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My plan to get out and about early to see Athens hasn’t gone very well, I hadn’t allowed for a brutal hangover. Quite frustrating when I didn’t really enjoy the drink either. I eventually got out at just before 17:00.

The damn mosquitoes have got at me again, buggers. Are there any hot countries where you don’t get them? I have a fiendish plan for long term revenge though; I’m going to be become a Buddhist and have a word with Buddha so that I come back as a sharp eyed eagle and spend my days (how long do eagles live?) hunting down the minuscule menaces. I reckon I can wipe-out at least 10,000 of them for every bite I’ve ever received, 27 years (which is my guesstimate on your average eagle’s lifespan) will be plenty of time to do it.

I just had a bit of a doings with a member of staff at the hostel. I’d put 70 cents in a vending machine (on the premises) to get a bottle of water, when I pressed the button it took the money but didn’t give me the goods. As you would do I went to query it at the desk. The guy’s attitude was awful, he insulted my intelligence by suggesting I wasn’t doing it right, to try again, or to press the money return button. Arse. I told him that it was just clearly broken but he wouldn’t refund. I asked him if he was going to put an out of order sign up but he wasn’t even going to do that. I’d I lost my temper with him in the end and called him a “f*****g amateur”, which I shouldn’t have done, but after all, he was.

The Vespa P200 I just passed had the key in the ignition (in the top of the headset, never seen that on a PX before) with no one about. He’s (or she’s) a very trusting fella/fellette, I thought about taking it for a wee spin myself. It’s good to be somewhere where there are lots of Vespas knocking about again, but I’m really hoping to see some proper classics when I get to their homeland in the next couple of days. That reminds me, there is actually a Vespa museum somewhere in Italy, I’ll need to check if I’m going anywhere near it.

The only thing on my list to see in Athens is the Acropolis and I’ve managed to mess that up by getting there 10 minutes before closing time today. It’s the Frank Zappa Vilnius statue scenario all over again. It’s right round the corner though so hopefully I’ll have time to have a look in the morning before I get the bus to Patra (I’m not sure if that should have an ’s’ on the end, I’ve seen it spelled both ways) to get my ferry.

For dinner I ate at Ta Youvetsakia. I had roast veal with pasta and tomato sauce (youvetsi). At €10 it was a bit pricey for a pasta dish but that’s the going rate in Plaka and it was very tasty. With it being €5 a bottle, I didn’t bother with my usual liquid dinner mate.

Nothing was on the agenda for tonight and I really fancied catching a flick so I checked the listings, I liked the sound of ‘Carriers’. I found a cinema showing it about a 20 minute walk away and got myself there with Google Maps on the iPhone, I keep forgetting how damn useful that native app is, if I’d only remember I have a GPS in my pocket I could have saved myself a lot of stress on more than one occasion on this trip. The cinema ticket was a whopping €9, if I’d have just stumbled in on a whim I’d have stumbled back out again but as I’d walked there and was in the mood I thought what the hell.

I just saw (pun intended) a trailer for ‘Saw 6′. Talk about flogging a dead horse … and then burning it’s mane off with a blowtorch, spiking it with HIV infected needles, dousing it in sulphuric acid and finally cutting it’s front legs off with a stanley knife.

I just saw (no pun to intend) another one for ‘Avatar’, that looks promising.

The film was actually pretty good, it was like an American ‘28 Days Later’ (though wouldn’t that be ‘28 Weeks Later’) only without the zombies (though if you’re going to be pedantic, 28 Days/Weeks Later aren’t actually zombie movies), it had a touch of Stephen King about it. It’s quite depressing mind, can’t say I left the cinema with a spring in my step. Also, it was only about 90 minutes long, for the mathematically challenged amongst you that equates to one whole € for every 10 minutes viewing time. Scandalous.

Oooh, on the way back I walked past a couple of Piaggio related shops. One of them appeared to have a collection of classic Vespas on the top floor. Reckon I might well have little lookey in there tomorrow morning I does.

The photo was taken from Areopagus Hill, just next to the Acropolis.