Here we are in the ancient city of Athens, wandering through the cobblestone streets looking at the beautiful graffiti that speckle and dapple the walls as if Jackson Pollock got pissed and wanted to literally paint the town red.

The sun is rising high and the heat is cooking my brain. I find it very difficult to speak of the heat of the Athens. The sun is very similar to the Australian sun, both trying to kill us as we walked past ruins and ancient architecture to find our morning coffee. Eventually we find a little cafe in the city centre and find fruit stalls selling freshly picked figs, still warm from the sun for €1.

It’s beautiful, cheap and amazing. We pop in and order are cafe freddo – a Greek style iced coffee where they whip the coffee milk in to foam and lay it on top like a gentle little pillow of air. It’s a deliciously beautiful and unique coffee that I have never had until Athens. I think it’s one of my favourite summer coffee drinks as it’s so refreshing.

The only downside is stirring it is difficult. We sit down on one of the ancient steps and watched the people walk by, they themselves getting in their morning coffee. The sun is getting a little higher now and we decided we have to go try and find some things on our bucket list. Rachael pulls out her phone with her International data (thank God) and we try to see what we can do. We both realize we are three blocks away from Little Kook. Now you guys all know how much of a fan I am of coffee and it’s one of the main reasons why I travel the world, strangely enough. But it’s well worth it! We finish off our cafe freddo and go wander through the Athens streets to try and find this. It wasn’t not too hard as it was about two blocks away from our hostel! As we are walking to Little Kook I looked left and right at the graffiti that is covering all of Athens. Some are anarchist signs, some are beautiful murals of ancient gods and others are just little paint scratches.

It’s a real mix, just like when you see a bunch of people on a subway. Eventually after a couple minutes of walking we make it to Little Kook – it’s a huge monolith of a cafe that is split up into three parts. I later find out that they change the theme seasonally, so as we’re walking in we see Halloween. Everything is decked out with pumpkins, skeletons and fake cobwebs.

It truly does look as if a dollar store blew up on to this cafe in the best of ways. Yess it is a little cheesy and it is a little funny but I am mostly just happy I could experience this with my fiance. We hold each other’s hands and walk through the entrance. I get too excited and pull out my camera to take photos. It’s a beautiful and interesting place, and it really does capture the essence of Halloween. Eventually we got to the front gate where a huge pumpkin sat with its open mouth agape. We have to walk through it.

I think to myself how cliche it is but it’s still well worth it. We meet a woman wearing a devil outfit. She looks about as interested in us as God is to the society that we live in. We ask if we can have a two seats and she shrugs her shoulders and says yes. She gives us a little smile. I feel for her because she probably has to play this part all day. God-bless that woman and her hard work ethic. Eventually we sit down, not realizing that we sat right in front of the speaker that blasts music into the whole area. Cliche haunted house scary music that rotates every couple minutes blasted out. I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of annoying but it’s also kind of funny.

Eventually me and Rachael start looking at the menu and get some cold water; it’s fresh on our throats after walking through the killer sun. We both take healthy gulps of the ice cold water and start to relax. We Grab the menu and start perusing it. I notice that this is mainly a dessert bar – there’s cakes, coffee, ice cream, stuff like that. I’m completely OK with it! I feel like I deserve a sugar overload. Rachael seems about as happy as we start looking through it and we decide to get a beautiful chocolate orange cake with meringue on top. An interesting choice and it turns out to be one of the nicer cakes from there. We get some coffee and sit down and relax to the 100 dB music next to us. We try to chat about life but it’s just too loud, so we look longingly in to each other’s eyes. Eventually a waiter comes by and drops off our coffee and cake.

The meringue is absolutely perfect and the chocolate is bitter sweet and delicious. The coffees are perfectly made with the film on top sitting very gently. After a couple of minutes of very silently and gratefully eating our cake we are about to be finished when I quickly pop up take Rachael’s phone and take some quick pictures before going to the bathroom. I look like an American tourist as I turned to capture every moment through a lens. It makes me feel a little bad but this is important to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be here again and I do enjoy writing about the things that I have ticked off my bucket list, and showing what I’ve done. I eventually go into a beautiful old style bathroom with copper taps and traditional style male and female signs that looked cute. Eventually after I go to the bathroom I quickly wander up and we pay the bill. It was an incredibly nice cafe.

The music was too loud but like I said, that was just a bad decision on proximity. As we are walking away from the cafe the waitress in the devil uniform smiles at us and says thank you for coming. I tell her thank you for service and I secretly hope as she can go home and drink a bottle of ouzo to forget her day. If me and Rachael are lucky enough we might be able to do that as well.