David and I both arrived in the Athens airport around the same time and successfully met up with each other at our "meeting point". As I stood in line to go through immigration, I met two guys who had just taken the New York bar exam and we exchanged our shared miserable stories about that horrid process. :) After I met up with David, we thought it would be fun to explore every possible part of the airport...in our attempt to find an ATM machine that worked and would actually give us Euros! After the 9th machine, we did a little dance for joy upon actually receiving the money. We also ran into the Italian national basketball team in the airport - who were all over 8 feet tall!
Exploring Athens was fascinating, it's really not such a beautiful city. The traffic is terrible, graffiti runs rampant, and there are porn/sex shops galore. However, it's remarkable how the city is built around the ancient Greek structures that are sprinkled throughout the modern, downtown Athens. We explored Hadrian's arch, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the national gardens.
While walking along the sidewalk, you practically run into the Roman baths which were found when Athens began constructing their underground subway system - the baths date back to 5th century BC and literally are in the middle of the sidewalk along the road. The Congressional hall (for their Parliament) is also very interesting - the building once served as a homeless shelter during a housing shortage in the 1900s. Hard to imagine the U.S. capitol ever serving as a homeless shelter...
We also visited the Panthinaikon Stadium which was built in 330 BC and is also right on the side of a very busy street. In 1896, the first modern Olympics were held in the stadium and it was used again for the summer Olympics in 2004. The Greek Presidential Palace is actually very similar to the White House, except for the VERY strangely dressed security guards who resemble the guards at Buckingham Palace. We went to take a picture next to them - they don't move, their eyes are glued on the street, and they are standing as straight as an arrow. They don't even flinch when one of the city's thousands of stray dogs brushes up against them!
Perhaps the most impressive site in Athens is the Acrpolis. We climbed the 500 foot mountain to get to the ancient city of Acropolis that was built in the 5th century BC. Among other ancient greek ruins, is the Parthenon which is the temple of the Greek goddess Athena and is considered the most important surviving building of classical Greece. The U.S. Supreme Court looks remarkably similar to the Parthenon.
The food in Athens has been terrific, we've tried salami and feta sandwiches, calzones, fantastic Greek salad, etc. Greek salad in Greece is very different than in the states - there is no lettuce, it's just cucumbers, onions, olives, and tomatoes with olive oil and amazing feta cheese. We also had pizza with goudah cheese which was actually better than we expected. The waiter also brings a bowl of ice and places it in the middle of the table (w/o tongs) for us to use in our glasses as we choose. Strange. They also bring us the bill and put it on the table whent he main course is delivered to the table - also odd. We left Athens via the Port of Pireaus on a high speed ferry for Cyclade Santorini (cyclade = island).
The ferry was ENORMOUS, like a huge cruis ship - thousands of people and cars travel throughout the Greek islands on the ferry. We watched the sun set over the Aegean sea from the ferry and arrived in Santorini which Greeks consider to be the most beautiful of the Greek islands.
Our hotel in Santorini was only a few meters from a black sand beach that was created from the volcano on the island. The volcano is still active and most recently erupted in the 1950s. The beach was fabulous, David was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was a topless beach! The water was very interesting, it was not blue at all because the floor of the sea is paved in black volcanic rock - there is no sand anywhere along the sea or under it from the volcano.
We had a great lunch at an outdoor cafe at the beach, grilled feta with veggies, tzatziki sauce (which tasted a lot like Costco's tzatziki sauce!), Greek salad, spinach pie, and Greek meatballs. While hanging out at the pool bar in our hotel,we became friends with two American women, Lili & Kathy, who were in their early thirties. One is a family doctor and the other is a medical student. We had a terrific time with them and went out to dinner together. The doctor's story was incredible, she is jewish and was born in Russia and her parents sneaked out to the U.S. and eventually arrived in NYC where they worked 4 jobs and tried to make a living - and now their child is a doctor. Talk about the American dream.
So anyway, our meal was fun and the food was phenomenal - we all shared everything which ranged from stuffed grape leaves, fish roe salad, Greek potata salad, fava beans, smashed yellow peas, moussaka, swordfish, lamb chops, creamed mushrooms, beets, and olive tapenade. While we chatted with the two, David asked our friend Steve, the thirty-something bartender from San Francisco working in Crete for the summer, what liquor was special to Greece. He recommended the Ouzo. So, David partook, and didn't necessarily enjoy. But, when in Rome . . . or Greece! Ouzo is known throughout different parts of Europe, but Greece claims to have the best. It tastes very similar to Sambuko (which tastes like liquorish) is commonly mixed with only water and ice.
