Athens, The City That Wasn't Built To Last
Saturday 4th September, 2010
26 hours in transit later (Melbourne to Bangkok, Bangkok to Athens, airport train into the city) and we make it to our first hostel. Excellent.
First thing we noticed as we walked around in the Adriatic sunshine was Greek dudes wearing white pants. Nice. Did a fair bit of sitting round at cafe's sipping beers and watching people walk by. Checked out a few of the old sites including the Acropolis, but most of them were broken. They should get onto that. Must admit the city was pretty authentic though:
The hostel we were staying at (AthenStyle) had a rooftop bar with a view of the Acropolis which was awesome. Headed up at opening (18:30) and the vibe was very social, largely due the friendly Tassie bartender Chase. First ones to get there, so we just chilled over a few brewski's.
As time went on more people came up to the rooftop to have a drink and enjoy the emerging nightscape. Met heaps of other travellers, including another dude from Bendigo (cue 'small world' saying here). Feeling the need to pace myself given the lack of sleep in the past 48 hours I sat out one round of beers, much to Timmy's publicly broadcasted derision. My response was "hmm, we'll see where you're at later on".
The view was getting better and better though, kicking back on the deck overlooking Athens by night was really cool.
Around midnight the hostel bar closed, so with a few added recruits (although sans Tim, who'd gone to bed at 11) we thought it only appropriate to check out a few local bars, given that it was a Saturday night. Me, Syme, Jose and Dan walked a few blocks from the hostel and found ourselves at a pretty happening bar, with heaps of people drinking and smoking Shisha pipes. It wasn't till after we'd ordered our Ouzo's and beers that we looked around and thought that pretty much everyone in the place looked underage. Syme started chatting to a couple next to us, and discovered the reason they looked underage is cos they were. Seems that the local custom is for the high school kids to go out drinking on Saturday night, and no-one really cares. Interesting to note that even though they were drinking, they seemed to be doing it quite responsibly - ie they weren't writing themselves off, which is a fair difference to back home. Also got the low down on where the best clubs in town were - Paraliaki, 20 minutes out of town, on the beach.
"It's all in the name of a Saturday night" seemed to be the prevailing attitude, so after we finished our ouzo's it was time to cut the underagers loose and find a real club. Syme and I grabbed a taxi (with Dan and Jose checking out) and asked the driver to take us to the clubs. Our first language barrier was encountered, with taxi man not speaking a word of English, and of course us ignorant foreigners not knowing any Greek. No problemo though - old mate calls up his friend who happens to live in Ballarat (Australia) to translate for us. He handed me the mobile, and I briefly explained that we wanted to go to the club, handed the phone back to the driver who spoke with his friend for a bit and away we went. 10 minutes later we pulled up outside a thriving bar, thanked the taxi driver and in we went. Again, it wasn't till after we'd walked in that we noticed something wasn't quite right. "Hmmm, there seems to be a lot of dudes in here....". Turns out that we'd be taken to a gay club, next time I'm in a taxi with another neat, skinny dude I might make it a bit more clear what I mean by 'club' when talking to translators...
Anyways, seeing we were there, we rolled with the punches, ordered up a drink, went to the top level balcony, crushed it, then wandered out onto the street again looking for another taxi to take us to the beach. Got one no probs, away we went again.
Self shot from Syme at the gay bar. Good view though.
20 minutes later arrived at the beach, which was a massive strip of clubs on the waterfront. Cars and people everywhere. Not knowing where to go, Syme asked some dude next to him which one was the best. The response was "Not really sure mate, but we're going to this one, why don't you come with us" in a mega australian accent. The dude happened to be from Sydney, and was there with a couple of friends, also from Sydney. Ha ha ha fucking Aussies everywhere. So we cruise in with our new besties and smashed up Boutique, this club was fucking huge, both indoor and outdoor sections, including a pool, with views of the Athenian peninsula.
Couple of happy snaps with our new crew (and of everyone getting loose):
I ended up having a bit of brief disco-pash with one of new-mates friends (an indian-australian princess, boom!), while short was still a good start to the tour. In the wee hours we started fading so decided to quit the party, however finding a taxi back to town was a lot harder than getting one out, as we had to vie with like 1000 other people. Brief stint of hitch-hiking provided no results, we eventually got a taxi and a ride back into town. In my drunken paranoid state I was convinced the taxi driver was taking us a roundabout way so made him stop randomly in the city, from which point we stumbled our way back to the hostel to call it a night around 5:00am. Fucking massive night, not a bad start at all.
