Today was journey-to-Athens day! Not a part of the world I’d been before and I was quite excited.

My flight was at 8.45am. This had seemed like an excellent idea when I booked it – take an early flight, they said; land early enough to get something out of the day, they said. However, getting up at 5.30am after four hours sleep (caused by an excellent early Christmas dinner at friends the night before) is unpleasant at best.

Nevertheless, and showing a marked improvement over both of my recent trips, I did manage to get up on time and catch the right bus to get me to the airport. It will take more than being very much the worse for wear from the night before to defeat me! And I even had time to say goodbye properly to Erin this time.

I’m pretty sure I was still asleep going through security but coffee was had directly afterwards. I’d have taken it straight into the bloodstream if Pret had that option but I think that’s only on their hidden menu. I haven’t re-read yesterday’s blog post, actually, but it was composed while drinking the coffee and waiting to board my flight. If it a) is a bit scattered and b) perhaps improves towards the end then now you know why!

(As an aside, this is also when I learned that Facebook doesn’t detect the feature image in WordPress posts by default, which is why yesterday’s post’s shared image on FB is the boring one of my bag!)

Got on my flight. We flew for a bit (4 hours). We landed.

In a weird coincidence I ran into one of my former work colleagues when disembarking; he was coming to Athens to run a marathon (because he’s clearly mad). Continuing the coincidence he’s continuing on to Istanbul afterwards and I’m pretty sure he’ll be on the same flight as me on Wednesday. I think this is just proof that my paranoia is justified.

Challenge #1 of Athens: figure out how trains work. The metro maps appeared to be in the Greek alphabet, Google Maps was also in that alphabet which made it impossible to search, but my instructions for how to reach my accommodation were in the Roman-alphabetised version of Greek. Fun! I managed it in the end, though, frustrating and confusing a ticket kiosk woman in the process.

Got the blue metro line all the way in to Syntagma Square, one of the main squares – it’s at the start of the main shopping street, in front of parliament buildings, that kind of thing. I could change metros here and get to a station closer to where I was going but I wanted to get my bearings a bit so I figured I’d walk from there instead. It’s something I like to do in general but also specifically to get to grips with how a place hangs together geographically instead of blindly relying on public transport all the time.

On the way out of Syntagma station I came across a small food festival market-type thing – excellent! I may have grazed a reasonable amount on their free samples of delicious stuff.

Walk time! The airbnb place was roughly 1km away, the weather was quite pleasant, and I got to wander alongside some very ancient-looking ruins and columns and stuff. Athens, living up to expectations!

Ah, yes, right; now’s probably a good time to explain where I was staying! As my first foray into using airbnb I’d come across what looked like a very intriguing place in Athens – someone with a big dorm room (similar to a hostel) who only wanted €6 per night to stay. The reviews of it were quite good, even including stuff like the host (Antonio) regularly cooking for the guests and showing them around the city. It did sound very casual and relaxed besides, and probably not the tidiest of places, but at the price it definitely sounded interesting enough to try!

Right, back to the story. I was now outside the address where I’d been directed. I’m a little later than hoped (4.45 rather than 4), mainly due to the flight being a bit delayed and also because of my walk. Antonio had said he’d be waiting in the house for me to let me in.
First problem: it’s an apartment building and I have no idea which one is his. There are names on the bells but nothing is shouting “Antonio” at me.
Second problem: after trying all of the bells only one person responded, and he definitely had no idea who I was.
But hey, we’re in the age of technology, I have his contact details. I text and then call Antonio to see what’s going on.
Third problem: no response, and his phone appears to be turned off (or at least that’s how I interpreted the automated Greek answering message).

Hmm. That’s not good.

I don’t have internet connectivity so I call Erin and ask her to message him on airbnb and to find a hostel I can spend the night in. She, as always, came through. I definitely had the distinct feeling of being one of those spies in the field who can call home for backup and logistics when they need it!

First experience of airbnb could have gone a bit better.

Anyway. Back I go to Syntagma (on the metro this time – and obviously I had to visit the food festival again) and down the main shopping street (Ermou) to find the hostel. Of course, it’s now lashing rain. I, however, am clearly prescient and had my umbrella with me; take that, rain!

Found hostel. Got booked into a dorm room. Got myself sorted. Went down to the lobby to get online so I could figure out what I was doing. Connect to the WiFi. Oh my. The less said the better, but it was perhaps the worst-performing WiFi that I’ve ever experienced; it was almost worse (and certainly more frustrating) than not having any at all! I gave up and ventured out.

The rain eventually eased off and it was quite pleasant wandering up and down and through the alleyways. Not a lot happening, it being a Sunday evening, but plenty of people out and about and some nice things to look at. Also, lots of bakeries and meat places open and I got myself something to eat – some kind of chicken pie pastry thing, delicious!

Time for some photos in Syntagma Square and down and around Ermou:

I still needed to plan what I was doing for the rest of the trip and the WiFi in the hostel wasn’t cutting it, so like the classy tourist I am I nursed a coffee in McDonald’s for a couple of hours abusing their free WiFi! Hey, at least I bought something, there were plenty of people suspiciously lurking near the door with phones in their hands.

Got most of my planning done before all of my devices died. Back to the hostel, the WiFi now worked a lot better because there were only a couple of other people in the lobby along with me. Got the remaining planning done, at least as much as I was prepared to commit to for now:
– Sunday would be for doing Athens’ main touristy bits
– Monday and Tuesday would be for some of: trip to Delphi, trip to one or more nearby islands, trip to one or more nearby interesting/pretty villages, more sight-seeing in Athens. I’d figure it out later, but I had options.
Accommodation was still up in the air; I’d booked in for just one night to the hostel, I’d wait until the morning to see what I wanted to do for the remainder.

Despite having been almost ready to hit the sack when I initially checked into the hostel around 7, all of this planning and wandering had taken it to after 1am. Even with the +2 hour time difference that’s quite a long day from being up 5.30! Definitely bedtime; more adventures tomorrow!