Athens
My ferry from Naxos to Athens was supposed to leave at 13:15, but as I got to the port, I found out it was cancelled. So I exchanged my ticket for the ferry leaving at 18:15, but this ferry left an hour late. So with a 5 hour ferry ride, plus an hour ride on the transit system to my hostel, I was looking to arrive around 1am. Unfortunately, the ferry took a little longer at one of the ports, so I ended up arriving on the Greek Mainland around 1am. By this time the metro had shut down so I had to take a taxi to the hostel. I told the taxi driver that I wanted to go to Athen's Backpackers, which was by the metro station at the foot of the Acropolis. So after picking up another passenger and dropping her off somewhere, I arrived at the metro station with the Acropolis and Parthenon nicely lit up. I paid the taxi driver and started to look for the hostel which was supposed to be within 50m from the metro. I wandered around a bit, sweating in the humid night air, while thinking that this area was pretty dodgy and it wasn't a good idea to be walking alone here with my bags. I tried asking a few people but they had no idea where Athen's Backpackers was. I called the hostel to find out where it should be, and he said that it should be right by the metro in an alley. I couldn't find it so I went back to where the taxi had dropped me off and heard some American people my age outside a cafe, so I figured that I'd ask them where the backpackers was. It turned out that it was on the other side of the Acropolis, near the "Acropolis" metro station. They said I could walk around the Acropolis and get there. So I started off and walked for about 10 minutes, and realized that it was going to take a long time to walk around the Acropolis and I really had no idea where I was going. So I walked down an alley trying to find a main road and a taxi. I found a taxi and told him the address of the backpackers (I don't know why I didn't think of this obvious solution in the first place) and I checked in shortly after 3am. Then they didn't have another key for my room, so I was told to go up and knock on the door to have someone let me in. Fortunately, some of the other people had just got in from out at the bar so I didn't have to wake anyone up.
After sleeping for 5 hours I got up and went to explore the Acropolis. It was quite impressive to see the ruins, and imagine what it must have been like thousands years ago. I spent the whole day exploring the different sites and taking photos.
Hellas
Since this trip to Greece was kind of last minute, my travel plans didn't exactly work out as smoothly as I desired, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. My flight from Hamburg to Frankfurt was first thing in the morning, but from Frankfurt to Athens was at 7:50pm, so I had a day in Frankfurt to waste. Once in Athens I slept in the airport before catching the 7:15am ferry to Santorini.
Arriving in
Santorini was quite interesting because the port is in the center of the caldera of a volcano which erupted in 1630BC and was one of the most violent eruptions ever recorded. The cliffs were red with a brilliant blue sea and blindingly white buildings perched on the cliff edge.
The place I stayed was a 10 minute walk from the beach, but more importantly, only a 5 minute walk from the bakery. Every morning I walked to the bakery to get some freshly baked bread to enjoy with my nutella for breakfast, and some spanakopita or other Greek pastries for lunch. Eating was definitely one of the highlights for me in Greece. I enjoyed trying many different greek foods, some of my favourites being stuffed calamari, moussaka, greek salad and ouzo. Besides eating, I rented an ATV to explore the island with two Danish guys I met, climbed to the highest point on the island, and went swimming in the Aegean Sea.
After Santorini I headed to the nearby island of Naxos, where I spent one day relaxing at the beach, before taking another long ferry ride back to Athens.
Ich bin in Hamburg
I had good intentions of writing this in Hamburg, but there were some problems back at the office that I had to deal with, plus I had to go out and enjoy the German food, so instead it gets written now.
I quite enjoyed my week in Hamburg. It was nice to have a change and be out of the office and live in a different city for a week. Standing around all day at the tradeshow talking to people about our products was kind of fun. Here's a photo of the booth.
The tradeshow was one of the largest in the world for shipbuilding and the marine industry. I think there were around 1500 exhibitors and an estimated 40,000 visitors. I took an hour to do a quick walk around the various halls and look at some of the booths. Most of the stuff I didn't really know anything about, but I took photos of pistons the size of my car engine and horns that were as big as a dining room table.
The evenings after the show I usually had free time, so I explored the city - Hamburg was nice with its canals, cafes and cobblestones. I noticed that there were very few people I would consider overweight here - a lot different than in Canada. I got used to eating dinner at 8pm, and enjoyed schnitzels, bratwursts, beer, some pheasant and of course desserts. Someone once told me that Germany is the land of desserts, and each one that I had certainly was good.
That's it from Hamburg. My next post should be from Greece.
