The next morning in Budapest, (well technically the same morning), we got up at 11:30 and headed over to the train station to catch our train to Belgrade. At this point I was ready to jettison any thought of staying in Eastern Europe any longer than was absolutely necessary. I just wanted to get the hell to Greece. We hopped on the train and seven hours later ended up in Belgrade, Serbia. We stayed on the ground in Serbia for about, oh six minutes, and hopped on another train for Sophia, Bulgaria. Now this train was the sketchiest vehicle that I have ever travelled in. Imagine, if you will, the old dental mobile home they had around PEI back in the day. (If you don't remember that, imagine the old bookmobile or one of the old replacement school busses. If you don't remember either of these, you are probably a townie, and would not understand the state of anything beyond the Peter Pan Corner anyway). Now imagine any of these structures experiencing traffic upwards of 300 people a day, smoking, drinking, eating, etc. And now imagine that it is mid winter, the heaters are broken, as are many of the windows, and that it hasn't been cleaned since 1987. It was pretty ridiculous. Some guy came to me and asked for 6 Euros so he can get on the train too (God knows why he would want to). I pulled out some change, and he informed me that they wouldn't take Euro coins, so he needed a 10 Euro note. Of course he promised to pay me back. The benevolent heart that I am, I obliged and spent the rest of the night thinking... they don't take coins... riiiight.
I made that money back though, kind of by accident. The tickets booths were closed in Belgrade, so we just hopped on and figured we'd pay on the train. Every time a ticket person barged in (which was several times during the night, usually when I had just nodded off) I wordlessly handed him my Eurail Pass (which is totally not valid in Serbia or Bulgaria) and he would frown at it, and then pass it back to me and mumble something under his breath. I don't know which was the funnest part of the journey, feeling like I was going to get robbed (and keeping my long heavy flash light handy just in case), trying to use the washroom without a proper door or toilet, or being questioned by Hungarian border guards about smuggling. When he pointed to my bag and asked (I think he said something about cigarettes), I just shook my head no. Not five minutes later I read in my guide book that: "Bulgarians shake their head 'no' and nod their head 'yes'." Wonderful. There were about 25 border guards on the train, poking holes in the walls and ripping stuff apart looking for... God knows what. Thankfully they didn't seem to care too much about a dumb Canadian with an invalid ticket and who may or may not have had contraband cigarettes in his bag.
Our original plan was to arrive in Sophia at 6:25 and have 35 minutes to get on another train to Thessaloniki, and then to head for Athens, arriving by 19:50 tthat night. But seeing as our train was a full two hours and fourty minutes late, we didn't quite make the 7:00 train out of Eastern Europe. You know what they say: don't set your watch by Bulgarian trains.
We found the ticket office in Sophia so we could reserve beds on the next train to Athens, and ran into two British guys, John and Richard, who were in a similar predicament to us... that is, wanting to get the hell out of Eastern Europe. Our introductory conversation went something like "Holy shit it's good to hear someone else who speaks English." They agreed, and after we hung out at the hostel, walked around the city and had some lunch (with no meatballs), we made plans to meet up with them in Greece once they arrived the next day. Meghan and I then headed for our train. After being harassed by a bunch of husslers to carry our bags and what not, (I gave one guy $5 Canadian. He gave the blue bill one look and he got really pissed at me. Should've just gave him Canadian Tire money), we reached our sleeper car, locked the door, and slept the night away on a much more comfortable and much nicer train than we had encountered... nay, endured, the night before.
Somewhere in the night we finally crossed the snow threshold as we passed into Greece, and arrived in Athens shortly after 6:00 to somewhat more temperate weather. We found our hostel and ate, then headed off to a landromat to do some laundry until our room was ready. It was a fairly uneventful day, but we did meet an interesting guy at the laundromat who was absolutely obsessed with California, saw some of the city, and the many stray dogs that inhabit it. Even though most of the dogs that roam the street are strays, many of them have collars provided by the locals, and are fed by people around the community. More on this later. Tuesday night we stuck around the hostel and hung out in the pub, meeting more Canadians and Americans, along with a Mexican and two Brazilians. We had a lot of interesting conversations. (I met one girl (Cynthia) from Ottawa who went to middle school with a friend's roommate at UPEI. Small effing world). Before I nodded off to sleep, the Aussie in our room (Jared, who would become one of our travel companions) threw up all over himself and the floor. I dozed off to the sound of him apologizing profusely to the Ohio girl whose bunk was directly below his.
On Wednesday we headed out to see the sights in Athens, you know, all the usual ruins you would see on pictures of the city. It was all very nice, and we ran into a lot of our hostel mates on the hill, most of whom were slouched on benches or drinking water in an effort to recover from the intake of Ouzo the night before. The ruins were beginning to look an awful lot like each other when we randomly ran into John and Richard at one fo the sites, and they had met Cynthia at the hostel, and so, reunited in a more comfortable climate, the five of us went out for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Athens.
That night was much the same as the night before, but considerably more rowdy, as England was playing Croatia for a berth in the EuroCup 2008. England lost, and so there were a lot of pissed off backpackers and staff. In the midst of the angry post-game drinking, Richard, John, and I headed up tp the top of Acropolis (a plateau in the middle of the city with the most prominent ruins on it) to see the view at night. As we left the hostel, as if followed by body guards, three dogs who always hung around the hostel led/followed us to the hill, barking and intimidating anyone or anything that they perceived as a risk to us. By the time we had reached the hill, there were five dogs guarding us, and as we sat down on the rocks talking about history and other boring stuff, the dogs each took a sentry point in a circle around us, alert and ready to take down anything. It was amazing.
On Thursday the weather got a lot nicer, and we (myself, Meghan, John, Richard and Jared) headed to a monastery on a hill in the centre of the city to catch the view from up there. It was beautiful, and by mid-day, the temperature had climbed to 25. We made a final effort to see as much of the city as we could before sharing a traditional Greek meal together, finishing off some random drinks in a trendy local bar, (where Richard, John and I met a couple from the US/Taiwan, and a bunch of Americans, one of which was a girl from Iowa who hated Canadians because one had asked her if Iowa was where all the potatoes come from [that would be Idaho]), and getting set to take off for Italy the next morning.
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