Proposition A

Woke up bright and early today, walked to a square in Athens and followed a stray dog around for a bit. After a short while the dog met up with another dog, and they went around peeing on various things. Eventually the dog ended up back with what I assume is it's owner, as it lay down on a piece of cardboard layed out behind one of the cigarette stands that you see all over Athens. It seems this particular dog has an owner, or at least someone who cares for it.

With nothing else planned for the day I went to see if it was possible to leave Athens on foot. I picked a moutain range in the distance as my point of reference and started off. I walked through the city center, industrial areas, suburban areas and what I believe to be some of Athen's outer suburbs without seeing a break (Was hoping to see the Athenian countryside or the like). After around 6-7 hours of walking, and as shops started closing I found a suitable bus and took that back into the city center. Athens really is *that* big (The seem to build out instead of up for some reason and have no real sky scrapers. 2-3 stories seems to be the average for most buildings, and you get the odd 5-6 story building). Zoom out on the following map to see what I mean (Omonia Sq is pretty much my base camp).

Yesterday I did get a roommate as well. A Polish guy named Sven who I believe is leaving tommorrow (From what I've gathered, his English isn't the best so our conversations are fairly limited). From what I've been able to figure out he's trying to reach a place called Polonius for work and needed 3 Euros to get there (Had 91 Euros and needed 94 for his ticket). As he seemed a nice enough fellow, and as he was considering selling his phone to get the money for the ticket I gave him the money he needed.

Had a nap for a bit and then went out to check the Athenian night life. 30 seconds after leaving my hostel I was propositioned for sex by an Athenian prostitue (22 Euros. Cheap!). I politely declined and went on my way (Props on her English though, and the fact that she knew where Adelaide was). I may have been offered drugs by some random bald black guy as well who asked me if I "wanted any stuffs". He probably was just hawking other "stuffs" as Athens seems to have it's fair share of people selling random stuff on the sides of the streets (Though I didn't see a stall/blanket anywhere nereby, and I was in a pretty dodgy side street).

Didn't have any luck finding any clubs or bars, but found a bunch of restaurants and cafes that were open. Had some skinny druggie looking chick ask me for money out the front of one, and told her that I was short on cash myself and couldn't spare any. Back to the subject of dogs though, it seems that a whole bunch of the dogs that are ranging around Athens actually are strays, as I've seem a number of them sleeping in parks (Dog in the picture above is one example), on the streets and even venturing into restaurants (Whereby the staff have to shepard them out). I patted one which seemed to either excite it, or distress it as it started whining/yelping and jumping on me. Explained to the dog that I didn't have any food, and it went on it's way.

Not sure what I'll get up to tommorrow, but I figure I'll check with the hostel staff and see if they can suggest anything interesting to do and point me in the direction of bars/clubs so I can look into that as well.