...And Now I am in Frankfurt, chilling here for five days before going home from here.
My friends, so much has happened again that a simple blog is inadequate.
The last thing worth mentioning that I did before leaving Rome was breaking up with Justine, thinking this is my time to be single, alone, independent, and so on and so forth.
Brindisi-Patras Ferry
I met women almost immediately on the Ferry the next day, notably a fifteen year-old pretending to be 18 that wrote romantic song lyrics in my journal when I was acquiring e-mails (this habit of collecting contact information has since left my journal filled with e-mails and Facebook information from a large cross section of people).
I also met two awesome Turkish guys named Levent and Sevar whom I played Scrabble and cards with (the highligh of the latter being a game of bullshit with the 15 year-old and her friends, which I won handily) and hung out with throughout the ferry ride. The last I heard they saw a Metallica concert in Istanbul and it rocked.
I met a number of other people on the ride whose names I have forgot, but one interesting person was an American a bit younger than me who played blackjack at the casino and won a bit of money at it. I later hung out with his dad, a musician who exchanged Myspace music pages with me, and his sister, an aspiring special needs teacher (very attractive girl).
These are just a few of the many people I met.
When I awoke the next day after sleeping about two hours in a makeshift fort I made using chairs (I slept on the floor while the chairs blocked the hallway) it was time to get up. For breakfast I had some cold fried eggs and loads of bread because it was free and played another game of cards with the people from the night before.
I was quite happy to win at a game of speed, which my adversary was extremely good at and had previously beat me at a good five times.
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Athens
After the ferry I arrived in Greece at Patras, and took two trains to get to Athens. These are probably the jankiest trains I have ridden yet. A notable observation I made was the final resting place of one's bodily waste: as I looked into the toilet bowl, I saw something speeding by at the same rate as the train, and was slightly amused to to realize that my urine was going straight to the tracks beneath the train.
I fortunately met people on the train to help me make sense of which trains to take, and was again indebted to the help of travellers.
It really makes me want to pay it forward and do the same for as many people as possible, at home and abroad.
I got a cab to Hotel Lozanni, and told the driver I didn't have enough for the journey upon arrival (I tried to discuss the amount of funds I had on me before we went anywhere, but the language barrier aside from the fact it was brushed aside in a very Greek way of worrying about payment after the service has been rendered made my previous comments obsolete), but he accepted what I had. After issuing a grateful "Epharisto!" I got out and went to my hostel.
Hotel Lozanni was a good, inexpensive place to stay and three nights was about all I could handle in Athens, a polluted, dirty and crowded city. I made a lot more friends at Lozanni, notably including a French Canadian girl who looked almost like she was cut from the cast of a typical attractive party girl with too-perfect breasts and a beautiful face and body, although not skinny. She helped me with my French a bit before going on to play dealer in a drinking game behind the hostel bar.
The bar was a great place to meet travellers and be blasted by American Rock standards like "Hotel California," "Save Tonight," "Highway to Hell," and other popular rock from the 70's to the late 90's plus the indispensable Bob Marley. They occasionally played Greek muisic, but usually only after it was requested by somebody.
I met a few other interesting folks whose e-mails and signatures now adorn my journal, including a Dutchman that looks like Robert Downey Junior and works in the bar, some fellow Americans who chilled with me while one played my guitar, a gaggle of Irish women, a girl whose country of origin escapes me (it's in the journal, which isn't near me at the moment) but I was slightly disappointed to learn had a boyfriend because of her attractiveness and our connection over politics (a connection that comes easily for me here, to be sure) and she seemed disappointed in me for breaking up with Unicorn when I told ter the whole story, and an Irish guy who forever immortalized himself writing these four words in my journal "Fuck you rich boy!"
