Adventures in Greek Weather

I’m in Athens, Greece and we just finished climbing up the monumental rocky, slippery, sweaty path to the Acropolis. I managed to impress the tour guide with my boring knowledge of Ancient Greek facts, answering almost any question she posed to our tour group while my lovely girlfriend, Sara, thoughtfully only rolled her eyes at me a few times. 

The climb looked impossible from where we had started downtown, and the only reason I assumed we could make it to the top was the fact that I could see hundreds of people looking down on us.

After several long breathers, we eventually made it to the top and took several photos of the place, as well as some short videos of the view looking down on the ancient city. We were laughing and sweaty and proud of ourselves for conquering our jet lag and the heat and humidity, officially making it up to the top of this legendary location, and now we were ready to start our way back down. And almost immediately after making that decision to leave, the entire city was inundated with a sudden and torrential downpour.

Now you read downpour and think “Oh, some rain, how quaint.” 

No, this was a thick and almost violent thunderstorm, lightning everywhere, clothes instantly soaked through to our underwear, children sliding away from their mothers, and literally turtles coming from nowhere to join the parade of freaked out tourists looking for any protection from the weather. Unlike many of the freezing, frightened people huddling under trees or any other cover they could find, my awesome girlfriend announced that since we were already soaked there was no reason to stop our descent, and I couldn’t have agreed with her more. 

We made it off the stone monument and began the long, slippery climb down. We navigated passed all the wimps and lolly-gaggers, shielded our belongings from the elements as best we could, and DID NOT STOP. What took half an hour to climb up now took us less than ten minutes to descend! It wouldn’t have even taken that long if we hadn’t been extra cautious, what with the marble steps and limestone walkways being the perfect “Slip N’ Slide” in that amount of rain. We watched as dirt pathways washed away, we trekked through newly developed streams created from the runoff of the mountain, and stopped bothering to adjust our soaked clothes that were now disheveled and clinging tightly to our bodies. Most importantly, we couldn’t stop laughing at this hilarious, unexpected chapter of our adventure.

Over the thunder and deafening sound of rain, Sara smiled back at me and shouted “Thank god I’m wearing a bra, otherwise this would be the funkiest wet t-shirt contest ever!” 

We finally made it down and out the gate, still sloshing in our shoes and watching as an entire city was trying to hide from nature’s fury. Surprisingly enough, our spirits were still quite high, and we were both somewhat happy to be cold for the first time in two hot, humid days. Within moments we managed to find some chairs and a large umbrella near a cafe to huddle under, watching the on-going spectacle of people running in and out of the rain, until our gorgeous Uber arrived. Now warm, dry, and still laughing about our adventure, Sara is off to take a nap while I am marveling at the sudden and fresh new sunshine out our window as I type this post.

More Greek adventures coming soon!