Well, the whole getting a good night's sleep idea didn't work out so well for us. Both of us found ourselves struggling to sleep, probably from a combination of jet lag and the late nap we took. Doug didn't sleep at all, whereas I got about three hours. We decided to get out of bed around 5 AM, and we got our things together to go into Athens. We figured we would eat breakfast once we were in Athens, so we headed out of the hotel and over to the airport metro station. We got our tickets from a self-service kiosk and headed down to the platform. We boarded the Metro Line headed for Monastiraki, which is near the Acropolis. The metro was very clean and nice, and the ride took about 40 minutes.
We wandered out of the Monastiraki station into the practically-deserted streets of Athens. All we knew was the general direction to the Acropolis (up!), so we followed a few other obvious tourists toward the hill. We had read in Lonely Planet (our travel bible) that entrance was free on Sundays, but that wasn't true when we were there. Entrance was 12 Euros, which we didn't want to pay, but they ended up having a student discount for me (free up to age 19) and one for Doug (6 Euros) so we decided to go. There were tons of people and a few ragged doggies there, and it was super windy, dusty and hot. We pretty much just took the necessary pictures and came back down since I wasn't feeling very good from not eating. We met a couple from Minnesota outside the backcheck who wished us luck and "godspeed."
After seeing the necessary sights we came down the hill, wandering without direction down the narrow streets, and picked a small taverna to eat breakfast at. We sat outside and had some amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice, fresh melty chocolate crossaints, a cheese omelette, and some bread and butter. The meal was a delicious and much-needed pick-me-up. We didn't really know what to do from there, so we just walked around checking out the streets and the Sunday flea market. There was a funny old man walking around pushing a music box and singing really high-pitched and squeaky, which we have been imitating ever since.
When we finally got too hot to keep wandering around, we bought some water for cheap and a metro ticket to Piraeus, the port where our Athens-Santorini ferry would leave from at 10:30 that night. We waited a few minutes for the metro, and it was super packed when it got there. Doug and I were barely able to get on and we were separated by a bunch of people for the 20 minute standing room only ride during I stepped on a Greek man's plastic-wrapped purchases and observed a forty-something man fondling his barely legal girlfriend.
When we finally got to Piraeus it was tough to find the gate we were supposed to leave from, E3. We walked around the hot port and finally found it after going in the wrong direction for some 20 minutes or so. We intended to spend our waiting hours at the purportedly nearby beach, but it was apparenly farther from our gate than it had looked on the map. The city was very loud, bustling and dirty run-down, so we didn't feel very safe venturing out to find the beach. We decided to pick up our ferry tickets, so we wandered until we found the Anek Lines office. We waited in line in the thankfully air-conditioned office and got our boarding passes despite an ongoing confrontation between a line-cutter and the cuttee.
Reluctant to leave the air-conditioned office, we headed over to an enclosed passenger waiting area, which smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and was kept a little too cold. We waited in there from about 1:30 until 4:00 PM, trying to sleep on the uncomfortable chairs and being bugged by solicitors. We though we'd go out then and find some food to bring on the ferry with us, so we followed our map to where the supermarket was. The market, of course, was closed on Sunday so we returned to the port emtpy-handed. We passed the remaining time before boarding in another waiting area which housed a Starbucks. We shared a piece of chocolate truffle cake and a chocolate cream frappucino. I slept on and off but we were both extremely tired by 8:30 PM when we were allowed to board.
We checked in and were very relieved to get our key and be escorted to our cabin, which had two beds and a small bathroom. We went to a self-service cafeteria and shared a plate of strawberries, french fries, spaghetti (we asked for tomato sauce but were given meat sauce - the beginning of the end of our vegetarianism for the trip's duration) and a slice of chocolate cake. After eating we returned to our cabin, where we both took showers, drenching the floor, toilet, everything in shower water, and then went to sleep. We slept well except for the loudspeaker announcements of our stops in Naxos and Paros and the too-frequent safety reminders.
* the kitty pictures are ones Sarah took on the way up to the Acropolis.
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