After staff ride, one hundred of us volunteered in San Barinco to pick up micro trash and improve environmental awareness in the little town. We kind of looked like zombies looking for cigarette butts, but we made a difference, and the beach looked like paradise within only a couple of hours.

some Mediterranean Sea time

I traveled to Bari with the rest of the volunteers and boarded a superfast ferry to Patras. I was relieved to have no schedule, no appertivo, and no people around me, so I could just worry about me myself and sleeping. It was a 16 hour ferry, and I must have slept 13 hours of the way. My body ached, and I had no mental energy to switch over to Greek, culturally or linguistically. I learned the alphabet and some phrases once, but now it was time to shut down, and go into recover mode.

Patras, Greece

I left Patras to Kiato, where the peaceful coastal towns continued in Greek. I traveled by bus and train, and needed to get to Athens eventually. I got off the train in Athens station (big mistake) and decided to walk to the Acropolis, you know, to stretch my legs. Within 2 km, I walked from whore house to crack town and then turned the corner into tourist city central, and Im not sure where I felt safer, but definitely couldn´t put my guard down as much as it had been in sleepy Puglia.

surrounded by ruins

I only had a day in Athens, before heading to the airport and taking my international red eye flight. Athens is a grimy town, full of misfits and tourists from everywhere, buzzing together in the second oldest city of Europe, a clash of pre-Christian history and modern city with a whole lot of made-in-china souvenir shops.

under the Acropolis

Sitting under the acropolis on a rooftop balcony drinking a Greek beer felt surreal. I´m not sure how real an ancient archeological site can ever really feel, because you know the facts and numbers, you´ve heard the stories and seen pictures and paintings, but if only those walls, or pillars rather, could speak.