Athens and Acropolis

Wow, a lot has happened in the past week or so. I'm going to try to divide this into two to three posts. Bear with me if I jump around a lot. So Kristen flew into Athens airport on the 14th, the last day I blogged. She got in fine, mostly because the strikes got moved to the 15th. She was a trooper too, despite a long flight, she still had lots of energy. So we got to our hotel, which was a good mile hike down a busy Athens highway from the nearest metro station. The Ledra Marriott. Very nice, but lacking free internet and in a strange location. The city was a little grimy on the surface, but the people are all very nice. We both took quick showers before heading into Plaka (the nice part of Athens). We wandered around Plaka till we got hungry and then stopped into a nice little tourist trap of a restaurant. We had some Souvlaki to start (I'll be giving lots of detail on the food, possibly my favorite part of Greece) our trip which was a nice transition.

The next day we headed out early for the Acropolis. We saw the Dionysis Theatre, whole Acropolis, Temple of Saturn, and Temple of Zeus before 2pm. It really is easy to do since they're all right next to eachother. The hike up the Acropolis is the only tough part. The Temple of Saturn (I think) was impressive too because it was largely intact. After we headed back and took a dip in the pool on top of the hotel, overlooking the Acropolis and most of the city. That night for dinner we headed back to Plaka and went to a nice little family restaurant. They brought us a choice of 18 of their best dishes (all very greek) and we got to chose 5. We got Mousaka, fried zuccini, meatballs, sausage, and pork, none of which I am describing correctly, but all of which were delicious. Greek hospitality is amazing, you can't get this much or this quality of food for the same price in America. For 30 euro they stuff you with appetizer, two dinners, bread, water, wine, dessert, and dessert liquor. It's amazing. Anyway, stuffed and happy we went to bed early. The next morning we hopped a cab to Piraeus (Athen's port) and got the 7am ferry to Milos! Which will be the subject of my next post. I only have 45 minutes of free internet here in Athens airport though, so more posts might have to wait till Cairo. We will see.