Athens Stories: Day V

A Five-Star Day, New Friend & Malakas

Jason Lucas
Nov 6 · 7 min read

The day we got our skin eaten.

(It’s much less sexual than it sounds)

Today was a full-blown tourist day. Resort style.

And I had to keep yesterday’s revelations and overwhelming strategizing aside for the day.

Day V was the day where we activated our City Sight Seeing, “Hop On Hop Off” bus passes.

The plan for the day was to reach the Lake Vouliagmeni (Lago di Vouliagmeni), which is considered to be the hidden treasure in Attica’s nature, located straight into the heart of the Athenian Rivera.

Lake Vouliagmeni Health Spa, in the heart of the Athenian Rivera

In order to get there, we had to make use of our newly activated bus passes and take the Athens line to transfer to the Rivera line, and reach the sweet resort which would make up for (what we thought was) a lack of an interesting beach in our plans.

Turns out it did more than ‘make up’ for it, because it was a beauty that was hard to describe!

The Lake Vouliagmeni is a beautiful place located near the coast and secluded in big, rocky mountains with top-notch service and a lake where the fish, the Garra Rufa fish — also known as spa fish — who are part of the Lake’s unique ecosystem, would swim with us and feed of the dead skin of our feet (consider this a very natural pedi), to many people’s terror.

Dear Defni seemingly not enjoying her natural pedi

Another part of people’s terror were the damned pigeons — who, by the way, in Greece, are seemingly completely ruthless — that shamelessly ripped us out of our peanuts, smacked our drinks down to the floor and graciously took a sh*t on my chair.

My personal terror came from my desire to tan a bit, only to end up a bit redder while still as pale.

Honestly, those kind of touristic attractions are usually not my style. And despite me joking around a lot about having been a full-blown tourist ever since our arrival — since it is, still quite the case -, I’ve always been a lover of adventure, and made abundantly clear that my desire upon coming to Athens was exploring more of the history and culture of it.

But you know what? A 5-star resort ain’t never hurt nobody.

And it was still quite the adventure.

So overall, despite the pigeons and my newly acquired reddened skin, we’ve had an amazing time and thoroughly enjoyed the ridiculously varied menu and wonderful sun accompanying us.

Very rare (and only) picture of topless me with my super tourist hat on!

My dear travel partner couldn’t help but laugh at my launch combo: maple-syrup-drenched pancakes with a side of Greek beer. Like you can talk, dear Dafni, ordering your seventh Greek salad of the week!

Upon leaving, we skipped the first bus stop and decided to explore the coast and take pictures — upon the request of my dear mama desiring a print of the sea — as we waited for the next bus to arrive so we could hop on it.

- “Yeah, let’s skip it, they pass every 15 minutes anyway!” I say

- “Are you sure?” she asks, obviously doubtful

- “ Well why of course! It says so on the paper! Didn’t you read?” I retort

And so a few minutes passed, as we kept walking, exploring, enjoying the view.

And 15 minutes passed… as we kept walking, exploring, enjoying the view.

And as we kept walking, exploring, enjoying the view, I felt compelled to break the uncomfortable silence:

-”We’ll just reach the next stop and wait here, y’know?”

-”How do you know it’s the same route the other way around?”

- “I just know” (disclaimer: I didn’t know)

And another 15 minutes passed… “maybe the bus is simply late”

But another 15 minutes passed, yet again…

Turns out it wasn’t “simply late”, and I definitely didn’t “just know”.

Because we weren’t on the right road.

The wonderful Vouliagmeni area, and definitely right road towards the bus stop

Fortunately we managed to find our way to the actual bus stop before too late, and realized upon reading the sign (as I dared accused her not having done so) that the ATHENS LINE would pass every 15 minutes…

Which was great to get here, but to come back, it was the RIVERA LINE, which passed every hour or so…

Fortunately, we hadn’t missed our mark yet, and eventually caught the bus and were on our way back to Athens.

So we walked over the city again, and remembered a restaurant we had put on our list prior to the trip, during our ‘research’ phase.

The Notorious AvocadoForLife. Or simply Avocado.

That sh*t was on another level, completely.

An amazing array of vege/vegan food, with a touch of art, there to perfectly meet our expectations.

Avocado, Athens, Nikkis 30, Syntagma

So we spent the rest of the night hanging out at Monastiraki Square because, well, that’s that spot.

For the sake of diversity, we decided to go through some shops, where I had the opportunity to be a full-blown tourist, once again (I’m really beginning to think I might be overusing that term — or have I simply over-been it?) and buy myself some more Greek-style clothing, which I do not regret a second.

But dear Dafni was second-guessing my impulsive decision.

- Dude, we have to think about the weight of our bags! Remember, airport regulations and all?

- Man, gimme a break with your regulations! We’ll be fine! Worst case scenario, we’ll have a little extra fee. Who cares? I’ll pay. Besides, we’re not going to. Stop tripping.

(Spoiler alert: Bags were overweight. They charged us. She paid.)

This little transaction however made us meet the sweetest shop owner we could ever meet, and make a new friend again!

We’ve had quite the long conversation where we asked a lot about the city, places to visit and such as she asked about us, what we do, where we come from, when could she be marrying us (that surely seems to be a trend over there — marrying tourists), and at some point I couldn’t contain myself anymore, I just had to ask:

“Is it possible that some people hate tourists here? I know most don’t, and actually love them! But sometimes, it feels like we’re literally plaguing the city!”

I was obviously referring to yesterday’s Angry Drunk Greek Waiter. I also couldn’t help but tell her the story of how we got punked at least twice into buying some “free” shit from the less honest vendors over there.

But that first statement made her lose her shit!

“Are you crazy?! We LOVE tourists! Tourists make city thrive! Who do you think makes my store run? The others you are talking about are fucking malakas! And the other gypsies you talk about are malakas too! They not pregnant, fake belly, fake daughter! They make things hard for us!”

Needless to say, I really loved that store owner. I wish I could’ve bought her entire shop.

Upon making our purchase, we’ve also been gifted a bunch of goodies and souvenirs since she was so grateful that I spent half of my budget in her store.

So we spoke with her for a little while, where I had the opportunity to tell her about my newly awakened, burning desire to move here.

I told her all about my love for the city, and my deep, profound desire to actually make a impact and do my best to make some meaningful changes in the city, to which she actually seemed eager to believe, and that gave me an odd boost of confidence.

And prompted me to ask if we could take a picture.

With our new friend, whose name I shamefully forgot, at her store whose name I definitely remember…

Upon concluding this brief but lovely interaction, we kept walking over the city again, strolling around the never-ending flea markets (you know, to make a little change).

And here I was, walking proudly in my freshly acquired stylish gear, wearing that Greek-patterned poncho, with my Greek-patterned scarf, and my ‘But First, Athens’ hat.

Which all seemed very natural to me.

Until we crtossed path with yet another shop owner who had noticed my newly bought Greek outfit and couldn’t help but comment that I “look[ed] verry Grreek”, which really meant: “you look like a fucking tourist!”, as I had translated for her (to which she actually unshamefully agreed)…

And truth is, I really did.

My proud, Greek-outfit-wearing self, posing in our messy cubicle

But once again, no ragrets.

Little did she know, I was planning to come back in less then a year for very non-touristic purposes.

And I still had to figure that sh*t out.

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