The first sight I saw on my first night was the outside of the Acropolis, which was closed by the time I got there so I did not see the whole thing. Afterwards I wondered about until I was completely by coincedence in front of the remains of some old pillars, many of which lay on the ground. This area was also closed but visible through a fence. I later learned it was the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
I decided at that point to rest a bit, so I lay on the ground attempting unsuccessfully to make my backpack a comfortable pillow, and was almost asleep before I met a Greek man who was dressed in a business suit and emanated an aura of misery. He told me that he worked in the petrol-chemical business, and asked me about where I was from, what did my parents do, etcetera. Somehow the conversation switched to women, and he said something to the effect of no woman would have him. As the conversation went on, I felt a very deep urge not to trust him, although I did not have a logical reason to think that. Since I trust my feelings, I declined as politely as I could when he invited me to go to a club with him with "drinks" and "women," saying I had business back at the hotel.
In all lielihood he was just a lonely middle-aged guy looking to shoot the shit with a traveller, but I'll never know.
The next day I headed to the Acropolis, but decided this time to walk all the way there so I could pass through the marketplace to get some food. I bought a motley but tasty collection of nuts and a hunk of cheese, which I snacked on for the next few days
(at this point I should mention I decided to become a vegetarian on the train to Barcelona, and had eaten my last piece of meat in Barcelona).
Eventually I made my way up what was apprently a back way towards the Acropolis, and met some Californians whom I shared some nuts and water with. I also came to a small rock which was apparently where Ancient Athenians came to discuss the administration of justice on murderers and others, and got a great but unshaded from the hot sun view of the city.
I got my next great view from the Acropolis itself, which is situated on a plateau surrounded in all directions by the city, which is bordered by hills all around except for the Mediterranean, which is also visible from there.
Definitely a postcard view, almost as good as I got from Lekkivitos the next day.
T the Acropolis I met one of the guys I met in Brindisi who also rode the ferry to Athens, who was honeymooning with his wife and reminded me very much of Ray Liotta in the Untouchables. I also met an exotically beautiful Brazillian woman who told me of Brazil and recommeded a few places for me to see there. While talking ot her, I had the hill of Lekkivitos in my sights, and was thinking it might be a fun climb.
The next and final day in Athens found me making that climb. It was just as hard getting to the foot of the trail by scaling the steep streets surrounding the lower section of the hill, and the many steps it took just to get there. When I went to the office for the air tram, I decided I did not want to pay for the tram when the woman behind the counter said was a twenty minute hike, so I headed up the paved trail.
On my way to the trail, I met a pregnant woman whom I briefly converesed with, learning the name of her unborn child (I predictably forgot) before coninuing the hike.
Shortly after starting, an image of a poster I used to have showing a path through woods with Robert Frost's "The Road Less Travelled" superimposed on it (my mom bought it for me when I was a young teenager), I decided to make my own trail. Taking me through thickets of cacti and dead bushes which left numerous slivers in hands arms and legs, it also took me near some interesting life, including birds, some sort of cricket-like creatures that apparently lived there in swarms and made a lot of noise, a homeless-appearing man sleeping on a pallet propped between sections of a rock cliff's bottom littered with trash, and a big yellow spider (like the size of a tarantula) hanging out and waiting for something to pierce his web. I walked through a part of it, but luckily it was a big web and I only walked through a connecting thread from the main part oto a nearby bush.
I would not have been happy to find her crawling on me.
The most noteworthy part of the climb ius when I came to a rock wall barring the way to the trail, which was near the summit. Instead of going around, I decided to climb it, and felt like a pure badass when I made it to the top and climbed over the fence. Again faced with the choice of taking the paved trail to the top, I decided to again make my own trail, and earned more slivers for my choice. I also earned a spot atop a rock at the top of the hill which had a deserted and beaurtiful view of the city. I took off my shirt, drank some water and ate some cheese, and attempted unsuccessfully to meditate.
***
I was eventually joined by a cat, whom I tried to make friends with but did not succeed in doing so. As I walked towards him, I came upon some pretty unnecessary barbed wire blocking the point where I was at from what looked like a service building near the restaraunts and landmark church which you will see if you look at postcards of Lekkivitos. Faced with going through the barbed wire to get to the church area to watch the rest of the sunset or going back down then going back up the normal way, I went through the wire very carefully and thankfully drew no blood.
I felt the effect of entering normal touristy life again as I came upon the crowded patio veranda where groups of people were watching the sunset.
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