The smell of cigarettes was strong in the air – if there was any air. The room was stuffy and hot as hell. I opened my eyes and looked around. A naked Cypriot man lay on the bed next to me. This wasn’t Hawks… but I knew that. Last night I followed this guy back to his hotel. That guy who went quiet on me last week finally reappeared. We’d been out for a couple drinks, 50% of our interaction sustained by google-translate. The guy could read and speak English well enough but couldn’t make head or tail of my accent, and I quickly learned how useless my Greek pronunciation is, because he couldn’t understand a word of my Greek either.
Anyway, our date was temporarily suspended when a young Greek girl – who also happened to be an English teacher – overheard our struggles to communicate and jumped into the conversation. Her name was Yeorgia. She was thrilled by my travels and surprised to discover there are many popular places in Athens I haven’t been yet. She spoke passionately to me, and my date didn’t have enough English to keep himself in the conversation. I’m now under pressure to visit many more museums along with several bars and clubs for “young people” before I leave…
Jumping back to the morning… I quickly started to get dressed.
‘What you go to do?’ Said Filippos – the man on the bed – as he turned over to see me making a hasty departure.
‘I have to collect my laundry,’ I said.
‘Your what?’
‘My laundry… my clothes.’
‘Promise me you come Cyprus, yes?’
‘Maybe, I’ll see,’ I said, trying not to smile.
I hurried back to Hawks where I was shocked to find the bag of 5 bananas I bought yesterday reduced to only 1, and my carton of milk almost empty. Fucking hell. Hawks really is full of food thieves. Extra measures must now be taken to protect my provisions.
With Yeorgia’s words still echoing in my head, I figured I’d better do more sightseeing, so I dragged myself down to the Acropolis museum. It was the right day for it. The weather wasn’t great and there was no queue at all. But as I stepped inside the building, I realised something… I just couldn’t be bothered. To hell with the people who say I have to see this and that. I can’t be bothered I tell you! I’ve had enough of museums! So, I swapped the 6-Euro entrance fee for a large glass of Mediterranean mulled wine at a gay bar called the Rooster. (Filippos pointed it out to me last night). The bar had a really cool atmosphere and the bartender told me how to say “hot” in Greek. “Zestos” or “Kaftos”. I then found out that zestos means hot as in warm and cosy, while kaftos means hot as in boiling hot. The honeyed wine was nice and zestos.
While I may have given up sightseeing, I was able to cross zucchini balls off my bucket list come dinnertime. Found a little restaurant which Aaron recommended me at the bottom of a rundown street – barely more than an alley. There was nowhere to sit inside, just some outdoor tables with waves of cigarette smoke wafting about the place. I’d had enough of that last night, so I ordered my zucchini balls to go and brought them back to my hostel before I got rained on. They were good and greasy, not quite what I expected – very bready – but quite filling with the humongous dollops of sour cream I dipped them in.
