Visiting Dr. Zeus – An Adventure in Athens.

Athens: the birthplace of Greek Salad, the stomping ground of Hercules and the humble home of Ouzo. With so many fruits to offer the tourists and the world, I really have no idea why people give good old “Athina” such a bad rap.

Most travellers seem to pry away from the Greek Capital following talks of it being “too dirty”, or “depressing” as a result of the country’s financial crisis. But honestly, take a trip (if possible) and decide for yourself.

I personally love a good Athens session, here’s why!

Greek Yoghurt, everywhere.

Sure Frozen Yoghurt bars have taken over like a bad rash here in Melbourne, but it really can’t compete with the fresh, Greek style.

Some of us spend years, if not a lifetime trying to discover the “best” yoghurt, and those lucky little Greeks are fed it from birth. I may not ever come across such fresh from the pot, creamy, delicate, enveloping, porcelain white goodness, but I can die happy knowing that I did enjoy a few cups, topped with some outrageous honey and a few pistachios just for fun. If you are lucky enough to find yourself craving this treat in Athens, you just have to check out Fresko Yoghurt Bar! So good!

Image by @lmb_notherone via Instagram.

Image by @lmb_notherone via Instagram.

Soccer – Gate 7 Style.

If possible, find locals, become best mates and convince them to take you to a soccer game.

I thought my dad’s friends were a bit fanatic when it came to the AFL grand final, but a glimpse of Grecian Soccer within the renown Gate 7 area of utmost fanatical soccer-goers, puts even the Collingwood die-hards to shame.

I’m talking 3 hours of endless chants, flares and fireworks. My ears are still ringing, but I like it. 

 

Gate 7 Fanaticism. Image by tasosmikronis via Instagram.

Image by tasosmikronis via Instagram.

Flea Markets.

Minus the fleas. It’s always fun meandering through trinkets and bobbits and do-whats-its. Embrace it and buy something for your mum while you’re at it, she’ll love it.

Image by cartoulespress via Instagram.

Image by cartoulespress via Instagram.

History, everywhere.

Places like the Acropolis are older than your grandma’s, grandma’s great grandma! Pretty impressive right?

Image by zmurphman369 via Instagram.

Image by zmurphman369 via Instagram.

No skimping on the feta!

If the menu says it has feta, you better believe it, and you better like feta, because there is going to be a lot of it.

Don’t be shy, be the feta, love the feta.

Image by frederixz via Instagram.

Image by frederixz via Instagram.

Bar-licious.

I never would have picked it, but Athens has some of the coolest bars, in.the.world!

I’m talking art gallery drinking spots in old warehouses (The Art Foundation) and 75 flavour liqueur tasting houses (Brettos), and of course, we can’t forget a memorable rooftop – there’s plenty around with killer views!

Image via flickr.com.

Brettos. Image via flickr.com.

The Art Foundation. Image by Kosta R. via Four Square.

The Art Foundation.
Image by Kosta R. via Four Square.

This icy-pole.

Hands down the best thing I have ever tasted. Or maybe it was the 30C weather which made it taste so good. Either way, I vividly remember a party in my mouth!

Image by @catfishsoup via We Heart It.

Image by @catfishsoup via We Heart It.

Yamas!

That’s how you say ‘cheers’ in Greek. Fun fact.

Image by @vinooAF92 via We Heart It.

Image by @vinooAF92 via We Heart It.

I love you Athens!

Love Sheona x.

Lesson #1: Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It was a cobble-stoned, garlic infused, balmy night that we arrived in Rome, and the days that turned into nights- and vice versa – were no less magically authentic. In the dark, we would chase through the silent, lamp lit avenues with new best-friends, and as morning dawned we would explore this ancient city purely in the direction of our latest gelato cravings. My time in Rome truly was all fun and games, and these are the lessons I learnt.

  1. Know that there is only one place to stay.

And that is: Yellow Hostel.

Like the Colosseum, this place is a Roman Institution. If you’ve ever stayed there, you’ll rave about it to anyone that even drops the Rome bomb on talks of their travel plans, and if you haven’t yet been to Rome, then I’ll be THAT guy (girl) now.

You need to stay here! Besides what you’d think, this place isn’t yellow, the beds aren’t yellow and the reception girls aren’t dressed in yellow body paint. It’s a useless name really, but one you need to remember.

Be completely lured by the bar and outdoor area upon arrival, and be utterly ready to relinquish your attempts at Merlot aided Italian sophistication, in exchange for €1 shots freely poured by your new favourite bartender. Let these run their course and give you the confidence to partake in dance-offs, to the songs that will compose the “EUROTRIP ‘14 YEEWWWWW” playlist you will keep on your iPod forever.