26 hours in transit later (Melbourne to Bangkok, Bangkok to Athens, airport train into the city) and we make it to our first hostel. Excellent.
First thing we noticed as we walked around in the Adriatic sunshine was Greek dudes wearing white pants. Nice. Did a fair bit of sitting round at cafe's sipping beers and watching people walk by. Checked out a few of the old sites including the Acropolis, but most of them were broken. They should get onto that. Must admit the city was pretty authentic though:
The hostel we were staying at (AthenStyle) had a rooftop bar with a view of the Acropolis which was awesome. Headed up at opening (18:30) and the vibe was very social, largely due the friendly Tassie bartender Chase. First ones to get there, so we just chilled over a few brewski's.
As time went on more people came up to the rooftop to have a drink and enjoy the emerging nightscape. Met heaps of other travellers, including another dude from Bendigo (cue 'small world' saying here). Feeling the need to pace myself given the lack of sleep in the past 48 hours I sat out one round of beers, much to Timmy's publicly broadcasted derision. My response was "hmm, we'll see where you're at later on".The view was getting better and better though, kicking back on the deck overlooking Athens by night was really cool.
Around midnight the hostel bar closed, so with a few added recruits (although sans Tim, who'd gone to bed at 11) we thought it only appropriate to check out a few local bars, given that it was a Saturday night. Me, Syme, Jose and Dan walked a few blocks from the hostel and found ourselves at a pretty happening bar, with heaps of people drinking and smoking Shisha pipes. It wasn't till after we'd ordered our Ouzo's and beers that we looked around and thought that pretty much everyone in the place looked underage. Syme started chatting to a couple next to us, and discovered the reason they looked underage is cos they were. Seems that the local custom is for the high school kids to go out drinking on Saturday night, and no-one really cares. Interesting to note that even though they were drinking, they seemed to be doing it quite responsibly - ie they weren't writing themselves off, which is a fair difference to back home. Also got the low down on where the best clubs in town were - Paraliaki, 20 minutes out of town, on the beach.
"It's all in the name of a Saturday night" seemed to be the prevailing attitude, so after we finished our ouzo's it was time to cut the underagers loose and find a real club. Syme and I grabbed a taxi (with Dan and Jose checking out) and asked the driver to take us to the clubs. Our first language barrier was encountered, with taxi man not speaking a word of English, and of course us ignorant foreigners not knowing any Greek. No problemo though - old mate calls up his friend who happens to live in Ballarat (Australia) to translate for us. He handed me the mobile, and I briefly explained that we wanted to go to the club, handed the phone back to the driver who spoke with his friend for a bit and away we went. 10 minutes later we pulled up outside a thriving bar, thanked the taxi driver and in we went. Again, it wasn't till after we'd walked in that we noticed something wasn't quite right. "Hmmm, there seems to be a lot of dudes in here....". Turns out that we'd be taken to a gay club, next time I'm in a taxi with another neat, skinny dude I might make it a bit more clear what I mean by 'club' when talking to translators...Anyways, seeing we were there, we rolled with the punches, ordered up a drink, went to the top level balcony, crushed it, then wandered out onto the street again looking for another taxi to take us to the beach. Got one no probs, away we went again.
Self shot from Syme at the gay bar. Good view though.
20 minutes later arrived at the beach, which was a massive strip of clubs on the waterfront. Cars and people everywhere. Not knowing where to go, Syme asked some dude next to him which one was the best. The response was "Not really sure mate, but we're going to this one, why don't you come with us" in a mega australian accent. The dude happened to be from Sydney, and was there with a couple of friends, also from Sydney. Ha ha ha fucking Aussies everywhere. So we cruise in with our new besties and smashed up Boutique, this club was fucking huge, both indoor and outdoor sections, including a pool, with views of the Athenian peninsula.
Couple of happy snaps with our new crew (and of everyone getting loose):
I ended up having a bit of brief disco-pash with one of new-mates friends (an indian-australian princess, boom!), while short was still a good start to the tour. In the wee hours we started fading so decided to quit the party, however finding a taxi back to town was a lot harder than getting one out, as we had to vie with like 1000 other people. Brief stint of hitch-hiking provided no results, we eventually got a taxi and a ride back into town. In my drunken paranoid state I was convinced the taxi driver was taking us a roundabout way so made him stop randomly in the city, from which point we stumbled our way back to the hostel to call it a night around 5:00am. Fucking massive night, not a bad start at all.
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3:18 PM
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