Day 28... whenever

I got really tired after this and didn't want to do any much of anything. But at least once a day I went out for a nice dinner and tasted all the traditional Greek food I could handle. Here are some photos...
Day 28: Jarilson and I both woke up really late. Eventually we got up and made it in time for dinner at the Gastronomy Museum. We had some great beer, fava bean dip, french fries and halloumi. He took off to the airport after that an proceeded to tell me that he wished he kissed me. Then, when I didn't reply he continued with an apology and a string of compliments on Facebook. I told him he sounded like an idiot and blocked him forever. Awkward.
Day 29: I went to the Islamic Art Museum and spent the day looking at ceramics from the Middle East. A lot of those ceramics had been influenced by Chinese artisans. It was cool because I could see the influence, and I could also see the difference in quality. The texture of the Middle Eastern ceramics was just worse than everything I've ever seen in Chinese museums. It's cool to be able to see differences in these kinds of things just by exposing yourself to them over and over again.

For dinner, I went to this amazing deli for taramasalata (fish egg dip) and dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) with a couple of glasses of wine. Loved it.

Day 30: Today I took my time and explored the Pireos Annexe of the Benaki Museum. It was way too expensive, but on the up side, I had the whole place to myself. There was an exhibit about a Greek engraver who made images of countless ships and other Greek scenes. Another one about a Greek writer who travelled a lot,

and another about a guy who likes to make art sculptures with light.

The last exhibit was about architecture but nothing was in English. I sat there for about an hour watching architecture students' documentary assignments scroll by on the flat screen TV.
I went home and there was a gong show of a night. Helene, a German wanted me to come up with an idea of what we should do for the night, but every time I suggested something she thought it was dumb. Eventually, we went to meet people for a pub crawl. Nobody showed up at the meeting point and she was mad. Then, I suggested some places to go instead, and none of them were good enough for her. Annoying. Eventually she went home and I took some Italian guys to the roof of Savvas on Ermou Street for terrible wine and a sampler plate of meat.

Day 31: After that gongshow of a night, I stayed in until Alexandra Amanatidou asked me to go out for coffee. I was so grateful to her, because otherwise I would've done nothing all day. She knew all the little coffee shops around and we lazed around one of them until dinner time with another one of her friends. Eventually they both had to go and I walked to the south of town for what I thought would finally be some amazing souvlaki. However, the waitress told me I HAD to have the roast chicken, because I could get souvlaki "ANYWHERE". OK, so I got the roast chicken.

Still, I have not had a souvlaki in Greece. The roast chicken reminded me of my Yugoslavian grandma's chicken, except the gravy had lemon juice in it. It was good, but kind of not what I wanted. The waitress also didn't ask me if I wanted anything to drink! I took it upon myself to have a small bottle of retsina after the homey tasting dinner. I walked home in the rain that night. It was beautiful. I think Athens is only beautiful when it's wet.

Day 32...and on...
Not sure what I did on these last few days in Greece. I just wanted them to slide by so I stayed in the hostel just chatting with people. At one point I went to the science museum, but was unimpressed. There were ancient inventions by Chinese people that I have already seen before many times. There was a paper making show in Greek, which I have also done myself in Canada many times.
I went to a metal rock bar and wandered around with a huge Bulgarian man. I just didn't really have the energy to take any photos, but it was a nice enough time.

Eventually I had to go back to Chios to catch my flight. I arrived in the early morning in the pouring rain and Theodore was waiting for me at the hotel with my bag of stuff I left there. He only charged me for two nights even with the early checkin. That was nice of him.

I spent a night in Rome without taking one photo. I had dinner with some monks and enjoyed a gigantic gelato with peanut/chocolate encrusted waffle cone on the roof of the monastery near Spagna station. In the morning, I had to walk back to the train station 1.5 km with all my heavy bags because the subway line I needed was down for maintenance. It seemed like one more kick to the butt that Europe just had to give me on my way out. Good riddance. I won't be back to this so-called cradle of modern civilization anytime soon.