Like this:

Ugh. I am sitting in an internet cafe in Athens and I still feel like the floor is moving.

Yesterday I had one last afternoon on the beach in Kos, a nice dinner in a rooftop garden, and a farewell visit to my beloved bakery, before I got on the not-so-good ship Dmitrioula at around 9. It was an hour late into port, and what I had expected in terms of a private room with a WC turned out to be a double room across the hall from the WC. Not so bad, except that in the middle of the night I got a surprise roommate in the form of a large, loud Greek woman. Still in all, I managed a warm (if frequently interrupted) night’s sleep, something I would have had a hard time getting on the deck.

We got into Piraeus, the port town adjacent to Athens, at about 12, and I wandered to the Metro without much of a direction, since my host doesn’t get off work until 5 this evening. Following my traveler’s instincts, I took the Metro to the train station, where I found (as I had been hoping) a locker for my bag and vague directions to the tourist information center. Unfortunately, I ended up having to guess which station she’d meant, but I ended up in the right place, Syntagma square. After asking a few more people, I got my hands on a map and directions to an internet cafe, which again failed me. I wandered around in what I thought seemed like a likely neighborhood until my caffeine withdrawal headache got the best of me and I stopped for lunch and a coffee. From there I asked at hotel desks until I actually did find some internets, and here I am. I’ll meet my host tonight, but until then I have the three things a girl needs in a new city: a map of the city, a full stomach, and notes from Wikitravel.

I just realized I have no idea what day of the week it is and only a good guess at the date. The 7th?

Advertisement