We left for our evening flight and grabbed a bunch of snacks in the airport, including these paprika Pringles that are apparently really popular here. Now we're all obsessed. Thank god we were flying with Alitalia, an actual legitimate airline that assigned seats first and we didn't have to stand in line for an hour reserving our spot.
When we got to Athens, the air was breezy but pretty warm, and we hopped on the bus to the city center. We ended up getting off the bus earlier than anticipated, and had a longer walk than planned because the bus wasn't running the full route for some reason. We also underestimated how long it would take us to get to our hostel, and ended up walking for longer than planned on the unsafe streets in Athens. We managed to stay in brightly lit areas, but all the sudden we decided to hop in a cab, a smart move considering we narrowly escaped a scary encounter with a group of locals who had taken an interest in us and attempted to hassle us as we tried to get in the cab.
By the time we got to the hostel, we were shaken up and scared, and not taking too kindly to the city of Athens. The owner of the hostel was extremely friendly, saying he was glad we made it and he had been waiting up for us. He asked how our trip was and when we casually mentioned our scary encounter, he didn't seem to flustered. I took that to mean that this wasn't a rare occurrence.
We ran into the boys, Mike and Ben, on our way upstairs, where they were lamenting about Mike's lost bag that he had checked in the airport. Thoroughly shaken up, scared, and annoyed with the city of Athens, we made plans to leave at 7 am (although it was already almost 4 am) to see the Acropolis and then leave for Corfu on the 10 am bus.
There were stray dogs everywhere, but they were all really calm and just lounging in the sun. The Acropolis had amazing views, and we wandered around the area for a while. Unfortunately, my pictures of the Parthenon don't look as cool because it was under construction so that it wouldn't fall or collapse. It was still awesome, and I couldn't believe that people had been able to build such a gigantic structure so long ago. The top of the hill was kind of flattened, and you could almost picture the action and people that had traversed the Acropolis, the main social point in the city. It's kind of cool to think about what these buildings have witnessed in the centuries that they've been around.We took a bunch of pictures at the major structures and of the amazing view from the Acropolis of the surrounding city and port. Then we headed back down the hill and hopped in a cab to the bus station. The cab driver was actually really helpful, and told us where to buy our bus tickets to Corfu and drove us to the right entrance. I think he charged us a little more because he gave us a straight price from the beginning, but we had no complaints because, in true Athens-style, it was still dirt cheap.
For a main bus station, the food and snacks were also ridiculously cheap, so we stocked up and headed over to our bus stop. After a little confusion we found the right one and boarded. As we were getting on it, the bus driver commented on Catherine's bag of snacks as she was mid-chew to warn us that there was no eating on the bus, but that they would be stopping multiple times. Yeah right. We sat right down and enjoyed the long ride to Corfu, chomping away on our food when the bus driver wasn't looking. It also happened to be a beautiful day, so the ride along the cliffs and the coast was beautiful, and we got out a few times at the stops to stretch our legs and stand outside for a little.
We had another moment of confusion when we got to the port for the ferry that would take us to Corfu, and weren't even sure if we had to get off the bus or not. Well apparently we did. And we had to buy ferry tickets, but they were only about 5 euros. We got on the ginormous ferry and got a big booth next to the window. We were all exhausted but excited to get to the beach. We all got some wine to pass the time and were entertained by a group of soccer players that were amused that we were American. After about an hour and a half ferry ride, we finally made it to Corfu. When we got off, we were expecting a driver from the Pink Palace to be picking us up, as I'd arranged through email. Since we couldn't find it, we hopped in a cab (hey, it was probably gonna be just as cheap as the Pink Palace shuttle). When we got to the Pink Palace, the woman at the front desk was confused when she saw us getting out of a cab, and told us that they had sent the driver to pick us up. Apparently he had gone to the bus station to wait for us. Well, how we were supposed to know that? We ended up paying the cab the same amount as the shuttle would've cost, so whatever.
After a decent night's sleep, we woke up around nine to grab some breakfast. We trekked down the long staircase of stairs that lead to the buildings by the beach. The views were so beautiful and the weather was extremely nice. Breakfast was served on the restaurant on the beach, and was the other meal that was included with our hotel payment. It was pretty decent but basic, eggs, yogurt, toast and coffee. It was so nice sitting outside overlooking the beach with our breakfast, and we took our time and hung out for about an hour. We hauled ourselves back up the huge outdoor staircases to the main lobby just as the Bus2Alps tours were checking in. There was suddenly a massive amount of people there, and we hurried up and grabbed our beach stuff and towels and headed back down to the beach buildings to stake out a good spot for the day.
