HAIL CAESAR!

The following takes place on Day 198, June 13, 2011

After a pretty easy sleep on the bus from Dahab to Cairo, involving a backup in traffic that lasted an hour at the same drug/bus search we reached on the trip to Dahab three nights before, I was being zipped through early morning traffic to the Cairo International Airport to catch my flight to Athens. I felt sad to be leaving Egypt so soon but felt excited because of who would be waiting for me in the Athens Airport – my friend Kelly.

This had been planned for months already. As soon as I put in my temporary dates for the flights, Kelly worked to get time off to come travel with me for a few weeks. She worked it so she got just under three weeks to meet me while I went to Greece. She would end up landing just as I was taking off.

And she would have Clamato.

When I landed in Athens, I made my way through customs rather easily and went to the baggage claim area where I saw Kelly sitting patiently reading her Kindle. It felt really odd to suddenly see someone I knew from home in a foreign country. We got my bag and, after hugs, made our way to the trains to grab the metro into the city. The metro dropped us off right in front of the Parliament building where a tent city had been set up. We didn’t know it then, but something was already building that day. Large banners were hanging everywhere in the square. I didn’t know what they said but they were written in a way that represented anger.

After walking and getting lost a bit we found the right street and our first hostel. It was around 3pm by now. After a few hours, and with the kindly tip of a couple aussie gals, we decided to head for the Acropolis today instead of resting as it was actually free to enter today. And you know me, I like free. Poor Kelly though. By this time, she’d been up for almost 24 hours.

The Acropolis is the area of Athens in which one can find the most famous monument in the city: The Parthenon. It can been seen from any area of the city as it’s on one of the tallest hills in the city. But besides the Parthenon, the Acropolis also holds numerous other ruins and buildings from Greece’s past.

We started at the bottom, making our way up to the Dionysus Theater. From what I could gather, this had been used for some of the earliest forms of Greek drama and comedy and had gone through many different makeovers and changes.

We climbed higher, passing another outdoor amphitheater. This one looked much more modern with lights and a sound system. Those ancient Greeks were definitely ahead of their time.

Finally, within the heat of the day, we reached a set of stone steps, worn smooth by centuries of use. We arrived within a large open space with more stairs to our right leading through some arches and to the top of the Acropolis and the Parthenon. I remember as a kid doing a report on Greece and having to make a quilt for it. The Parthenon was a prominent artefact on mine.

Though, much like the Sphinx, it was a lot smaller than I had pictured in my head. But no less enthralling. The structure, with it’s precision cuts, was beautiful. It seemed to shine with it’s own brilliance in the late day sun. I don’t know how many times we circled the monument. It was awesome. Eventually though, you reach a point where you’ve seen something from every possible angle so we made our way down the mountain, pausing briefly at another overlook of the city.

Back at the hostel, I ran across the road to the grocery store on what I thought would be a fruitless effort to find all the ingredients I would need to make a Caesar. I was wrong. I found vodka. I found the Tabasco sauce. I found Worcestershire sauce. I was vibrating with excitement. There were even a few other Canadians in the hostel who, when they saw that I had Clamato, became my newest best friends and grabbed cups to have some themselves. Best Caesar's I’ve had in ages! I make a mean spicy Caesar. Just missing the celery stick.

I even managed to convince one of the Australian girls to try some. See, once you get past the idea that Clamato is a mix of clam and tomatoes juices, it’s a very tasty drink. Way better than vegemite.

We ended up heading out for supper at the restaurant beside the hostel(where earlier the waiter had tricked me to get me to go there. “Excuse me, how do you say ‘I would like to sit here’ in your language.” “I would like to sit here.” “But of course! Right this way!”). Because of the earlier trickery, and how well I took it, the waiter offered us a free first drink and complimentary dessert for all of us.