Hmm, what else did I do there? Well, in Rethymno, there is a fortress so I wandered around that for a while. That was a cool little bit of old stuff. I also went on a hike around the city, and climbed a little mountain/hill. Twas a nice day around town. That night (Nov 21st, special day anyone?) I was to catch a ferry to Athens. It would take 8 hours and that is where my adventure begins........
I took a bus to the port which was about an hour from Rethymno and boarded the boat. I bought a deck ticket so I did not have a specified chair or room or anything. Just chill around the boat until we landed. It was an 8 hour ride over night. So I got on and went into a lounge and watched Demolition Man with Sly Stallone and Westley Snipes. Terribly awesome 80s movie. In the lounge, they would not let you lie down on the couches so I sat up the whole time. When the movie ended, I walked around to find a place I could lie down and sleep for a while. I found a covered area on the deck that people were sleeping on so I found a little piece of the couch for me and settled in for a few hours. I slept lightly because I wanted to be aware of what was going on around me. After a few hours I got a little chilly because all I had was my flannel and rain jacket on, not too warm. So I went inside and found a place on a stair landing (people were sleeping there too). I didn't like that though, I was too paranoid about someone walking by me or waking me up. After I was a little warmed up, I went back out on deck and we docked about 30mins later. So it was 5am in Athens. I had booked a hostel for one night so I wouldn't have to stress about getting in and out right away.
I found my hostel at about 8am and checked in and was oddly enough let into my room at that time. I found that strange because most hostels won't let you in until 1 or 2. But I wasn't complaining. I took a 2 hour nap because of obviously not sleeping well on the boat. From there I set off to see the Acropolis! That was really neat to see. I started off walking the park area around it and saw a few temples and other old stuff. Then I bought a ticket to go in and see the Parthenon for 6 euro. I snuck a 50% student discount from them, but I'm not sure if I really should have got one. It was really cool up there too but there is a lot of scaffolding on the Parthenon because of the big reconstruction process they are going through. Still, cool to see. As I was about to leave, the it started to clear up (it had been cloudy all day) so I took a few more pictures in the better light and explored more of the grounds. Pretty nifty stuff going on there. I ate lunch at some restaurant and got had the worst gyro I've had, so that was very disappointing. Oh well.
After all that, I went back to my hostel to use the internet to plan out the rest of my travels. After looking around a bit, I went to the train station to find a way to Budapest. After getting an itinerary and rough price, I went back to search for a better deal but didn't find any so I booked some hostels (Budapest and Prague) and went back to the train station. The itinerary went as follows: 23h00 Athens to Thessaloniki, 009 Thessaloniki to Bukuresti, 18h00 Bukuresti to Budapest. So according to that, I should have arrived in Budapest the next day in the evening. Well, I don't know my European geography very well so I didn't know how far it was or anything like that so I went with it. When I went back to the station to buy the ticket, the train that would leave for Thessaloniki tomorrow was full so I would have to take the one that left tonight if I were to stay on the schedule. Alright, whatever. I bought that ticket and cancelled my hostel, but it wasn't that bad. 10 euro for a nap, place to keep my bag and internet, I'll pay that. So I waited around until it was time to leave which took quite a long time. Finally I got on the train and found my seat. It ended up being a 7 hour ride that took all night.
At the next station I bought my ticket for Bukuresti that left at midnight that night. So I had all day to kill in Thessaloniki. The day was spent with me walking around with my pack on for a while until I went to a Starbucks and stayed there for about 6 hours. I read one of my books, The Lonely Hearts Club, cover to cover. Now, Thessaloniki was a nice town, but I didn't want to lug my bag around with me all day because that thing gets heavy! So I relaxed in a Starbucks. It was a nice time, I talked with a Greek couple for a little bit. Then I set off to find the train station again and wanted to hit up a grocery store to buy food for the ride. Well, it was a Sunday so all the stores had closed already... I ended up buying 2 sandwiches from the station, some pringles, cookies, and water. I ate half of that for dinner and the rest would be for lunch.
After a few more hours of waiting, I got on the train and found an empty compartment. After fiddling with the heat for a while, I figured it didn't work so put on an extra tshirt and pair of socks. It was really all I could do. So I huddled up using my bag as a pillow and went to sleep. When I woke up a few hours later, there was a Greek guy on the bench across from me. He woke up a little later and we talked for a while, mostly about how cold it was. Then, at his stop, they made everyone get off as they switched the cars, maybe because the heat wasn't working in the first one. Well, no I was alone and the heat still didn't work. So I went to sleep again to kill time. This time, when I woke up I was WARM! The sun had been shinning in on me while I was sleeping and made me nice and toasty warm! It was a very pretty ride through a ravine or something, so quite enjoyable. Except that it took 19 hours... So it ended up being my best and worst ride I've had, neat! I killed the rest of the time reading, sleeping, and throwing cards into a hat.
I got into Bukuresti at 7pm and went to buy my ticket for Budapest. I bought that ticket and the train left at 23h45. Well, this made me pretty upset and with the lack of sleep and food, it kinda got to me. There wasn't much I could do but wait so I went into the waiting room and caught up on my journal. While I was writing, a Romania lady started talking to me and we had a long conversation with a big language barrier. I don't know if it was because I was too tired to analyze it or I knew some of the Latin derivatives but I could understand a lot of what she was saying. She also kept says "supero" after everything she said. She kind reminded me of Aunt Gail because she was friendly, talkative, and looked similar. Well, at about 11 I went to get dinner and caught my train. I did not realize when I bought it, but I got a sleeper car. I probably would have declined because it costs more but oh well. It ended up being really nice. I was alone so could sleep without any disturbances and got a full night's sleep. I really needed it because I woke up feeling a lot calmer than I had the day before. So it was worth the extra money. Plus, it was the fanciest sleeper car I've seen. It looked like a cabin on a cruise ship just a lot smaller. So that was cool.
I finally made it to Budapest! I arrive at about 14h45 on November 25th. About 40 hours total on a train in 3 days. It had been 4 days since I slept in a proper bed, even though the last night was nice, I don't really consider it proper because it was on a train... And I had yet another lacking of food, but again, not on purpose, there was just no way for me to have known it would be so crazy. It's not what the guy at the first station told me. Whatever, I made it to Budapest and only lost 1 night of my 3 night booking.
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