The company of the Germans made the train rides bearable, and it was a relief to talk to some fellow travellers. They too were heading to Athens, and the train ride from Thess to Athina was especially scenic, winding through these rolling hills and misshapen shrubbery, the sunrise making it all the more beautiful. An overwhelmingly kind greek woman for some strange reason decided to take us under her wing for the entire train ride, we had accidentally sat in her seat and so didn't expect her to come over 5 minutes later with a big bag of bread rolls saying "For you! From Thessaloniki! Excuse me!" (This was about the extent of her english—apart from "husband" and "mother" when she showed us photos of her family in her wallet) About an hour later she came over with chocolate croissants and juice, and about 2 hours afer that she delivered a giant baguette thing wih all this salad and meat inside and botles of water and napkins. We didn't know what to do we just kept saying Thankyou Thankyou please stop! She was far too kind for her own good, we couldn't work out why on earth she wanted to feed us so heartily.

So on arrival in Athens we were pretty pleased wih ourselves, albeit extremely tired. After putting our bags in lockers we decided to hang out in Athens for a little, jus to decide what to do and get our bearings a bit. My phone was completely dead and I had no idea how to ge in contac with the girls, so my new plan was to take the guys' offer to stay with them at their couchsurfing host's aparment for the night, and meet the girls in the morning. Most of the day was spent scrambling our way through a hot, busy, rather dirty and crazy Athens, I was far too tired to take in most of the sites so was happy when we resorted to lying in the sun in the National Gardens, jus tp kind of be for a while.

The couchsurfing host was a funny funny guy, I can't for the life of me recall his name though. But he was very nice, very easygoing and laid back kind of guy, there were altogether about 11 travellers staying with him that night—some more germans, some belgians and some french girls who were so nice. We all sat around the sheesha talking for a while, the sweet apple smoke wafted out the window where you could see this great church dome next door to the apartment block. Later a couple of us went up on the hill to look at the acropolis, such an amazing view of it all lit up and perfect in the night. It was an interesting night, full of ouzo and wandering and laughing and new people; and most of all the delight of not knowing.