Gym, sun, police officers and ice hockey!

Wednesday was a boring day, again. In the morning I went to the gym and after that I didn't have much to do. In the late afternoon I decided to go walk around near Syntagma area which turned out to be a bad idea. The metro was on strike for 24 hours so I should have guessed that there might be demonstrations going on also. When I left home there were about 15-20 police officers with their motorbikes in every major grossroads. I was walking in the National Garden when suddenly these police officers came next to me with their bikes and ask me to stop in Greek. I was shaking! They asked to see my passport which of couse I didn't have with me, but they accepted my driver's licence. They asked me tons of questions like when did you arrive to the country, what do you do here, where do you live, do you remember your street address, have you been in contact with the police and stuff like that! Couple of them were standing next to me and one of them was talking to his radiophone to tell my name and check me up probably from computer or something. Then they said have a nice day, gave me my id back and I was free to go. I was a bit shaken so it was the end of my day walk..

Zappio, National Garden. Ymittos mountain on the back

Thursday morning I went to the gym and after that I took a nap. Again there was a strike so I didn't wanna take a taxi to get somewhere so I just stayed at home. In the evening me and my neighbour girls and some others too left again to the bar in Plaka, Brettos. We had a fun time there and I got to know more and more people whose names I can't remember, or even pronounce. There were 16 of us in this small bar but we all fit well. :) I met guys from Holland, Austria, Poland, Romania, France (many people are from France!) and Latvia.

We left from the bar almost everyone together and since most of us where going to the same direction we decided to walk home. :) I walked with a guy named Callum and he is just a nice guy!! We had so similar sense of humour and we understood each other immediatelly! :D We had so much fun laughing to every stupid thing we could come up with! :D The walk to home was almost 2 km but it went really fast :) 

Syntagma sq.

Friday morning I went to the gym once again but it was so forced that I only were there 60 minutes. At 1 pm me, my flatmate and the girls next door left to the Syntagma sq. where we met this Greek girl (friend of the others) and went shopping to the famous Ermou street. I didn't buy anything but I saw so much stuff I could have bought! Gotta go there again some day.. :P Then we went to eat at the Monastiraki sq. where I ordered in GREEK.. :P The waitress was amused but anyway I did it. Then we decided to walk around to get to know the major streets and areas. The girls needed to find a bookstore (many people also study english, french, greek etc literature). I bought a children's book to practise my greek.. :P

Monastiraki sq.

We walked a lot in the afternoon!! A lot! I walked home from Syntagma sq. and it only took me less than 15 minutes so it's really close to my place! :)

In the evening the others left to Kypseli for a pre-party before to actual party in Thissio/ Akropolis when I instead left to watch Greek Men's first ice hockey Championship game near the mall of Athens Heart in Petralonia. I found there pretty easily and met the girl Georgia with whom I've been emailing for the past months! Georgia introduced me to our coaches, other teammates who were also there and to the president of Greece ice hockey. The other girls on the team also spoke good english so that was nice. :) The game started and it was so different than in Finland. Most of the players were old and they were canadian-greek or german-greek. On the ice they mostly spoke english. The ice rink was half size from the normal ones. They could skate okey but they game was still so.. I don't know the word. I mean it was really the kind of hockey you can see played in outdoors in winter time, like amatour hockey. It was so nice to notice all the same feelings going on the ice when you play the game, I doesn't matter in which country you're in. I got my first practise on Sunday evening and I can't wait!!

From the game I was supposed to find some of my friends who had gone to pre-party in Kypseli.. I got a ride from the ice hockey people to Viktoria metro station. There I tried to call people but nobody answered to me.. So I decided to take a metro to home. The metro stopped at Omonia (the neighbourhood which is really bad especially at night time) and everybody had to go out since it was the last metro.. That was just my luck, I was left alone to the neighbourhood which is the worst part in Athens. There were three girl standing outside looking as stunned as I was and they asked me if I was an Erasmus and that they were going to the actual party near Thissio. I joined them and finally found my friends at the bar! :)