Escape from the City...

We decided to take the adventurous route from Ohrid to Greece, which routed us to Bitola on the Macedonian side of the border where we hopped in a cab that drove us across the border and into Greece. Our cab driver, however, was being very difficult and tried incessantly to convince us that it would be such an uncomfortable 6 hour ride from Aminteo to Thessaloniki on the "bad train roads" that he should drive us there for only 65 euro - seriously?! We weren't so keen on that idea, so we demanded that he leave us to take the train where we got on the mini train for inter-city transport (very posh, though) and were in Thessaloniki in 3 hours, for 7 euro. HAH

Thessaloniki is a really big city - a port town lined by a long seaside row of swanky cafes. We even found an english bookstore, which we were in dire need of, as Sarah reads so fast and between the two of us, we've finished all the books we have and are now carrying around 3 each just waiting to find a book exchange. Dinner was very tasty at a local taverna, but not so tasty at 1:30 in the morning...note to self, don't eat stuffed peppers that have been sitting behind the cafeteria counter all day...ugh!

The next morning we got up early and pranced back to the train station to catch the 11:38 train to Athens. But when we got there, we found that all the trains for the whole day were full. Unlike Italy, where they'll sell you a ticket anyway, we were stuck. Not really rellishing the idea of a 7 hour bus ride, we decided that we had to suck it up and take the bus rather than hang out for another day, so hot and sweaty we made our way to the next station. Luckily there was a bus leaving in just an hour, so we enjoyed some cocas and realized just before getting on that we should eat lunch...unfortuntately we weren't allowed to bring they gyros on the bus, so after only a few bites, we had to toss them out and board the bus with empty tummies.

The upside of Greece being yet an hour ahead (now 7 hrs ahead of the east coast) is that the sun goes down around 9pm, so when we got off the bus at 8:15 in Athens, it was only early sunset and we made it to the hostel with no problems. After a quick splash on the face and a change of clothes, we ventured out to explore the busy neighborhood of Psiri, but not before a bite to eat at Goody - quite the diverse menu fast food joint.

On Saturday, we took our time trying to see things while staving off heat exhaustion (mind you, 33 C is pretttttty hot) and visited the National museum, the flea market and held off on the Accropolis until as late as possible to avoid the high noon sun. But what a view!