The Yellow.

The Yellow.

  1. Skip breakfast.

You’re in Rome, why waste a perfectly good meal opportunity on breakfast when you can go straight for the main attraction. Pizza and fettuccine, I’m talking to you!

There are way too many places offering “the best pizza” on the block, and it seems that homemade pastas are a standard procedure. My best advice is to see if Nonna is out the back whipping up her traditional Bolognese. Yum!

Breakfast of Champions.

Breakfast of Champions.

  1. Pop bottles.

Water bottles that is, and take advantage of all those random water fountains streaming pools of ice cold H2O.

Acqua Fresca!

Acqua Fresca!

  1. Try before you buy.

This is a universal rule, but even more vital when it comes to gelato.

Always, always try, and if they didn’t give you enough on the taster spoon, try again, you’ve only got two scoops, make them 2 to remember.

Memorable scoops.

Memorable scoops.

  1. Make yourself at home.

Hostel style.

When it’s disco-nap time, it’s disco-nap time, and a disco-nap requires all the love it can get.

Most of the time, the world keeps going when nap hour begins, so you are generally free to dominate the dorm room. Our favourite plan of attack was to place all of our mattresses in the middle of the room and have a good old afternoon spoon, or Siesta – call it what you want.

When annoyed dorm mates enter and object to your dictatorship over the 12 bed room, just ask them if they want to join – they are probably just jealous. In the off chance they reject your offer, pretend to fall back asleep.

DIY bedding arrangements.

DIY bedding arrangements.

  1. Cover up.

Against popular demand, all churches and religious places worth seeing require a huge lack of skin on show. In the risk of spending unnecessary cash on a nun-length dress you will never wear again, or worse, wearing pants on a 34C day, grab a scarf and wrap it around a few times.

Voilà! New skirt, with the added functionality of being twirled off and stuffed back in your bag immediately after you exit the Vatican.

After all, you need to let those legs breathe, and that tan to keep developing. Thank me later.

Respect.

Respect.

  1. Ask for a skinny latte.

Just for fun. Know this, Skinny Milk is not a ‘thing’ in Italy. Go fat or go home!

No chance in skinny heaven.

No chance in skinny heaven.

 

These are the commandments, if you’re in Rome, you must follow accordingly.

Sheona.

Daughters of a European Summer.

beach-best-friends-blonde-brunette-Favim.com-2011518

There’s a sort of mental and emotional hangover that rushes over you when arriving back home from an overseas trip, and I’m not sure if it’s normal or not, but I am 100% stuck in a European bubble – what’s scary is, I don’t think I ever want to leave it.

I’m ‘fresh off the boat’ as they say, from a 6 week stint through Europe, wheeling a suitcase which could double as my private room (yes, it’s THAT big, and I’m THAT small) through the world’s cutest cobbled alleyways, sipping the cheapest vino over-looking the most stunning sunsets and dancing on the bar-tops of every venue which wouldn’t escort us out for doing so.

I guess I am suffering the side-effects of a 2-month, daily scramble to pick up the remnants of my suit-caser life 5 minutes before EVERY late checkout, making sure that the essential: iPhone, Passport, Birkenstocks and three gal pals were in tow before departure. Or maybe it’s an epic “come-down” from endless bittersweet farewells to cities i’d re-fallen in love with, in exchange for the promise of a new tomorrow in an equally as fresh land complete with new mates and even newer moments to add to my expanding memory bank.

But, it’s now officially a week that my lungs have been privy to the Melbourne, if not Australian air, and I would be lying if I said that most mornings I don’t still flounder in my bed, confused and often delirious about which country I am in, and whether we have woken up too late and already missed our flight to Brussels.

I am constantly running into my sister’s room across the hall trying to decipher which of my friends are still not home from the crazy night before, only to find my Year 12 mini-me, fast asleep in her bed, awaiting a 7am alarm to welcome a day full of high-school torture.

Yep, I am definitely home; I just don’t know it yet and it’s ludicrously, the exact same feeling I had as we flew out on that chilly Melbourne night, 7 weeks ago. A pitch black sky we had been awaiting, for no less than 183 days, 17 hours and precisely, 22 minutes – I remember because I screen-shot the countdown when the travel agent confirmed our outbound flight.

After so long planning, throwing up ideas, making outlandish bucket-list entries and dares that I ‘shot-gun not’; the very hour had finally dawned, and even on the plane as we milked the mini vodkas just like we said we would (thanks Emirates), it still didn’t seem real.

