Things you should always do before a trip:

Make sure the hostel has a kitchen
Plan route from airport to hostel and look up times
Double check opening and closing times for sights you want to see, especially if you are traveling off season as these can close ridiculously early
Plan a vague itinerary based on area so you're not running all over the city every day
Don't go to the airport hungry
Take your sunglasses!

Just so you know I'm alive...

What to say about Athens? I think it can be summed up in a couple of statistics: 500 years under the Turks, 8 million Italian troops, and 9,000 dog bites per year. Well, the later applied to Bucharest, I'll explain later.

I love these charming asides

Tonight I am wielding google to prepare for my upcoming trip to visit a dear old friend currently in Athens. The great thing about wikitravel? Anyone can write in it. Take for example this article on traveling to the islands:

All the young european "routard" choose the deck, so in August it's possible that you must sleep near somebody never seen... who isn't really clean; during the night you can be sad, but after it will becomes funny thinking about.