Surfing in Athens

Couch surfing that is!! Wow - what an amazing community around the globe of people who offer their couch or apartment to travelers. But it's usually much more than just a resting place - these people become ambassadors for their cities and step up to show other travelers around.

Talia and I arrived in Athens yesterday and stayed at a hostel in Syntagma Square. This bustling area is filled with tourists and restaurants that trap wandering germans, australians and americans into spending $10 on souvlaki (we were paying 1 Euro for street food.)

So yesterday we decided to couch surf and emailed about 20 different people in the city who said they could host two people. It turned out this man Demitris Tolis was a first time user of the site and he had no friends or references for his profile. We'd been warned with the service to stay w/ people that usually have both but the man had huge dreadlocks and a big friendly smile and his profession listed him as an editor.

Since we're traveling together both of us figure we have nothing to worry about with safety issues against one man so today we met D and are currently staying in his beautiful apartment in the Aghais Ionnis section of the city - 4 metro stops away.

He has kitchen space, a nice bathroom but the best part is the BALCONY! - complete w/ a unique Greek BBQ pit and a view of the acropolis at night that is just stunning and memorable for sure. Talia and I cooked all afternoon - Israeli salad, guacamole, ate Babaganoosh, olives, pastries from the corner bakery.... Y U M.

Then we sat outside because the one downside is D doesn't have a fan or air conditioning and this city is as hot as ball basically until the sun sets around 9:00pm - drinking wine, smoking cigs and taking photos.

It turns out when D comes home from work that he edits movies and commercials and lived in Prague for a year in 2006. He was in the cinema dance workshop from FAMU and acted in a movie that Talia saw at a screening of the films back in June of that year!!!!! What a tiny tiny tiny world this is!!!!

If you want to see D he showed us his band on Youtube. Check out "the koolians the spot story anti art." This band reminds me of the Spazmatics from San Francisco, in that they wear wigs, sometimes make up, crowd surf and cause general calamity!

Couchsurfing - you rock my world.