Seth finally made it down to Thessaloniki on Tuesday, but he missed all the sun and brought the clouds and rain with him. While waiting for him in the hotel lobby I was reading the little Greek phrasebook he had lent us so that I'd finally be able to make sense of the Greek letters around me and at least be able to pronounce things correctly, even if I didn't know what they meant! So while we walked around in the rain looking for things to occupy our time I practiced reading signs and advertisements under my breath and quizzed myself on the basics of counting to ten and simple phrases. It's not so hard to learn the basics of a new language when you're stuck in the middle of it.

In the end we turned to eating and drinking to occupy the many hours before our night bus to Athens. I tried anchovies for the first time at the Ozoria we stopped at, and though they looked and tasted like the bait we use on the charter boats, it wasn't all that bad. One of the ribs splintered off into the roof of my mouth though and I complained about it for the rest of the night much to my companions' annoyance. The grilled feta with tomato was fantastic though so I'm adding that to my list of dishes to attempt.

We were lured into this one Gelateri again so that Seth could get his pistachio gelato and cappuccino. After staring transfixed at all the cute little cakes and puddings on display in the counter, I sucked it up and choose a heart-shaped cake covered in chocolate. I got it mostly because it was cute but my gosh it was delicious too. Unfortunately I think the old women next to us thought it was funny that I was eating a heart-shaped cake by myself because they burst out laughing for no reason and started chatting to us in Greek. Even when they knew we didn't understand them, they kept laughing and talking to us... and all I could do is shrug and continue eating my delicious little cake.

The delicious little cake

We meandered to the bus station and found out that we had another two hours to wait for our bus, a bus trip that was going to take more than twice as long as usual due to the farmer strikes and all the tractors blocking the highway. Seth decided that he needed to drink even more, to ensure that he slept the whole bus ride, and I figured that was probably a pretty good idea so we drank Amstel and some type of brandy while watching the fashion channel on the TV in the station. I did sleep pretty well and when I woke up to the sun shining on the outskirts of Athens I was in a great mood.

Seth "preparing" for the night bus

Our hostel was nearby and run by a very energetic Welshman who pointed us towards free breakfast, eggs and toast with the essential Nutella spread. That helped get us out of the zombie night-bus mode so we headed out to the Acropolis and Parthenon. It ended up being a mere block from our hostel, easily seen from the roof but even more impressive from the street. It was such a beautiful sunny day with the white marble absolutely shining on the background of blue. I felt so laid back just staring out over Athens, in no hurry to do anything but pet the street dog that was sleeping precariously on the Acropolis wall.

At the Acropolis, view from some rock that was important

That night we went out with new friends from the hostel, all Americans. We got gyros from a place down the street from the hostel then sat and played card games at a bar drinking Mythos, one of the Greek national beers. It was one of those nice bubble moments when you can forget you are in another country.

One of the guys had to buy a balloon from a street vendor when he lost

The next night was significantly better in my opinion because after a long day of walking there is nothing better than sitting down to a gigantic dinner and a glass or two of Retsina. We went to a restaurant with a set menu where we could choose dishes from a tray of 18 different ones presented to us by our waiter. Mmmm, I really enjoyed this meal, though the sarmi--rice and meat wrapped in grape leaves--was not as good as when we ate it in the village. It is hard to top that meal at the village though so I'll try to not compare it to anything I eat in the future.