After a 6 hour bus trip from Sevilla to Madrid and an overnight sleepover in Madrid’s airport, I finally was off to Athens, Greece which would be the amazing entry port to my Greece experience. As I have found in many European cities, modernization has seemed to consume every corner leaving very few neighborhoods to spare. Of course, the city like atmosphere gave us our welcome between our bus and subway rides to our hostel and all the people who seemed to be in a rush to get nowhere (much like New York). Nevertheless, we found our hostel on a little street fairly close to the subway stop, entered the room and officially declared it our worst hostel experience in Europe (little did we know, Mykonos’ Paradise “Resort” would give that title a run for its money, more on that in my next blog post). The woman seemed like she had no idea we had a reservation, how much we were supposed to be charged, or when we were scheduled to arrive/leave. Secondly, there is one key for our 6 person bed room, for us to share with complete strangers. Supposedly the system is that the last person in the hostel leaves the key at the front desk and the first person to go back in to the hostel retrieves it…this must be a Greek system because every hostel we stayed at in Spain would never suggest such foolishness. To make matters worse, as my friend Tammy sat on the bottom bed of one of the bunk beds, a wooden board fell from the top bunk bed and hit her on the back of the neck (no worries, she’s fine), we weren’t exactly pleased. Then the random hip hop songs being blasted by other Americans in the morning trying to “show off” their American culture to our Greek receptionists…I was about ready to cuss some one out! But we toughed it out, it was only three nights and we were too excited to be in Greece to let anything or anyone ruin it. So the following day, we did our site seeing around Athens, visiting the amazing Acropolis, Ancient Agora, and Temple of Olympian Zeus. As you’ll see in the pictures, the history in Athens is absolutely amazing, and definitely something I recommend for anyone traveling to Europe.

Now I had to start a new paragraph for this because yes it’s that serious, GREEK FOOD IS DEEEEELLLLIIIICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok had to be dramatic, because for the first time in months I experienced great customer service and great food. The Spanish are far too lazy to deliver anything close to American customer service, so being in Greece was refreshing. I ate an awesome Greek omelet for my first breakfast with FRESH fetta cheese, tomatoes and sausages. For dinner, I had the tenderest lamb cutlets wrapped in ivy leaves with fetta cheese and mushrooms in the middle, delicious gravy of olive oil and something the chef wouldn’t reveal, potatoes and rice. I literally felt like I had to be rolled away from the table and Greeks have this custom of giving free dessert after every meal, so it’d be rude not to eat it when it’s given to you. Let’s just say, I was STUFFED by the time I backed away.

Our last day in Athens was fairly simple mostly because we just went to the ship port, picked up our tickets, ate another great meal, and then returned to our hostel. We were way too excited about leaving for the Greek islands because after you see all the ancient history in Athens, it’s just another city like New York. In all, I have to say site seeing around Athens was one of the highlights of my abroad experience, it’s something I’ll be able to tell my kids that I saw and hopefully one day they’ll get to revisit it and continue the traveling legacy.