Even now, as I look back at all the pictures we awkwardly asked strangers to take of us in front of the Colosseum, or as I comment on the “take me back to Europe” statuses of my new – now also returned – travel mates, or even listen to the songs which will forever compose the soundtrack to “that 2014 Eurotrip” – it’s still pretty fantastical and surreal.

So in an effort to relive every moment, non-sober epiphany, soul mate meeting and gorgeous view, I am belatedly beginning the memoirs of the summer that was (your Melbourne winter).

Better late than never, hey!

For now, “skies are blue”.

 

The Gyros Complex.

Santorini creepin'

Santorini creepin’

There was plate smashing, ‘Opa’ chanting, day parties and night crawls. Digestive Sambuca gulps, seafood and moussaka. There were sapphirical waters and dramatic cliffs. Red beaches and black coasts, 20 bed dorms and dual level private condos.There was delectable Greek yoghurt and even more delightful, Grecian weddings atop The Santorini caldera. There were stunning dinner views amidst the Colgate white buildings, and even better gyros picnics against a majestic sunset.

But the quintessential Greek experience – or the Gyros Complex, as we have coined it – was not complete without  Herculean party efforts to match the mythology that surrounds these Cycladic lands.

We danced bar top in Mykonos, established a beach party in ‘quiet’ Paros, took over the most famous public viewing spot for our picnic in Santorini and walked home in the daylight of an Ios Tuesday morning. All this couldn’t have been better if not suffixed with the company of a Busabout group which, within a little over a week has become part of an extended family with idealistic, and beautiful Greek roots.

We came, and we definitely conquered.

As I write this, we are mid ferry on our way back to Athens, where it all began. Our Greek Island life is over and everyone is catching up on the sleep they have neglected in spite of the legendary Ios party scene.

When we dock, all 43 of us will shoot off like fireworks in our own directions, but the memories we have made, shared (and forgotten) over the past 10 days will unit us forever.

I’ll always remember how I met you in the Summer.

Self-explanatory, that'll do donkey.

Self-explanatory, that’ll do donkey.

Mykonos mills.

Mykonos mills.

Paros strolls.

Paros strolls.

Once you go black..

Once you go black..

Magical Santorini.

Magical Santorini.

Wisdom.

Wisdom.

Fun Pub.

Fun Pub.

Paraga Beach, Mykonos.

Paraga Beach, Mykonos.

En route Paradise Beach, Mykonos.

En route Paradise Beach, Mykonos.

Viva Punda, Paros.

Viva Punda, Paros.

Skandinavian Bar, Mykonos.

Skandinavian Bar, Mykonos.

When in Rome…

Gelati Mafia

Gelati Mafia

Maybe it was inevitable that we would love Rome. I mean it is the city of endless love is it not?

Wow look at me, I’ve only been travelling for 3 days and the two Londoners we met on friday night have already imparted their sentence structure with me! If I were at home, there is no way I would say ‘is it not’.

So this is what it means to travel eh? Getting cultured, even with cultures whose city you are not visiting. Because we are definitely not in London, and we are not chilling in the corners of Sydney’s northern beaches or even at a sorority dorm in Oregon state. We are in Rome. But even in Rome, I’m learning so much about these other places, the lives that are led there, and most importantly, how the corners of the world like to party.

We were convinced our first night would end with the bottle of Merlot, a drink chosen not merely for the ‘acquired’ taste it lent us, but more so, for its affordability divided by four. An €8 portion of Italian gold preceded the night that would see us watch the midnight stars twinkle on the sidewalk, endless nagging of the DJ to play Iggy Azalea one more time, and multiple attempts to have a twerk off with two American girls who had obviously practiced far more than us.

As the sun rose, we definitely didn’t, and I’m sure breakfast, lunch and the snacks in between merged into one big pancake at the downstairs bar of our hostel, just the remedy and antidote for a day of getting parched in the Colosseum, being devastated at the ‘under construction’ state of the Trevi Fountain, eating our body weight in Gelati samples, and aimlessly wandering through the cobbled streets which were so perfectly representative of the Rome I have imagined in my dreams.

Pasta was essential, and Gelati was absolutely vital before we headed back to the hostel and greeted by our new pals, – from about 4 minutes earlier – gallantly adorned with trays of jäger bombs and mojitos. Soon the bar top was our dance floor and instead of watching the stars, we were racing through the streets, singing Beyoncé lyrics to policemen and bringing in the next day with dawn chats on the balcony of a room that was certainly not ours.

