It's 9 am and I'm just chilling in my room. Surprisingly it a two bedroom and last night I had no roommate which is perfectly fine with me. I'm taking the time and enjoy this plus it not like I have anywhere urgent to be.
That's one thing I've notice about Europe in general, no one in a rush to do anything. Not like us American anyway. When I was in Venice I went to the post office to get some stamps. I bought ten since I had been slacking with post cards from Ireland. But anyway I actually couldn't find half it them, later. I'm sure I'll find them when I get back, and I'm supposed to be so organized. Anyway the post closed at 1:30. It's barely. I got there about 12:30 and there was a line of course and apparently they take care of lots if things at the poste italia not just mailing thing so it was taking very long. At 1pm the guy behind the counter, there was only 1 started telling people who came in that he was closed. That stated a uproar if course. If you never seen little old Italian ladies yelling in Italian. It's a little scary. But anyway I stated where I was. Some people left, a few stayed but my thought process was I was already in line, it's not closing time yet. You are gonna sell me my damn stamps. He did, abs I didn't even have to argue in Italian.
Bit anyway back to Greece. How do you have a ship enter port at 7am. There's a new port (2-3 years old$ and a old port about 5km apart. Online says that there is a few shuttle running between the two every 30min. And if course the train station is by the old port. No problem right? Nit when the shuttle doesn't start to run until 10am. And if course the taxis drivers know this so they are just lined up waiting. They come talk to a few people trying to get them to use the taxi. Too put it bluntly no one said a damn thing to me. To be fair I only noticed them trying to persuade the men. Yea yea I know the whole thing of you talk to the man not the woman but hey do I have a companion with me. A few people took the taxis, I went inside to ask for information about the shuttle and that's when I confirmed it started at 10. BS. So I take the taxi. The guy asks me where I'm headed , I say athens and he 'a like where. It sorta seemed as if he was trying to get me to take a taxis all the way there. Ummm no I good. I gonna take the train. But a train doesn't run from patra to athens. I know I'm taking a bus to kiato and then the train from there. (I wanted to scream. I know what I'm doing just take me to the train station which is also the bus station by the old port, also put out that damn cigarette!). He said something like the next bus isn't until 1 pm) and you wonder why I thought they were lying about the 10am shuttle. Cause I knew that a bus left at 8:45. And I just barely made it 10min before departure. Even had enough time to go next door and get a cappuccino. So a little over 1 hr later I was at the train station, and then another hour in athens. Yeah right like I was gonna take a cab two hours, especially with him smoking. You have got to be kidding me.
I finally made it to athens. It took some time to figure out my way mainly because the train did not take me directly to the main station which was not far from my hostel but closer toward the airport. The nice attendant wrote the name down of the stop that I was suppose get off but she didn't spell it correctly. I ended up having to get off at a random stop to look at the map to see where i was suppose to. Only needed to more stop ahead so that worked out and knly added 10 min to the time. It took for another train to pass.
Luckily like Ireland there is both the Greek word and the English word. At least on official typed signs. So I was able to distinguish were I was going. My maps app in my phone was barely no help at all since Siri decides she only want to show the Greek word and blot. The translation. So yeah trying to figure our which stop to get off at involve a lot of looking back and forth to make sure I had the right word/station
And the saying " it all looks Greek to me" was definitely true. At least French and Italian I could make out want something was with a liittle common sense.
But anyway I went to one set of ruins. Yesterday. I love Greece already. One 12€ ticket gives me access to 6 sites(ancient agora, theatre of Dionysus, roman agora, kerameikos, temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrians library) as well as Athens Acropolis and the Parthenon. Yesterday was only the ancient agora. I decided to wash and hang some of my clothes since I needed to and ended up wearing my flip flops since I foolishly washed all my socks. And walking in flip flops over gravel is not fun. (Gymshoes today)
So there was a lot of vegetation. A displayed mention that none was actively growing when they first started preserving the site but after archeological evidence indicated that there was indeed plant life they plant about 40 native species in the areas. It was cool that they have plates that the next of the species. The few I saw were oleader, myrtle, and pear.