The next morning me and Catherine woke up bright and early to try to reserve our spots on the Booze Cruise, but we found out it wasn't going to be running because the water was too choppy. At that point, stories from what actually happened on the outing were kind of weird, so we were relieved not to go and waste money on it. We staked out some places on the actual beach today, as people had annoyingly put stuff on all the lounge chairs on the deck. The beach was nice until we got sick of the rocks, and we headed upstairs to the roof of the beach buildings, where it was much warmer. I didn't end up getting in the ocean, but Ben braved the cold at one point! We spent that day much like the last, from the bar to the lounge chairs.
We headed in to reserve our togas for the "Toga Party" that was happening in the Pink Palace club that night. I was a little iffy on wearing a pink toga all night, but since everyone else (but me and my roommates) seemed to gladly join in, we did, too. Anyway, it was the eve of Catherine and I's 21st birthday. We had to go. When we got down to the club later in the night, literally every single person was wearing a pink satin toga. It was ridiculous, but definitely an interesting atmosphere. Once people got word that it was me and Catherine's birthday at midnight, the drinks didn't stop coming. I'd say we successfully rang in our 21st that night...
The next day, our birthday, was a little rainy and the weather wasn't so great, and considering the night before, the day was low-key. We ended up sitting up at the bar with Sue and she gave me and Catherine birthday shots with candles in them that night, singing us Happy Birthday. Catherine's friends from Leeds got in that night, too, so we all just hung out at the bar and ended up going to bed at a decent hour.
When the girls met us in the lobby (still no breakfast), we all pulled up the reservations of our flight on our emails to make sure we had them. Catherine tried to pull up hers, and handed hers to me when she confused at the email in Italian. Immediately I knew something was wrong from the small Italian I did actually know. When I asked, "Catherine, did you even try to stick this in a translator when you got it?", she shook her head. Basically, her ticket confirmation had not gone through, and it was telling her to try again.
The shuttle to bring us to the airport was literally coming in five minutes, and Catherine still didn't have a plane ticket to get on the plane from Corfu to Athens. Oddly, we both remained calm and I just hurried and bought her the plane ticket in Italian. I thought that the price was going to have jumped to something ridiculous, but when I told her that she just said, "I guess I have no choice." It actually only ended up going up 24 euros, thank god. I hit confirm and we waited nervously for the email to say something like the flight was full or it couldn't confirm her reservation again. Luckily, just as the shuttle was pulling up, she got the email with her ticket. Disaster averted.
With Catherine not being stuck in Greece, we loaded our stuff into the shuttle. Mike was feeling the effects from the night before, and as the boys gobbled up sandwiches at 8 am, they tried to figure out their plans for Barcelona. They were literally not booked for anything, and they were flying from Athens to Barcelona that day. I thought about how panicked I would be if I was flying into another foreign country with no place to stay yet!
I think Danielle literally had to go through every security thing they had at the tiny Corfu airport. She got patted down, got all of her bags opened and sifted through, and then had to throw out a bunch of liquids that she had consistently managed to sneak on the entire semester. Goodbye, face lotion. Once we were all safely through security (after Mike had dropped his ticket, not once but twice, and had it kindly returned to him by staff or another passenger), some of us grabbed some snacks. Catherine and I decided to wait until we got to the airport in Athens where there would probably be better options.
The plane flight from Corfu to Athens on the tiny airplane was pretty much up and down, so we arrived in Athens with the perfect amount of time to spare. We said goodbye to the boys, and like with Catherine's plane ticket, everything worked out for them and they had a great rest of the week in Barcelona.
We grabbed some seats at a cafe once we'd gone through the first (yes, first) security check. I had a chocolate muffin, Catherine opted not for the chips for breakfast (wow!) and got a croissant, and Kath grabbed a blueberry muffin. We had a little entertaining moment when Danielle, thinking that she was about to pour water into her espresso to make it a cafe americano, picked up the oil and as she was about to pour it in, the guy behind the bar stopped her just in time. Hey, it was in Greek.
We picked up some postcards of our favorite city of Athens and waited at the gate, where we ran into Anna and her new fiance! Talk about concidence. The two had been traveling around Greece for that portion of the week as well, we just didn't know that they'd booked our same flight. So with all the roommates, plus sister and fiance in tow, we arrived back in Rome just to unpack and pack again for the next day's flight to the South of France. I was beyond excited for some new French adventures (and the food!).
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