Freakishly Happy

We arrived in Thessaloniki a little before midnight, without any where to stay. We walked out of the station to a street lined with several hotels. We passed one that had a HUGE flashing neon sign reading “Hotel Rex” and went on to a Best Western, Holiday Inn etc. All of those were well over 100 Euro, so we grudgingly went back to Hotel Rex, whose rates were 30 Euro for a shared bathroom. Now I forgot to mention earlier that Hotel Rex was sandwiched between two strip joints and had a sex shop in the adjoining building. It looked as though it probably rented rooms if not by the 20 minutes, at least by the hour.

After experiencing the “shared bathrooms” (at least the women’s was NASTY I can’t vouch for the men’s, we opted to spring for the 50 Euro ensuite. We crawled into bed, wearing shorts and tank tops, but after laying there for less than three minutes, we were both up and out of bed piling on as much clothing as possible before trying to sleep. John and I ended up sharing his twin mattress (in Europe most hotels have 2 twin mattresses shoved together to make a big bed, instead of just buying a big bed. Our bed here in Freiburg is this way, too…) as mine had not been rotated during it’s 20 years in usage, and had spring poking through and had a huge crater … no comment on as to why. The next morning I even woke up with several bruises on my arms, ribs and legs from where I had managed to sprawl out on my bed and had unfortunately hit a spring or two or three.

I got directions from the two bald, tattoo bedecked brothers at the front desk and John and I headed into the city. On the way we passed a wonderful market selling all kinds of things from whole lamb carcasses to half priced underwear. On the way out we had the best food of our trip. Spannikopita, Greek Spinach pies… fresh from the oven, dripping buttery flakey goodness. It was really amazing. My mouth waters just remembering it.

Then we took a stroll along the coast, and visited some Byzantine Era monuments and wandered around for a while. The city was beautiful, warm and sunny. We ventured back to the market and I bought a ¼ kilo of olives for 80 cents and we got Gyros, which I couldn’t eat after revisiting the lamb carcasses. It wouldn’t have been so bad had they not had their eyes and teeth still in. John tried to convince me that they were geese, as without their wool and skin it was hard to tell what they were, but the damage was done and my gyro, soaking with grease and covered with French fries went into the trash.

After our meal, we went hurried back to the train station. We had JUST missed the slower train bound for Athens and had to pay 70 Euros to take the “fast” train. We got some provisions and went and waited for the train.

When we got on the train, it was completely silent. John and I played a game of charades, where one person mimes something say “rabbit” and when the other person gets it, they have to mime the next word beginning with the last letter of the other person’s word, say “ tarantula.” The old men across from us and the young men sharing our seats were quite amused and or perplexed by us. The scenery on this trip was also fantastic. The sunset went down behind the mountains in a fiery blaze and we saw mount Olympus standing majestically snowcapped on the horizon.

After awhile we struck up a conversation with one of our seat mates. He said that he was a TV director in Athens but he was from Thessaloniki. We talked for a long while about all things, when the announcer came on and told us we were to be delayed. We continued talking to our new friend and we all moved into the dining car together. He taught us useful phrases in Greek, the usual, “Please” “thank you” and of course, curse words and shared with us a traditional greek cake. The train ended up being very late, over 3 hours late in fact. So much for our 70 Euros, and it being the fast train. Everyone was getting very frustrated and after awhile the entire train appeared dead as almost everyone (except for us) had fallen asleep.

We arrived in Athens well after midnight and scrambled with the rest of our late arriving train to find a cab. We were able flag one, and zipped along the streets to our hotel which was thankfully MUCH nicer than the hotel the previous night.

We awoke late the next morning and decided to take the hotel for another night, instead of heading on to a different city. We spoke for a while with the delightful concierge, before heading off to the Acropolis.

The Acropolis was pretty cool, except for the fact that it closed at 2 o’clock and we were herded out by loud and sort of scary official looking Greek women. We walked around, saw the fallen Zeus’s temple, the Olympic Stadium from the turn of the century and a lot of other really cool monuments. We tried calling our friend from the night before, but to no avail, so we ate lunch in a beautiful gardens by the palace. It was the nicest, freshest Greek salad, with plump green and black olives and huge hunks of goat cheese. Then we walked through the park some more and found a small zoo in the centre. It was really terrible. They had well over 150 ducks crammed into a small area. The ducks were going crazy and were beating the crap out of the smaller less healthy looking ducks. We threw bits of gravel on them to keep them from killing one of their brethren. At least 10 ducks and 2 geese were piled, pecking and scratching on this poor little guy. He came up from the pile with his neck completely bare, as the other had pulled off all of his feathers. I think I may call a PETA group on this zoo, as not only was there an over population problem, but there was also no water to speak of for the ducks to drink or swim in. It was really awful.

We left the park, and went back into to the main part of the city. We stumbled upon a free museum of Greek caricatures and spent a good deal of time in there. Afterwards, we bought some pastries, another spinach pie and a cheese pie. They weren’t nearly as good as the ones in Thessaloniki, but Greek pastries are all pretty much awesome. Then we went back to our hotel and rested for awhile. I called my friend Tracey, as I hadn’t really talked to her much since she’d had her baby, and my dad who told me all about his new kayak. Then we went to a traditional Greek restaurant, and absolutely stuffed ourselves silly and came back to the hotel with 2 boxes of leftovers. With fully bellies and sun kissed cheeks, we went to sleep.

The greek were way ahead of their time!

Another beautiful old church