Day 6: Athens -> Piraeus -> Ferry

Tuesday, September 18

No idea when we woke up but it was our first solid night's sleep since before we left and we finally stopped being exhausted.

Athens was our introduction to Greek showers, which are small square open platforms in the bathroom with a hose and attachment that you had to hang on to while showering and generally wound up getting much of the bathroom wet in the process. I'd tried showering the night before, but there was no hot water then; another theme in travelling.

We wandered around our neighborhood (Omonoia) and found a bakery. We never really got much Greek down, but this early interaction showed it wasn't really needed. I got a chocolate croissant and real low-fat milk (the label was in Greek on one side, English on the opposite); Dan got some custard filo concoction. We ate in the park by our hotel.

We checked out then hung out in the outdoor lobby area using the hotel's free wireless Internet connection, uploaded photos, looked into travel stuff. Eventually, Daniel scoped out a place for lunch and I had my first gyros pitta of the trip.

We caught the 49 bus to Piraeus, the port city of Athens. It was a great way to see the city. We went through crowded streets with Chinese and other non-Greek signs. At one point, I looked back at the city and saw the Acropolis in the distance.

Our bus stopped far away from the commercial area, where we picked up two tickets, and even farther away from our ship's gate. Our ship was Festos Palace, a cruise ship sized high speed ferry that had numerous restaurant areas, a store, Internet access, and bars. We boarded around 6:30 for a 9PM sailing. We only had seats, and weren't clever enough to take more than one each as many folks did, and sadly ours were right near a light that never turned off.

Daniel went exploring first, then we had some of our food (sausage, cheese, and bread) and I went exploring. We both went up to watch the boat depart, only 15 minutes late.

We got drinks at the outside bar and took insanely windy seats along the side of the boat. We went back inside and played a round of cribbage before going to bed. I wound up sleeping curled up on the floor, with Daniel on the two seats we had. Definitely not a quality night's sleep.