Vets into the Wild

For this one we have once again Andreea & Mihnea to thank. They were working in Cyprus, at Paphiakos Animal Shelter, and they arranged for us to come and do volunteering/medical practice for about 3 weeks. The plan was to take the train to Athens and from there to fly to Larnaca, this being the cheapest way to get to Cyprus. Since this trip took ages (more than 3 days anyway) the chances of something wrong to happen, or at least unexpeced or unplanned were close to 100%. And statistics are rarely wrong.

The journey was generally pleasant (and slightly boring) while on the train to Thessaloniki (never quite understood why Romanians call it “Salonic”). We spent only 3 hours there instead of 10 or so, because our wonderfully “punctual” train was late big time. However, in those sqweezed in 3 hours we managed to see a lot of things with the bus we randomly picked from the main station, including the pitoresque traffic jam at rush hour, 20 minutes before our train left.

But Athens…Well, in Athens we took things to a whole new level. Here we had some time to kill, one day and a half to be more exact. This is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited, and we agreed to see every ancient rock, stone or pebble we would come upon. And they were plenty to see. The first evening we climbed the Acropolis following a narrow, abrupt path hidden behind houses and olive trees, and from up there we watched a concert held beneath in an open air amphitheater. In such a romantic, idillic and exotic place I found the perfect spot to ruin everything take my daily fluimucil and other meds (I was recovering from a nasty pneumonia). And so we stood, above the world, listening to wonderful music, looking at the unique scenery below, and slowly sipping the bitter Fluimucil broth in my plastic cup…

Because the night was still young, and we had no place to sleep, we decided to have a taste of Athens’ night life. We thought we would find a bar/pub/cafe and stay there and drink ’till morning. We found a cozy taverna in Monastiraki district where everybody was dancing sirtaki and drinking. And you know what they say… While in Rome … We ordered ouzo. Big mistake. With all the due respect to traditional “stuff”, it tastes like water with toothpaste. And it looks like water with toothpaste!! makes you wonder, huh?… Anyway…Ovidiu was dead drunk after only one glass (he blamed the tiredness) I was half asleep (I also blamed the tiredness, what do you know…) and one thing was for sure: we needed to sleep. So at about 4 in the morning we found 2 BENCHES in a small square, somewhere in Athens. We unpacked our sleeping bags, like decent “urban outdoorsmen”, and tried to get some hours of sleep. Ovidiu, having some blood in his alcohol (pun intended) fell asleep after 5 seconds. I, on the otherhand, am a reasonably paranoid person, so I hardly sleptat all, because for me, every car that passed us by was a police car, and every man was a policeman coming to arrest us for “improper behavior”. And the hordes of mosquitos didn’t help much either…

At 6 a.m. I got sick and tired and woke Ovidiu up. He was bright and shiny enough to come up with yet another brilliant idea: “Let’s go to Pireu and sleep on the beach!!” and I was brain dead enough to say yes. Of course we couldn’t sleep there either, because of the noise, sun, water, damn rocks and bastard kids… But hey! We got to see Pireu! Can’t really remember much, because I was in a sleep deprivation zombie state. All I remember was a conversation with Ovidiu calculating the costs of our joy rides around Athens, while on the train back to the centre. As respectable and experienced fare dodgers, we probably made quite a hole in the local transport system budget.

… to be continued…

Ioana Popescu