Dionysus Pub Crawl

The boys sitting below the egg chandelier

After trying to explore Athens on a Tuesday night, the most awkward nights of the week in terms of partying, we decided we could do with some professional help. So on instruction of our captain to “get drunk, get laid, & don’t leave your teaspoon in the sink, we don’t live on a farm”, we decided to all wash and put our teaspoons away and go on a pub crawl.

The Girls

Me, Adam, Jamie, Stevo, Alec, Lorna & Rach, met Thomas, our pub guide, at his father’s restaurant for a pre-match kebab and some beer and wine to ease us into the night. As per usual we got ahead of ourselves and tried to order more alcohol but were told it was time to move on. We wound our way through the maze of Athens, passing quaint little streets & about 20 stray cats and found ourselves at what we like to call, The Chicken Place.

At first I thought it might be the real-life version of Angry Birds. There were chickens hanging from the roof and a chandelier made out of their eggs. We sat down at magnificent rustic oak tables, with chess sets dotted all along them. Daisy described it as “just like London” and I thought it looked a lot like something you’d find on Long Street in Cape Town. So basically it was a pretty cool place. After our shot and a quick down-down, we were ushered out and onto the next bar.

Next to a live heavy rock concert and art gallery lay Six Dogs. Not much to go by on the outside but inside it was magical (the alcohol might have started taking effect right about now). We walked in and felt sand beneath our feet, looked up and saw the stars and fairy lights bouncing in the tree’s and people were dotted all over the many tiers of beach that wrapped around the bar.

Enjoying some shisha

I ordered a round for the girls and in my attempt to pick all the drinks up, I spilt one- again the alcohol might have been involved - and it was replaced for free! Despite being in a huge recession, the Greeks are genuinely extremely generous and friendly, it really is amazing to see. We even got a discount at the pharmacy, which we didn’t even ask for! We were also given some collagen to drink, which we didn’t ask for, which also made me want to buy anti-wrinkle cream – now that I think about it, maybe it was actually a marketing ploy…those clever bastards!

Anyway, once seated, we got chatting to two artists, a sculptor who had lived in New York for 20 years and an abstract painter, both trying to make a living in Athens now. Meeting new and interesting people is definitely high up on the positives of a travellers life.  But just as we had made our new friends, Thomas the tank engine whisked us off. We took a peak into the rock concert and ventured into the gallery, where Jamie so tactfully said: “Who would buy this?!”, right in front of the artist….so smooth. We were asked where we wanted to go and we all agreed that it was time for Dionysos (the god of inebriation and ecstatic dancing) to make an appearance, so a short taxi ride later we found ourselves in Gazi – not the Gaza strip like Adam tried to tell me – at a club called Soho. At this point I’m not sure any of us remember much but I do remember coming out feeling pretty chuffed with our pub crawl organising skills.

Astiri Beach

The next day Daisy and I headed off for our first kite surfing lesson. Can you say bad idea? Once we were out in the open flying our kite, trying our best not to be sick whilst and impatient instructor, Angel,  told us in vein to “think” as he bombarded us with questions about the wind and sea, our hangovers started to take full effect.

Daisy had to take 5 and sit down in the car and drink the poor man’s water while I pretended to carry on listening by nodding and saying “yeah, yip, uh huh” a lot. I’m not sure he bought it. After an hour and a half of running up and down, picking the kite up and trying to fly it in practically no wind, the lesson finally came to an end. Relief.

 Or so we thought. We hadn’t arrange any way of getting back from the lesson so we asked to be directed to the nearest taxi rank. Angel pointed to the horizon and said to take the bridge over by the airport. Despite there being no bridge in sight we headed in that general direction.

A 20 minute walk later, past a hospital and down the side of a 3 lane highway in our beach gear, we arrived at the taxi station and eventually made it to Astiri beach aka paradise, where Rach, Jamie and Lorna joined us. Sea so blue, it hurts the eyes, sun so bright it does the same. Beach bed service and a TGI Fridays a step away made for a great recovery. We swam in the crystal clear water and lay out on the pontoon, drank Fredicchino’s and lay in the hammock admiring the surreal view. It’s a definite must visit beach and also has wakeboarding for the adventurous types.

So ended another day in paradise and I must say that I do love my life.

Hammock time

Land of the Gods

So when I heard that the boat spent 4-5 months of the year in Greece, I must admit, I wasn’t too chuffed – bad economy, lamb slaughtering, fat sweaty men & worst of all, I wouldn’t be able to read/understand anything (I understand a little bit of French ok?!). When I got here, however, it was a whole different story.

We left Monaco with the longest goodbye on the 16^th June. On our way over, we were lucky enough to get to use the Jacuzzi, in the middle of the sea, at night. Just us, the Jacuzzi light and the stars. Its amazing how small you feel when you are in the middle of nowhere, with no land, lights or people around.  You realise how precious life is and, how easy it is to throw someone overboard and make it look like an accident, c’mon, it has  all crossed your minds yachties! It was truly an amazing experience.

When we got here we thought it would be work, work, work. And it was. Except when we got our 1 day a week off. We have now changed the saying to TIGW – Thank God Its Wednesday. Our couple of days off were spent frying on the beach because Daisy felt that her change of ethnicity from Caucasian to coloured her transformation occurred on the trip over was still not enough and she wanted to be Black. So off we went, armed with cancer inducing oil to so soak up some sun and catch up on some much needed rest.

Naturally we grew hungry so we ventured into the city with a crew member that was “in the know” about places to go. We sat down at a table set on a terrace with the hint of a view of the acropolis in Athens old town. We  watched the Asian tourists, drank wine and ouzo and smashed about 6 bowls of chips before moving on to dinner.  At this point we were ravenous, and unlike other normal girls, the stews on our boat  could devour a horse any time of the day so you can imagine the moods that eating at 10pm put the four of us in.

We headed further into town and walked along another quaint little street and found a spot. Davo was in charge and it all kicked off: tzatsiki, flatbread, normal bread, fried aubergines, wine etc. When we were all groaning from too-full-tummies, the meat platter arrived. If Dave was trying to kill us with food, it worked. So we munched and drank our way into gluttony and we were has happy as -excuse my crudeness – pigs in s***. After not really drinking for a whole week that wine went to my head so Rach and I headed back to the boat while the others ventured on to Old Fashioned which was the old crews’ local. The next day I heard tales of some excitable dancing from Alec … continuing with the bar name the music was from the 50’s and Alec was producing some crazy twists and jumps with two local women who looked aged 19 from behind however could have easily been born in the Before Christ era when face to face.

Lamp Street

We’ve also managed to find time to join a gym to avoid  the dreaded ‘stewardess bum’ and have taken to the yoga class where Lorna keeps thinking the woman is saying “Ishmael” when really she is saying “inhale” and “exhale” in Greek and she wont believe me that Ishmael is actually an Arabic boys name.  We have also learnt how to say “cheers”. In greek it is yammas, and our waiter, Yannis, taught us. Yannis means John so between yammasing, yannis and john, when we toast our Freddichino’s – some delicious coffee/chocolate sensation -  we now just say John, its so much easier. So John to Greece! Its going to be one hell of a season!

The Crew 2013