Hmmm… Athens? You know I heard a lot about Athens from quite a few people, and most told me that I wasn’t going to like it there. I’ve been here now for just a little while and I think I’ve seen a little bit of what those people were referring to, but I don’t know, I still kind of like it.

The plane ride was okay, the flight from Dubai to Bahrain was a little bit annoying, but it was only an hour, well within my tolerance. On the other hand, the flight from Bahrain to Athens was great. I somehow lucked out enough to get an empty seat between me and the other guy in my row. It makes all the difference in the world whether you enjoy a flight or not when you can stretch out a little bit. There is nothing worse than being packed into a seat and then fighting with some guy for a fair share of the armrest.

I arrived in Athens at about 1pm and made my way through passport control within ten minutes… another thing that seemed to be going my direction. I went to pick up my checked bag, and guess what, it was about the fourth bag to appear. I literally waited about 2 minutes. I can honestly say that that has never happened to me before. I usually wait for about 20 minutes and when I’m looking for someone to tell that my bag didn’t come through it finally shows up. Found the metro line and got directions to what stop I needed and I was on my way. I did have a little bit of a problem with finding the hostel, but everyone I asked for help really was nice to me. Some times too nice.

I’m staying in a nice studio apartment in the heart of the old part of town. The hostel is actually an old apartment building that has been converted to a hostel. It’s very nice if a little bit small. The location couldn’t be better though, I’m almost under the Acropolis and very close to Hadrian’s Gate. Unfortunately I can’t see either from my room because of the buildings surrounding me, but it’s clearly visible from the corner. Tomorrow I’ll be making my way up the hill to get a better look. Please, please, please, be cool. :)

As I walked around I started to notice that I was being approached quite a bit—not that that is such a bad thing– but what struck me was the way I was being approached. First it was from older men, then they basically said the same thing, “I thought that you were Greek” after that they wanted to talk about life in general. You know, where am I from, and they have a relative in Texas, and all the things trying to make me lower my guard. If it weren’t for my trip to Istanbul last year I think it would work. If you get a chance look over my Istanbul blog and you read the part about how I was falling for these scams to get me into a rug showroom. Thanks to the Turks I’m ready for the Greeks. Each time I walked away from one of these gentlemen I felt that I was being unfair to judge them like I did, but on the other side I kept thinking that if they were young pretty women it probably would have worked.