As Awesome As Advertised

A few observations that I have been meaning to share for a long time.

1. Greeks and Turks are short, especially Turks. In all my travels so far, I cannot remember one person from either Greece of Turkey that was as tall or taller than me.
2. Lots of poor people in Athens. I have seen more gypsys selling incense, guys sleeping on benches, and African guys selling purses and sunglasses than anywhere else I have been.
3. There are lots of Canadians in Greece. Turkey was dominated by Australia and New Zealand. Greece has been dominated by Canada (with some US as well).
4. The times that places close in Athens is dumb. All the museums close at 3 pm and all the ruins close at 5 pm. That is ridiculous!
5. Greek middle schoolers and high schoolers have terrible hair, especially in Athens. In 5 years, they are going to look back and be very embarassed I think.

So there are those observations. Today I woke up and ate breakfast in the garden of the hostel. It was four euros for my french toast breakfast but I really liked it. I hadn't had french toast for ages. The service took a while though... I went to the Acropolis. I thought that going early would help alleviated the crowds and it did, just not as much as I thought it would. When I was walking up the mountain (the Acropolis is a mountain for those that don't know), I saw quite a few people walking up too. The whole thing is under renovation ( you can see the scaffolding in the pictures). Every building has some scaffolding on it with the Parthenon having the most. The Parthenon was amazing. It is huge and super cool looking. The marble in the morning light looked pink and golden colored (picture 1). The sun later in the day was not as good. I sat on a lookout thing for over an hour watching the people and looking at the Parthenon. I think I took 7 different groups of people's picture (someone reiprocated the favor in picture 2). It was fun talking to them a little after taking the picture. The view back over the city was nice, minus the smog, as well (picture 3). It was really hot in the sun though. I got down and walked over to the Eurymedon. That's the place with the porch that has six women statues holding up the roof (picture 4). Really cool. The statues are just plaster casts though, the real ones are in the Acropolis Museum. Then I walked down and over to the Keramikos Cemetery. On the way I passed the Sunday Flea Market (picture 5). Um, wow. There were tons and tons of people sitting there literally selling junk. The children's toys were dirty and broken. There was a tv set with the screen smashed. I couldn't believe it. The cemetery was a major meeting place for roads into and out of Athens and it has the best remains of the old wall that surrounded the city. The grave stones were pretty cool as well (picture 6). Archaeologists think that Plato's Academy is somewhere near by but haven't found it yet.

My next stop was the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art. Lots of stuff from the 8th century to the 19th century. I like Islamic Art a lot so it was cool to walk around the museum. Most of the stuff was just like the items I saw at the British Museum. There was a sixteenth century room from Cairo that they transported to the museum. The tiles in it were sweet. From there I walked over to the Ancient Agora. This was where Socrates would walk and discuss stuff with his pupils. It is also where St. Paul preached to the Athenians. The ruins were ok but sort of hard to decifer (picture 7). My favorite part about the Ancient Agora had nothing to do with the ruins. It was the small Byzantine Church in it (picture 8). I walked into the Ceramics Gallery of the Museum of Greek Folk Art. The ceramics were all really nice but, honestly, I wasn't really in the mood. I did a quick peek at the Roman Agora but was kind of "ruins"ed out so it did not impress me. I had a gyro and fries from this place called Thassis. Totally and completely fantastic. They put spice and salt on the fries and the pitas and meat had different spices on them as well. I ate them in the square by the Municipal Cathedral. It was so hot out while I was walking and it really drained me so I went back to my hostel and did Friday's post. Read it if you like. I walked over to the Temple of Zeus after that. It closed at 5pm (dumb) and I just barely had time to walk around the thing and take some pictures. It was the biggest Temple in Athens when it was finished in 100 AD. Some of the columns are still standing and they are massive (picture 9). I can only imagine what it looked like when it was complete. I sat in Syntagma Square for a while and read and people watched.

I had dinner at Everest again. I had a club sandwich and french fries. The sandwich was great. Ham, bacon, mayonaise, tomato, lettuce, yum! While I was eating, a guy came over and talked to me. He said he was from Torino. He talked about his dog and showed me a picture of it. Kind of random of him to come and talk to me but whatever. I walked around for a little bit. I was kind of tired of just walking around in the evening so I went to hostel and sat in the Garden. My original intention was to read but I ended up talking to a bunch of people instead. I met two people from Baton Rogue. They were nice and were doing what I did but backwards. They were starting in Athens and working their way over to Istanbul. I also met a guy from Quebec City. We talked about how Quebec is like Europe but on North America. There was a girl there from Vancouver who had been traveling all over Europe since October (she lived in Edinburgh for three months and worked). I met a couple from Winnepeg that were really nice and ended up being on the same flight to Milan as me. Finally, I met a guy from Miami who was traveling all over the world. He started in August and had been to South America (he snuck into Bolivia), Antarctica (he swam in the water there), Africa (he had an elephant chase his safari car), and Southeast Asia. He was thirty eight and unmarried so he could afford this trip. It was a great time meeting all those extremely interesting and cool people. Then I called my mom on Skype and went to bed.

