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The weather has begun to cool here in Athens. The sky is grey. Today I wore pants to work for the first time, and I'm no longer arriving to school drenched in my own sweat. But the temperature drop also means I need to take advantage of the Great Greek Outdoors while the weather allows it.

This past weekend, half of the teaching fellows went to Vienna. The five of us who remained in Greece didn't go out either night, and therefore didn't spend all of SaturDAY and SunDAY sleeping off hangovers. I had two full days of outdoor adventure, and probably the best weekend I've had here yet. 

We planned to meet up in Syntagma (the city center) at 10:30 am on Saturday morning. 

Lizzie (my roomie) and I had recently discovered a bus that we believed somehow led to the metro station. At 9:45 am we hopped on the bus. At around 10:20, we were way up in the mountains.

When we finally admitted to ourselves that this bus was not headed towards the metro stop and got off, we were met with air much fresher than the air in Halandri. The view from up there was pretty spectacular (hence title of post) - we could see all the way past Athens to the ocean. It was refreshing to be among so many more trees and so much less traffic. No grass, though - "Green Space" around Athens is really "Brown Space"- the ground is all dry soil, and nature has a more desert-like feel. I think this area we stumbled upon is called Nea Pentelis, and I'm really looking forward to exploring it further. Next time I'll bring a camera.

After walking around for a bit, Lizzie and I got back on the bus in the opposite direction, and asked the driver if it would bring us to the metro. "Vivaeos," he told us. (Of course.)

Greeks have a unique way of monitoring payment for public transport. When you get on a bus, you don't drop any change in any glass container, or give the driver your ticket. You don't line up to put your Charlie card through a machine and have it spat back out at you. No doors open to let you through and then close, violently, to stop the next person from squeezing in behind you. You just get on.

Very very occasionally, a ticket officer will come onto your bus and ask to see your ticket or pass.

Up until this weekend, I was thinking Greece could solve all its economic problems if they would just adopt a regular method of charging people each time they boarded a bus or train. It seemed like the government must be losing so much money due to all those people who slip through the cracks. People like Lizzie and me, who on October 2nd were still carrying our September month passes.

But then the ticket officer, with his snazzy little fanny pack, boarded our bus. This was literally the first time I've seen a ticket officer in all of my time here. And he charged us sixty Euros a pop.

Lesson learned.

FML.

When we finally made it into Syntagma around 1:30 pm, (we've gone Greek and stopped bothering with punctuality), we set out to climb Mont Lycabettus, the highest point in Athens (about 900 ft tall). Lycabettus means "the one that is walked by wolves" - folklore suggests that at one point wolves inhabited the hill. (Check it, Shakira!) There's also a story about how Athena dropped the mountain when she was flying over the landscape to add it to the Acropolis, but that's for another time.

The climb is quite steep, so you get to the top pretty quickly. Giant, prickly, aloe-like plants line the path up the hill, and make you feel like you're in Jurassic Park. After less than twenty minutes, we had reached the summit and could see the white of Athens spread out below us in every direction. I like how Athens is surrounded on three sides by mountains and on one side by sea. It makes me believe I can easily orient myself, because there are clear limits. I'm still having some issues with which way is North, but from this height, it all seems to make sense. Up there you can see the Acropolis, the ocean, Parliament, etc. People say Athens is a small city. The view from above makes me beg to differ. Shame on me, I didn't bring my camera.

The next day we arose bright and early (again!) to go to Aegina, an island just a forty minute ferry-ride away. I'll tell you I swam and ate a lot of pistachio ice cream, and that I'm still amazed by the colour of the water here. Otherwise, I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Oh, and I saw a boat from Weekapaug:

It's a small world, after all.