Conversation was terrific - Kathy was a life long Florida Republican and has now decided to vote for and even volunteer for Hillary! :) yay! We left Santorini on a 4:30am ferry to head to Crete. It was pitch black when we arrived at the port which is at the bottom of a huge mountain. There are no lights on the mountain road which is carved into the side of the mountain, so from the bottom of the mountain, you basically just see headlights snaking their way through the side of the mountain - it was quite the sight to see!
The ferry was very strange - there are no assigned seats unless you purchased tickets in a cabin (which we thankfully had done!), but people are sprawled out sleeping on the floor EVERYWHERE, there are not enough chairs for all the passengers- I can't believe that people travel like that for hours and hours on the ferry. But we had a cabin and slept quite well on the way to Crete. Crete was great, but extremely hot - as was Athens and Santorini.
At this time of year, the Greek islands usually experience weather in the mid 80s. When we were there, they had a tremendous heat wave and it was between 105 - 110 degrees every day. VERY hot to say the least. In Crete we went to the archaelogical musuem which has artifacts from the Minoan civilization in Crete - dating back 6800 years!!! The Minoans were one of the first civilizations in Europe. We toured the Palace of Knossos which has the oldest spiral staircase, toilet, and chair in all of Europe. The current Greek chair in the Hague is actually designed after the Minoan chair found at the Place of Knossos on Crete.
We had a fabulous time visiting the "Wet Wet" beach (literally, that's the name of the beach, we're not making it up!) which is where the Ionian & Aegean seas merge. The beach was gorgeous, crystal blue water with islands scattered throughout the sea. The local airport was at one end of the beach so every few hours a plane would come roaring down over our heads and looked like it would actually land in the water. One plane missed the runway and had to circle back around and try to land again!
We then took an overnight ferry back to Piraeus which was on an even more impressive ferry than the previous ones! It had escalators throughout and reminded us a lot of the boat in the movie Titanic (except of course - our ferry didn't crash into an iceberg and sink!). But the customer service was entertaining, the cashier refused to let us change our order - he said, once it is punched in, he can't change it. Again, there were people without cabin assignments who slept everywhere, some brought hammocks or blow up mattresses and slept on them in the lobby! The ferry was supposed to arrive at 5:30am, so we set our alarms for 5:15am. But, there was some delay and we didn't disembark until 6:45am, so much sleep we missed out on! :) It seemed that the gods did not want to allow us an easy morning - beginning with our shortened sleep.
The cab ride from Piraeus to the Budget car rental office required two different cars. The first began to break down after two minutes of the fifteen minute drive, so the driver pulled over and arranged for another cab to take us the rest of the way. Upon arrival, we learned that the office was not yet open. Thankfully, we recognized the Temple of Zeus across the street, and we remembered there being a number of cafes close by. Unfortunately when we found them, they too were closed. So we sat on the curb in the 100 degree heatwave that continued and dined on the delicious Special K cereal bars we had packed.
Soon after our fine dining, we headed back to Budget and saw a man unlocking the doors and entering - this made us very happy. Maybe the gods had changed their minds? Nah . . . when we sat down with the man, he told us a price that was considerably more expensive than we originally had been told (and had in writing from Budget). However, we were told that we could either pay the new price or go somewhere else. So, we paid and asked for a good map of Greece since we were driving through Western and Northern Greece the next few days. They had none. Budget, who undoubtedly provides a plethora of tourists with rental cars for vacation every day had no maps of Greece to give us. So, we rented a GPS system that was programmed in German (good thing neither of us knows German!). If the lack of maps was a ploy for us to spend extra money, it worked. Grrrr Budget.
So after finally finding our way out of Athens, we headed toward Delphi and tried to make a stop in Thebes which was right along the way. For those who don't know, Thebes is where the story of Oedipus originates. However, when we drove through Thebes, no road signs catered to us egocentric English-speaking tourists. In fact, this seemed to be a trend along most of the roads. After a failed attempt of a stop in Thebes, we continued to Delphi. Immediately upon arriving in Delphi, we fell in love with the area. The quaint town of 2,000 people rests in the side of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Gulf of Corinth. Our family-run Acropole Hotel was on the road (the town has three) that juts out the most from the mountain. It was separated from the main roads, where the shops and restaurants were, by flights of twenty steps. Every room in the hotel had a balcony with an absolutely breathtaking view. David couldn't stop taking pictures.
After settling in, we explored the ancient Oracle of Delphi which houses the Temple of Apollo, one of the best preserved stadiums in Europe that seats 7,000, and a theater that seats 5,000 and was one of the most respected theaters during its time. After heading back down from touring the Oracle in the 100+ degree weather, we headed toward the Delphi museum and cafe. Unfortunately, the cafe had only sparkling water and no mineral water. On display at the museum were various artifacts, statues, and jewelry from around the 6th century BCE. When we tried taking pictures in the museum where one of us was posing, we got yelled at even though we weren't touching anything. We still don't know why, but posing is not allowed there!
