Greece. (Or, Neil and Charlottes' Odyssey. An Epic.)

We went to Greece!!!

Which you probably already knew. However we (I) have been really slack at writing a humorous and jealousy inducing blog post about it. So here it is! Prepare yourselves, friends.

It all started on Friday the 11th of March, when after school, Neil and I boarded the bus from Pristina to Skopja, Macedonia. We were planning to stay the night in Skopje, and from there catch the train the next morning to Thessaloniki, Greece. From Thessaloniki, we would change trains and head onto Athens. We arrived in Skopja as planned on Friday night, and found our way to 'Hostel Hostel,' our home for the night. At this point, everything was going as planned, and we were loving it.

Saturday morning we turned up at the train station, ready to embark on the next stage of our trip. However, at the ticket desk we were informed that there was in fact no train. For political and financial reasons, Greece had cancelled all trains in and out of the country from Macedonia. There was also no bus. This was when we realised that maybe the trip wasn't going to be as easy as we had anticipated. However, the nice man at the bus station found us a bus to Gevgelija, a small town in Macedonia very close to the border. From here, he said, we should be able to get a bus across the border. We bought tickets and boarded the bus.

Two and a half hours and a delicious street pretzel later, we were in Gevgelija. It was really small. There were no other buses at the bus stop. Undeterred, we went inside and approached the tiny old Macedonian woman behind the desk. Through a lot of frantic hand waving she managed to communicate to us that there was no bus over the border from here either. We went outside, feeling slightly screwed. Outside there were three men smoking and also looking kind of lost. One of them, who spoke English, asked us if we were trying to get to Thessaloniki. They were too, and were planning to take a taxi to the border, and catch a bus from there. We asked them to help us procure a taxi so that we could do the same thing. Two minutes later we were cruising towards the border in same taxi as the three men, squashed into the back seat where I was sitting half on Neils lap and half on the lap of an older gentleman in a suit.

While making taxi small talk, we told the men that we were working in Kosovo, and asked whether they had been there or knew much about it. Our English speaking friend said that yes, they had heard of Kosovo, but didn't seem to have to much to say about it. Eventually, we asked him where he and his friends were from. They were Serbian. Serbia still does not recognize Kosovo as a real country, and regards people who enter Serbia from Kosovo as criminals. Serbians who live in Kosovo have to stay in guarded enclaves for safety. The history between these countries is bloody, emotional, and complicated. It was an interesting taxi ride.

We arrived at the border and surrendered our passports. The border guard freaked out seeing three Serbian passports, a New Zealand passport, and an American one. He had to call his friend, who had to call his friend, who called his friend. They called the Serbian men out of the taxi and questioned them. Apparently they don't encounter situations like that every day. I think they may have been suspicious of people smuggling or something. However once they established that actually we were just sharing a cab, and were all normal people, they let us through.

Once in the no mans land between Macedonia and Greece, Neil and I got out of the taxi, as the men had decided to take it all  the way to Thessaloniki instead of just to the border. We said goodbye to our new friends, and we given the phone number of Nikola Johnny, the English speaking man. He told us to come and visit him in Serbia. We told him we would call if we were ever there. Then, we were alone. We got into the line of cars queuing up for the Greek entry point and walked into Greece. We stopped at customs and were greeted by a large Greek man. (LGM).

Neil: 'Hello, ah, do we need to do anything?'
LGM: 'Do you have anything to declare?'
Charlotte: 'Ah, I don't think so.'
LGM: 'What is in your backpacks?'
Neil: 'Clothes, books...'
LGM: 'What books?'
Neil: 'Homer's 'The Odyssey''
LGM: Gives Neil a disgusted look and waves us through.

AND WE WERE IN GREECE.

There were still no buses.

There was one taxi. The driver said there were no buses, and that he would take us to Thessaloniki for 80 Euro, or to the next town - where we could catch a bus - for 20 Euro. This guy was trying to rip us off. We knew it and he knew it. But we had no choice.

Before we got into the cab, we saw an old Greek couple and their friend walking along, and decided to ask them if maybe there would be a bus coming later in the day that we could wait for. We approached them, and Neil explained our situation. They talked to each other for a moment, and then told us they would drive us to the small Greek border town, where we could catch us bus. We thanked them profusely, shot the taxi driver a dirty look, and got into their car. While driving along we had a nice chat with our new Greek friends, and told them all about what we were doing in Kosovo etc. etc. They told us about how they were dentists in Thessaloniki. We talked about how winter is nice because you can see birds nests in the trees.