Confessions of love by beautiful Italian boys, the most amazing salad you have ever had, leashed dogs wandering the aisles of H&M, more Vespas than you can count, merging our mattresses so we can imitate an ‘at home’ slumber party, lattes that cannot be “skinny”, and deeming it acceptable to walk around speaking to ourselves in our best, elongated and dramatic Italian pronunciation of every word. This is Rome. This is love.

Glad-iators, Colosseum.

Glad-iators, Colosseum.

Now to flirt with the Greek Gods.

Mornings in Thornbury-ish, Melbourne.

Thursdays are my current “trav” day, and by “trav”, I am acutely referring to travel. I just thought I’d cut the word short, because I am not travelling overseas, interstate or even outside my city: I am simply travelling in my land vessel  (car) to a new ‘burb.

The “Hood” in question: Preston, a.k.a the resident location of my latest efforts at being a cool, hipster intern.

So basically, the Preston/Northcote/Thornbury areas are quite foreign to this south-eastern gal, and for anyone completely lost, I am talking about the regions of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Southern Hemisphere, World, Earth, 3rd Planet from the Sun, Universe.

And yeah, in the realm of travelling, a 50km radius is hardly any cause for commotion, homesickness or a packed lunch, but I am a travelling fanatic, so any excuse to wear my Dora the Explorer mentality is met with obscene amounts of enthusiasm.

Hence, here is my first attempt at travel writing, ironically, on an area somewhat close to my hometown.

Let me give you a prologue: I HATE traffic.

Traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, slow drivers, peak hour, unnecessary road works, tractors unfit to accelerate above 15k/h (I Mean seriously, why don’t farmers just run more, it would be THAT much faster – and yes, I am a seasoned farm girl and tractors, as well as horses are not unusual on my local roads), school zones and – did I already say – peak hour traffic?

So you get the gist, I HATE TRAFFIC. In order to avoid the experience of annoyingly stalled vehicles, I leave my house 2 hours before humanly appropriate, in order to arrive at my location prior to the emergence of the said roadblocks.

This early bird fixture leaves me with ample free time before my 9am start. Hence, the opportunity to explore unknown lands, and in this case, neighbor-hoods.

In these wee hours of the morning, there is so much room for activities and I am glad to report that the strolls, chirpy baristas, haunted churches and Colombian Single-origin espressos have been quite delightful, and if you happen to find yourself in a similar predicament, here are my top picks:

1. Take a stroll through the Yarra Flats Park: The Main Yarra Trail goes through some pretty neat areas, just be careful for those helmet –wearing bandits on two-wheels, you may just get run-over.

Main Yarra Trail, Yarra Flats Park, Melbourne.

Main Yarra Trail, Yarra Flats Park, Melbourne.

Main Yarra Trail, Yarra Flats Park, Melbourne.

Main Yarra Trail, Yarra Flats Park, Melbourne.

Memorial, Yarra Flats Park, Melbourne.

St. John’s Anglican Church, Melbourne.

St. John’s Anglican Church, Melbourne.

2. Little Henri: Super talkative baristas are always a plus, and this place has really nice toilets, and a courtyard. Actually, make that an AWESOME courtyard. You’ll love life until you realize you can pay by cash only, and your phone fails to find the non-existent Wi-Fi (how am I going to check-in now?). C’mon Henri, c’mon.

Little Henri, Melbourne.

Little Henri, Melbourne.

Little Henri, Melbourne.
Image by @kleeborg via Instagram.

Little Henri on Urbanspoon

3. Lowlands: legit a hop-skip-and-jump across from Little Henri lays a place where Santa comes early, in the form of: EFTPOS, Wi-Fi, Clap your hands say Yeah! Gleaming from the speakers, incredible coffee, even better iced teas, delicious bagels (so I’ve heard), nicer baristas, and wait for it: THE BEST GODDAMN COURTYARD I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED IN MY LIFE!Huge call, but I stand by it 100%.

Picture this: you died in a sea of marshmallows, which became clouds, and propelled you to the golden gates of heaven itself. That, my friends, is what you experience when you head to Lowlands is. It would be rude, NOT to go there!

Lowlands, Melbourne.

House Blend Magic. Lowlands, Melbourne.

Iced Tea.

Iced Tea. Lowlands, Melbourne.

So there are my Thornbury Morning Picks. These will be totally relevant if like me, you are interning on High Street, hate traffic, like long walks on the beach, enjoy fondue by the fire and have time to kill in Melbourne’s North.

Keep Experimenting! xo