of the restoration they were doing—I think it’s so important to do this work, but as an obnoxious tourist, I didn’t like that it took away from the view! After spending so much of my life studying Latin, this was a crazy and meaningful experience for me.  We also got to see, and sit in the Theatre of Dionysus before going to the Temple of Zeus.  The Temple of Zeus was HUGE, and there aren’t too many pillars left, but it is awesome to let your imagination go wild thinking about what it was like in its heyday. 

Sitting with everyone at the Theater of Dionysus

Temple of Zeus! Huge!

In the Ancient Agora,
looking at the
Temple of Hephaistos

We ended this excursion with a walk around the Ancient and Roman Agoras – the commercial centers of the city during the different periods.  Some areas of the ruins are much more intact than others, but all of it was amazing.  In some of the areas of the Agora, you can see from a temple, through the marketplace, to the theater and up the Acropolis to the Parthenon…it’s not hard to understand how the city worked and what it may have looked like.  

View from steps of the Temple of Hephaistos

All of it was unreal.  From the islands, to the ruins, to Kostas and Thanases, the souvlaki, and of course, Krystal, this weekend was magical and definitely put me in a good state of mind to prepare for the midterm and my upcoming trip to Krakow, Poland.

Live and Learn. 

(ζουν και μαθαίνουν)

Playing on the Beach!