Soon we took the exit to the border town. All of a sudden, the Greek man pulled the car violently off the road into a roadside food stall. He turned around to us and stated 'we are going to have lunch together. Then, we will drive you to Thessaloniki.' The Greek dentists bought us pork sandwiches and beer, and drove us all the way to Thessaloniki, dropping us right outside the train station. We caught the very same train we had originally been aiming for. IT WAS RIDICULOUS. The train ride was absolutely beautiful.

Greece. Beautiful.

We arrived in Athens, and transferred from the train to the Metro.

Athens Metro.

 We got off the Metro at the 'Acropoli' station, and were greeted with a view of the Parthenon by night.

First view of the Parthenon.

The next five days were a whirlwind of Ancient Artifacts, sunrises, sunsets, new friends, street dogs, markets, Gyros, yoghurt, scenery, and general Greek madness. Hopefully this is summed up by the photos that follow. It's all too much to put into  words, really.

Standing above an ancient village at the new Parthenon Museum.

Entrance to the Parthenon Museum.

The cobbled street that leads to the center of Ancient Athens.

Ancient Greek cemetery.

A Greek Orthodox Church in Athens.

Please do not touch the ancient paint.

Exploring the Ancient Agora with new friends.

View of the Acropolis.

Obligatory couple photo at the Ancient Agora.

Neil playing tour guide.

Theatre of Dionysus.

View of the Temple of Zeus from the Acropolis.

PARTHENON BABY!

Theatre of Dionysus by night.

Night adventures post copious amounts of red wine, Ouza, and
some random shots the waiter bought us.

Neil and his friends. These dogs followed us around all night
and barked at other people. It was awesome.

Neil sees a bullet.

Avenue car rental place, where we got a car for the day
with new friends Melissa and Jeremy.

Thermal pools. It cost 8 Euro to swim in this pool which is supposed to have
healing properties. At first, we were unconvinced. But it was totally worth it.

We were running late to see the sunset at the Temple of Poseidon.
So we had to park our rental car in a bus stop. Oops.

Temple of Poseidon.

Temple of Poseidon by night.

Sunrise over Athens.

I knew Greece was getting to Neil when I caught him doing this pose
 naturally when deciding if he wanted a chicken or lamb Gyro.

Classic Neil. Can't take him anywhere without ending up in some
kind of string instrument shop.

In Athens, you are not allowed to pose around any of the artifacts, especially in the museums. It became quite a skill to take pictures of things with us in the frame, trying to look natural.

Gold jewelry at the National Archeological Museum. 

The Mask of Agamemnon, from around 1550 BC.
The mask of Neil, from around 1985 AD.

Neil wonders how he can get his beard to grow like that.

This is either Zeus or Poseidon, no one is sure.
To the right is Adonis. Oh wait, that's Neil.

Wow I can't believe this picture isn't posed. Amazing.

Being made over as authentic Greeks by this friendly t-shirt shop
owner who used to live in Paraparaumu, New Zealand.

What a poser.

Greek yoghurt with honey. One of the most amazing things I have
eaten in my life. Ever. Our last day in Athens.

 All too soon, it was time to board the train again, and head back to Thessaloniki. We weren't sure how we would get back to Pristina from there, but we just crossed our fingers, sure that something would work itself out...

Beautiful, scenic Greece disappearing into the distance...

When we arrived in Thessaloniki, the train still wasn't running. We decided to head to the bus stop and check about buses. On the way, we went by a travel agent, and decided to see if they could help us at all. The lady gave us the number of a private bus company. They ran a bus from Thessaloniki to Skopja, but it only went three times a week. She didn't know which days, so we would either be lucky, or completely stuck. We followed her directions, and found the place. They had a bus that day. It was leaving in two hours. There were tickets. WE HAD DONE IT. We were going to make it back to Skopje. From there, board a bus to Pristina and we were home free.

As we crossed the road to get on the bus when it arrived, we heard a voice coming towards us. 'OH MY GOOODDDDDDDDDDDD. I can't believe it!'  It was Nikola Johnny, our Serbian taxi buddy. We couldn't believe it either. He had no money because of being ripped off by a taxi driver, and had to get back to Skopja to meet up with his father who would take him back to Serbia. We gave him money to get onto the bus, and the three of us got comfortable for the four hour ride awaiting us. It turned out that his father wasn't in Skopja when we arrived, and was apparently stuck at the border. We told Johnny not to worry about the money. He assured us that he would somehow pay us back, and invited us to a hamburger festival at his village in Serbia. We told him we would be in touch. Then we headed back to Hostel Hostel. We ended up in the same room.

Back in Hostel Hostel.

The next morning, we boarded the bus to Pristina. As we approached the city at last, a depressing view greeted us. We took a deep breath of coal pollution filled air and remembered the amazing time we had had in Greece. Then we desperately looked ahead to our next break in April.

Ah, Kosovo. What a sight to return to.

The end.