2004.09.29 in Athens

I forgot to change the time on our alarm ahead 1 hour now that we were in Greece - so we actually woke up later than planned. My bad! Instead of going on Gary's walking tour for 15 euros we decided to explore Athens ourselves (we already missed the tour's start time anyway). We took the city's brand new metro system which is very nice for such a ghetto-looking city. The stations and trains are all very clean and advertisement-free! Before every station stop, you can hear automated English & Greek notifications. Thanks to a tip Gary told us the night before at the train station, we were able to enter the ancient Greek monuments and attractions for free! Show your ISIC card and say that you're studying in the UK - EU students are entitled to free admission! And "University of Waterloo" as written on my ISIC sounds like a bre-ish school, too! So we saved a bit of money by not going on a tour and avoiding admission fees. Coincidentally, we later ran into Gary giving his tour as his group went up to explore the Acropolis. He's a funny South African guy who lived in Australia (we thought he was an Aussie based on his accent) and he entertained us for a bit on what to do when the locals can't help but stare at you...

After a few hours of walking around in the hot sun (feels like 30 degrees C here) we were basically able to visit all the major attractions of Athens. They're situated in close proximity so it doesn't take a lot of time or effort to see them in a day. We ventured towards the main urban shopping district and had some good souvlaki pitas at a nice chain restaurant called Pita Pan Souvlaki. It was just past 16:00 and Janelle and I wanted to go to the nearby AmEx office to exchange some travellers cheques. We got there and it was already closed! 4pm on a Wednesday! They weren't the only ones as we noticed a lot of other retailers were closed, too. Craziness.

Walked back to the hostel by 17:00 and Le finally got our pictures burned while I got my head shaved and Janelle picked up our Santorini accomodation package... BTW, finding a place to get our pictures burned for a reasonable price was the most ridiculous in this city. Photo CD burning shops around town were charging from 7 euros to 10 euros PER memory card - our 3 memory cards could fit onto 1 700MB CD - instead of charging per disc. Le had a frustrating time getting our pics burned at the net cafe near our hostel - but at least it was only 2 euro PER CD. It was funny how I had to explain to this hair salon assistant that I wanted my hair to be trimmed really short (but not Bic'd). He explained that this type of hair cut (for 11 euros!) isn't normal around here and I noticed the hairdresser having a fun time shaving off my hair. I was in good spirits as some Black Eyed Peas, Outkast, and other American exports blared in the background...

FYI: Get used to seeing stray dogs and cats roaming the city - they're everywhere along with their feces.

Boarded our ferry (operated by Hellas Flying Dolphins) to Santorini (aka Thira) at 20:00. The three of us along with two American girls (also recent grads) who had also stayed in our hostel rented a DVD & a portable player for 10 euros (2 each) to kill some time...