Oh, What a Night

So my plans are super fluid while I am in Athens. By that I mean that I don't really have anything planned out in advance and that my plans usually change. Like today for instance. My original plan was to take a 3 hour bus to Delphi early in the morning and try and be back by evening. I woke this morning and canceled that plan. It was 26 euros round trip and 3 hours both ways... That's too much money and too much time. Instead I took a bus to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounin. For breakfast, I had a creme pastry that was sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar along with a fruit salad thing. SO GOOD. The fruit salad was awesome because I do eat fresh fruit much anymore. The bus ride was only 1.5 hours and only costs 5 euros. The Temple of Poseidon was built at the southern most tip of the part of Greece called Attica. Attica is the region surrounding Athens. The Temple was 6 columns wide by 13 columns long. 15 columns are still standing which are really awesome (picture 1). The whiteness of them against the blue sky and redish brown earth was striking. Sailors, long ago and today, saw the columns and knew that they were close to Athens and home (picture 2). I met a woman from Oregon, she took my picture. She is on sabatical in Florence and came to Greece for a week. She was nice. I also met a couple from the Netherlands. We looked for Lord Byron's name on one of the columns (he carved his name when he visited over 150 years ago). We never did find it. The couple asked where else I was headed and was probably a little offended that I am going to Belgium but not the Netherlands (I ended up changing my mind on that which would probably make them happy).

On the bus ride back, the guy who collects the money talked to me about John Kerry for a while. The guy is Greek but was talking about John Kerry like he was a super hero. Pretty strange but good for him for knowing more about him than I do. I walked around and got a pita for lunch. I decided to climb up Lyccabettus Hill. It's a hill in the northeast of Athens. It was superhot today (over 80) and I was sweating like a pig at the top. The views were super (picture 3 is one of my absolute favorite pictures of the trip). The solar panels on the roofs of the houses where glittering like glass. There was some smog for sure though. On the top of the hill is a church (picture 4). There is a funicular that you can ride down or up but it was 3 euros each way! I'd rather sweat. The top of the hill also has a theater where concerts and performances are held during the Athenian Festival in July or August. After that I walked down from the hill and through the Klamaka neighborhood. It is a posh and trendy place with lots of cafes and shops. Kind of like Kensington in London but not as pretty. I walked past the President's House and alongside the National Gardens again. I finally arrived at my destination, the Panatheniac Stadium (picture 5). It was built for the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896 and can hold 69,000 people. It was completely made out of marble. The Greeks call it "pretty marble". Then I walked back to the hostel and sat around for a little bit (a siesta sort of). I headed out and ate dinner at a place called the Noodle Bar (it was listed in my Let's Go book, thanks Amy!). I had sweet and sour chicken. Incredibly delicious and a huge change from the food I had been eating since I left London. It reminded me of how me, Garrett, Ben, and Ryan went to China Restaurant in St. Cloud every other Sunday. It also reminded me of when Vanessa and I had chinese food in Rome. Anyway, it was delicious and after that I walked and got a little gelato for dessert. Also fantastic. I decided to walk around for a while since that is what everyone else seemed to be doing.

I walked through the Plaka, the neighborhood I am staying in. It is super touristy and has narrow streets so walking is tough. Everyone seemed to be out looking at restaurants and just enjoying the night air. I walked near the Acropolis and there was a HUGE book fair going on (picture 6). No English books though. All Greek. There were soooo many books and a lot of people walking around looking at them. The white tents probably stretched for over a quarter of a mile and were double sided (one publisher on one and side and another on the other side). There were street preformers as well. One street performance was a guy playing violin and a woman manipulating a puppet woman that danced. It was entrancing. Then I walked over to Monstaraki. That's another neighborhood close by. There were three girls playing music in a square near there (picture 7). They were awesome. They played some Beatles, Greek music, Italian music, Elvis, everything. Lots of fun. I think I watched them for over an hour. Then I walked back to the hostel. It was a great night and I had a lot of fun today. Tomorrow: Acropolis.

Toodles!