Day 2: Athens

"This is not exactly what I expected," Monica said as we sat, finally, in the metro leaving the airport towards the city. Yet, how often are our adventures exactly as we envisioned them? Not very. Not only had no one in the train station been able to validate our eurorail passes, but we quickly learned the map we'd snagged in the terminal would soon be our new best friend. 

Thankfully, we [mostly Monica- I'm quite directionally challenged] figured out how to read the map in accordance to the main metro lines to get us in and around the city with little problems! However, that definitely took some practice. As we left the station to find our first hostel, a nice old man came to our rescue when confusion was clearly clouding our faces. He directed us with a few hand signals and a hesitant and questioning "right and left". After about 15 minutes of weaving in and out of small, and unfortunately urine smelling, streets, we stopped to asses our map again. Again, with scrunched eyebrows and puzzled looks a young boy who spoke fairly good English offered his assistance. Turns out we were in the completely wrong area and his persistent warnings that "you must be careful- Athens is no longer safe" informed us that we were in a dangerous neighborhood. I'm fairly certain at some point along our backtracking to our hostel, Monica and I exchanged silent glances that conveyed our disappointment thus far in Athens. The economic crisis is quite evident in the filth that overwhelms much of the city, and just two doors down from our hostel, we actually observed a woman peeing on the sidewalk. 

Fortunately, there was much more to Athens than the area of our hostel promised and we quickly realized that as soon as we made our way to the Acropolis and the Parthenon! One of the best parts about Greece thus far is that we get discounts almost everywhere we go for being students! To visit 6 historical sites it was only 6 euros and to tour the brand new Acropolis museum 3! 

The view from the top of the Acropolis was absolutely stunning, and it is amazing to think about how old the ruins are. 

Just below the ruins of these beautiful historic sites were adorable cobblestone streets filled with budding colorful floral, shops, restaurants and cafes; clearly the heart of tourist attraction. Upon our wandering we came across a spa that had rows of tanks with tiny little fishies inside, fishies that supposedly eat strictly dead skin! We decided to do a 10 minute trial and boy did it tickle! 

We ended our day with a nice glass of sangria and of course, getting completely turned around on our trek back to our hostel once more! 

PS: we found some cool graffiti and thanks to Monica's selfie stick, captured this gem!