Athens, Kalimera

My dream has came true and I am now in Athens, Greece. A country with history and holy stories. Athens nowadays is such a modern city with a great public transportation system. There are so many options for tourists to choose from local bus to MRT.... Every single day I found a new thing in this city and I have learned alot.

One of the funniest things was that my first breakfast in Athens was vanilla ice cream. Do you believe that? I couldn't believe that I ate ice cream either.

It's a bit like our trip in general, actually. We didn't make any plans for it, we have just been going with the flow and everyday is a surprise. Athens...the ruins...the lifestyle....it's all a surprise for someone from Vietnam.

Anyway, on our first night we stayed at Marble House, a small pension hotel close to the public transport system and a short walk to Athen's main attraction, the Acropolis. It was in a really quiet neighbourhood. The lady who welcomed us was a Greek American and she told us all the information about Athens and what we needed to do. After checking in, we walked up to the amazing Acropolis but the weather was a bit stormy and wet so we decided to come back the next day. We also arranged to meet Angeliki, my friend's friend from Athens.

I think I'm in love this city. There are so many things to check out and the food is so good but one thing that I need to be concerned about is things are expensive here and they use Euro, not Dong like in Vietnam:) I need to calm down to everything because I have 4 and a half weeks to go. I hope I can check out everything and show everyone about it

Tobe continued

Our Friend In AThens

I don't want to talk about Athens at the beginning my trip as I want to talk about Greek people. I think Greek people, in general, are not really over welcoming to tourists unless they know you well or you speak a little Greek. Plus, as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, they are quite complacent about tourists, which is understandable. But in this post, I want to talk about a women that I met in Athens who is my friend's friend. Her name's Angeliki and she's such an amazing woman. She is around 60 but really active, full of energy, friendly and really nice. She used to be a teacher for years and she's now as a social worker of Attila town which is just out of Athens. She's married with 2 kids and they all live away from home. She explained so much about the culture and life style of Greeks and life in and around Athens. However, for me, there was only one small problem - she drives a bit too fast but I never felt unsafe. She seems to know everywhere in Athens and I loved the sign on the back of her car - "Don't follow me, I'm lost too ".

She loves travelling and she has been to many places around the world. She is actually now in the Ukraine with her lovely daughter for a month. We were so lucky to meet her here. Without her, we couldn't have made it to the special hidden places like Marathon, her home town, Attila, and the top of the mountain where we could see the whole of Athens by night at 10pm. Then she took us to have ice cream by the Acropolis at 11pm. On the mountain near her house, we visited a monastery in a pretty impressive location. The priests we met were amazing people and really professional in the way they explained everything.

Thank you very much for all your great help, Angeliki. Meeting you was like a godsend that made our trip even more memorable and understanding about Greece and Greece's culture. I hope I can make another trip back here sometime in the future.