Back near our hotel, we found a little shop that sold traditional Greek products. We befriended the shop-keep, Yurgos, and he gave David a taste of Raki, a liquor with 40% alcohol that tastes like raisins. The stores selection of Greek olive oil, local Greek wine, tapenade, and liquor greatly decreased the weight of our wallets. That evening, we ate at a restaurant, Epikouros, with a view as spectacular as our balcony's, owned by the same family as our hotel, and food to match the aura.
Before our food came out, our waiter, Dimitris, noticed David eyeballing something cake he was serving to the Japanese tour group that filled the place. So, he brought us a complimentary piece, still before our food was served. The other waiter then walked by and, in jest, scolded us for eating dessert before dinner. As we began to eat, we struck up a conversation with our Dimitris. After five minutes of standing and talking, he pulled up a chair and sat down (yes, the restaurant was full of people and he was one of two waiters).
Following our twenty minute conversation, during which he told us he had spent 3 years in prison so he doesn't like lawyers and he was scared of planes so he had never left the area, we noticed many patrons glaring at him. When he got up, he finally went back and retrieved their food. After we ate, we realized that we had ordered, and eaten, too much. Our meal consisted of spetzofai (a dish of toatoes, peppers, onions, and sausage, that is special to Northern Greece), spanakopita, mousaka, zuchinni balls (yum!), baklava, and local Greek wine. What a meal!
As many of you probably have read about in the news, Greece has suffered a national tragedy this week. Over 200 fires are blazing across the country and over 60 people have died (they expect the death toll to climb well over 100 people). The fires have been set by arsonists, they have arrested two people so far - a 65 year old man and a 77 year old woman. The government is offering a $1 million reward to people who provide informationt hat leads to a conviction. The acts of arson are allegedly politically motivated and aimed at influencing the upcoming presidential election (September 16). Currently, the right wing party controls the government, but the election is expected to be very very close. The right wing party has been supporting increased construction and development of land and the arsonists are allegedly trying to stop this increased construction.
The Greek prime minister has declared a state of national emergency and the country has received aid from countries throughout Europe. The Flags are flying at half-staff and the news is covered in this story. It's horrific, but an incredible piece of Greek history which we are living through. On our drive from Delphi to Metsovo, we passed by many of these raging fires and saw the plumes of smoke for miles and miles. The smoke filled mountains were on our right and the gorgeous Gulf of Corinth was on our left as we drove. At one point a helicopter with an ENORMOUS bucket flew right next to us, dipped the bucket into the water and then flew to dump the water into the fires and again and again. We saw tanker planes filling up with water and trying to extinguish the fires but to no avail. It's been a terrible experience to witness and the entire country is mourning the losses of lives, property, and spirit at these unimaginable acts of arson.
We decided to take a detour along our drive to Metsovo and stopped to swim at the beach at the Apollo beach hotel. We basically just pretended we were guests at the resort and enjoyed the beach, swam in the pool, showered and changed. We had a heavenly lunch at their patio cafe overlooking the water with breeze blowing through the trees.
We arrived in Metsovo which is a very quaint town with the focus on the town square. Kids were laughing and playing, hundreds of people were out walking, greeting friends in the square. Our restaurant was clearly a family business as we were served by a 10 year old waiter who was helping his mom. We had a great meal of noodles with various meats, cornflour pie with kale (david was a fan, rebecca - not so much), and smoked metsovo cheese. We befriended the guy at the hotel - Yanis - who looked like he had been crying watching the latest news about the Greek fires. We had a fabulous homemade breakfast of chocolate cake (yay for chocolate cake at breakfast!), local ceralis cheese, bread, and eggs. On our drive from Metsovo to Thessaloniki we almost ran over a herd of billygoats just sleeping on the road, guarded by a dog who looked about as ferocious as Lucy!
In Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Athens, we saw the old synagogue, and learned that the entire city's internet had been down for 2 days because of the fires. We also learned that when a Greek person doesn't know the answer to a question we ask them (most often when we ask for directions), they close their eyes and raise their chin towards us, almost like when you turn up your nose to someone. It is a very rude looking gesture by our American standards and we have been quite put off by it until we learned what it actually meant!
We arrived at the Thessaloniki train station and met a very friendly American named Al who is on a 10 year program in Bulgaria. He and his wife are missionaries with the Free Methodist church - and he befriended us for the entire train ride until his stop. But he was very helpful, even though the conversation was...interesting to say the least. So, we're in Bulgaria and doing fabulously! We'll try to send out another update about Bulgaria and Turkey, but it may not be until we get home.
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