Touch down in Europe

The Cape to Cairo trip is over and Mattie and I couldnt get enough of the backpacking idea... So decidd to carry on and travel overland through Eastern Europe to eventually end off in the west somewhere and get a summer job. We wanted to do the whole thing without flying, but the trans med ferry only starts in mid june... so we flew.
It was basically by pure coincidence, but we timed the flight to arrive on the same day that the UEFA champions leage final was being played. In Athens! This meant that all the accomodation was full, but thanks to some Matt's amazing pre planning on couch surfing, we had a place to sleep! Arriving in Europe was insane, there were just soccer huligans everywhere! While getting our luggage we met two canadian girls who had no-where to go, so out of the goodness of our hearts we took them under our wing. And graciously offered them a place at "our" flat haha.. so it went, we got the metro to Lena's house only to find no-one home. But once she did arrive, she gladly took us all in. She is one hospitible lady!

The day from here only got better, especially when we got out our 2 liters of duty free russian vodka, we didnt quite make it to the actual match, but were close enough on a massive square with cinema screens... Thousands of supporters and us just taking in the vibe, it was peaceful, up until the point where AC Milan scored their second goal... This sparked some aggresion from Liverpool, suddenly the sky was filled with flying beer bottles, cans, and flares!! Insane! No-one seemed to have gotten seriously hurt though, and liverpool did manage to score a goal, but hey. It did mean that Athems was now filled with 40000 depressed liverpool soccer huligans!

We did our best to find the party, but AThens is bigger than we expected, and only seemed to find the liverpool side of town (apparently the police had made sure the italians and brits were on opposite end of the city), so we made the most of it! We hadnt quite adjusted to the Euro yet, so we were happy when we met some greek girls, who showed us around... they even got us some beers! haha

And so was our first day in Europe, the plan from here is to couch surf, hitch and backpack from city to city until we reach holland, or run out of money which ever comes first.

written by

BalkanAdventure on May 23, 2007 from Athens, Greece

from the travel blog: The Fantastic Far Flung Eastern European Adventure

tagged CapeToCairo

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Awesome places you are visiting now and fantastic pictures. Thanks, please keep it up it means so much to all of us, Love,
Helen, Brian and Livvy

written by Helen Alcock on June 1, 2007

From Umdloti so good to see your "Europe" pictures and the new stories! Am so looking forward to catch up with you in Holland. Keep going! love Judith

written by judith on June 2, 2007

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