My wee trip to Athens.

Was braw. I took a bunch of photos but have been too busy to post them. Yes, that's right, busy. Regular readers of this blog will have noted my trepidation about the hotel and what it was going to be like in the last post. To calm your fears, you can see what it was like below:


Hmm, it says 'Palace' on it but I'm not so sure. The rooms were somewhat 'spartan'. Geddit?! SEE what I did there? I know I know, I spoil you. Anyway, moving on from the hotel was the walk to the venue of the conference at the National Bank of Greece. In an unfortunate oversight I didn't take a picture of the building, although I probably should have since it was very nice. Instead I took a picture of the following store display for your viewing pleasure:


Needless to say said display calmed my nerves before my presentation to a room full of Greek academics and other assorted academics from across the globe. Speaking of which, here is the title of my paper and the big screen it was on below:


I was standing at the lectern on the left hand side of the picture only minutes after this photo was taken, crazy days.

After the conference was done I made some friends with Arie on the left from Israel but living in Sydney and David on the right from Chile but living in Liverpool. I l know, some people get ALL the luck. I also made friends with Dimitri who is taking the picture who is from Athens but living in Galway. He's moving to Sevilla very soon though the lucky devil. Dmitri was also our tour guide for the afternoon and a very good one at that.

The square we are in is called Syntagma Square or Constitution Square. The building in the background of the photograph of us below is the Parliament Building which used to be the King's Palace back in the day. I believe he got learned though and it's now the home of the Greek democratic system. No bad thing if you ask me. Which you didn't, but it's my blog so meh!


As I liked the look of the building I thought I'd take a photo of it. It was really very bright in Athens. Or I couldn't work my camera properly. Unike Dmitri who got it first time.


But then I figured auto would be easier than messing around in the unbearable heat and humidity.


Look at how nice it is!

Speaking of which, Syntagma Square has a really cool metro station that is part transit stop part museum. When they were digging down they found all these artefacts and so forth and decided they'd put a glass wall in so you could see the different layers of civilisations. Plus it was nice and cool in there compared to the veritable furnace that is the mid-day Athens sun outside.


From there we wandered along towards the Acropolis where we passed by Hadrian's Arch:


He's the same guy that had the wall built to keep the Scots out of England after numerous invasions and so forth. Honestly, if he'd just let us do as we wanted we wouldn't have the problems we do now! Sheesh. What's a little looting between friends and neighbours anyway?

From there we walked up towards the Acropolis in the baking sun. It was ridiculously hot and humid. Look, even those from warmer climes were suffering!


Not Dmitri in the middle though, being from Athens I imagine he was used to it. So, we continued to wander up the hill until we got to the gates of the wondrous Acropolis!


Which was shut. Brilliant. I'm sweating like a mongrel at Crufts and in fear for my life due to being out in the sun for longer that day than I had in several years and the Greeks have decided to go on strike and shut the Acropolis. AT THE HEIGHT OF SUMMER! At least I got to see some good grafitti though, and by good I mean bad. Really bad. Look:


And it gets worse:


So we decided to go for a walk into the grouds surrounding the Acropolis to see various temples and stuff, which was nice. It also afforded me a further view of the Acropolis from the other side. Apparently they haven't finished building it or something:


So then we walked around a little more and there is a new museum which allowed me to indulge my penchant for symmetry (of sorts):


And then we saw this guy. Can anyone tell me who the guy below is? Not Mitch though since I told her. Pint to the first person who gets it.


It was then time for one last look at the Acropolis before we headed back towards town.


Looks good doesn't it? Not as good as the festival line up below:


It makes me nauseous to even think about how bad that line up is. Black Sabbath: The Dio years?! EH?

I was calmed again by ANOTHER shop fron though. Who'd have thunk it?


Still, at least there was some more good grafitti for me to look at:


Gosh, I hope whoever wrote it wasn't talking about me. Especially since they clearly can't spell poser properly and are therefore dangerous in my book.

In order to get a full taste for Athens and all that it entails we decided to go for a drink in the bar David and I had discovered opposite the hotel on the Thursday night again. It was very nice, if a little small.


There were 3 seats inside the bar and the rest outside on the street and the DJ played lots of music I liked. I was very pleased. So pleased I stayed until 3.30am. I think I have a favourite bar in Athens now. Nothing to do with the free shooters of Jackamaretto he was giving us of course. That's Jack Daniels and Amaretto combined. Much nicer than it sounds.

So after a few light shandies we set off home where I thought I was perhaps seeing things due to alcohol consumption:


Nope, I defintely wasn't- MARKS AND SPENCERS! In Athens! Too bad it was too late to go in and get some shopping eh? So then I went to bed in readiness for my arduous trek to the airport the next day. And by arduous I mean it was meant to take 45 minutes by metro, but for some reason it took me much longer. Just as well the metro in Athens is so pretty and clean:


Look how clean it is! Really clean! And it even has some nice looking things hanging from the ceiling in one of the many stations I saw en route:


Aren't they pretty?

So I finally got to the airport and then got on the plane and it took off. Look- proof:


Then once I was on the plane I realised it was chasing the sun and it cheered me.


Not as much as knowing Mitch was going to come meet me at the airport though! With COOKIES!