After finding our way back to the Rome airport, we foud ourselves in Athens, Greece. Everything was going fine. We found our metro stop (which we almost missed due to the crowded transportation system), then headed to what we thought was upstairs. Instead we faced about 60 steps! As soon as we were about to start, a local woman came to our rescue and told us there was an up escalator on the other side.
We finally stepped out of the darkness of the underground metro to reach the sun. We took maybe 3 steps before I ended up slipping on the marble sidewalk and falling in the intersection of a crowded street and a bunch of restaurants. To make it worse, we were headed in the wrong direction, and had to turn around. But no worries, I’ll never see these people again, and all of the tiramisu I had eaten over the past 5 days padded my fall.
It took us about 40 minutes and a nice English speaking woman to find our B and B (which is only about 15 minutes from the metro stop), but we made it. Our host greeted us and offered us a traditional Greek dessert.
For dinner, we ended up finding a place owned by A man who used to live in New York. He was helpful and clearly bored, as he loved conversation with us. So far, everyone had been helpful.
The streets near where our B and B were looked exactly like New York, that we ended up nick among it Jamaica, Queens. I sent my father pictures and he said it remind ones him of Brooklyn.
The next morning we set out to hit up all of the sites. The woman at the Acropolis gave us free tickets (God bless her soul) and we hiked up to the high point, looking at old Greek ruins.
We walked through Plaka, a huge shopping neighborhood, where people will stop at nothing to get you to buy their stuff. Some people got angry, others ende up cutting their prices in half (which still didn’t convince me to buy it). One man offered us lucky pennies and promised we could marry his sons. He started wrapping the dress, which I really didn’t want, and as I kept telling him I would come back later (which I really kind of did intend on doing), the prices went from 25 to 20 to 15, and as I walked away.
We realize that everywhere we go, black people will be a rarity. We counted about 30 during our time in Athens and that included the peddlers. People driving one way broke their necks to look at us, and one man even semi circled me. It’s hilarious but it’s also creepy at the same time.
Although we were there for realy only a day and a half, it wasn’t without some hilarity. Since breakfast wasn’t included, we headed to a mini market to get toast. We asked the man if he had bagels, but he had no idea what it was, and came back with waffles instead.
We are finally off to our last destination of Spring Break, London!! Our friend will be joining us for a few days, and I am thrilled to finally be off to the city.
Stay tuned for more!!
By Jae Marie 