After becoming somewhat familiar with Athens yesterday getting around town was much easier. We seemed like natives on the metro. Ok maybe not so much like natives, because people can tell we are American before we open or mouths. The Athens area has great public transportation. We were able to get passes good for 1.5 hours for only €.70. Skip tour busses!!! The €.70 passes were only good for students with an I.D. Card. Without it it was €1.40 for the same thing.
For today we started off by visiting the shop of famous poet/sandalmaker Starvos Melissinos (he has since retired and his son now runs the shop), who has sold sandals worldwide to customers such as the Beatles, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Jackie Kennedy. He wrote the world famous poem "The Rubaiyat." His sandals were awesome and were around €30 a pair, we passed in order to preserve the budget.
We then decided that we wanted to see the ocean; getting there was easy on public transportation. We didn't make it to an island due to time and budget but the water was great, of course we would prefer an island but we will live without for now. ( someday Hydra...someday)
They have have what we call restaurant wranglers who stand outside every restaurant and and entice you in. At one point the "wrangler" (not really called this, but we will refer to them as such from here on out) took us to his boss, because the food was too much he knocked the price down 4 euro...still too much, he looked bothered and shooed us away. This leads us to believe you can haggle on price at some restaurants. We decided on a cheap place (that had no wranglers) that served up some awesome gyros for €2, cheap and delicious! The meat may not have been as described but it tasted great going down:) We also grabbed another Greek salad loaded with tomatoes, cucumbers and excellent feta cheese.
It was then time to head back home as we had some laundry to do. On the way out of the Market Brooke purchased some cherries and nectarines (we got a ton for a little cash, 2 kilos of fruit for €3 to be exact). On the way home we stopped at Syntagma Square, where The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier is located, to witness the changing of the guard. This happens every hour on the hour and is quite the mini ceremony.
Upon getting home we went to war with a washing machine that had all its labels in a different language. One would think it would be in Greek, alas, an Italian washing machine had found its way to the small apartment we rented. We decided to go for a late night snack and found something that we declare must be in the Unites States, look for the petition shortly, an Oreo cream filled chocolate bar!!!!!!
We now have clothes hanging all over the apartment so they can dry by morning before we head out for Meteora! Fare thee well Athens, you have not seen the last of us!
Tips from Today!
-tipping is not obligatory, but a tip should follow good service
-you will see owl figurines everywhere this is the symbol of wisdom which is representative of the goddess Athena, after which the city is named
-the little beads you see people flipping around their hands are just cultural, no religious importance
-use the metro 1.5hr. Pass and get anywhere in Athens easy ( they are good for train, tram, bus and metro)
- the pass purchased at the Acropolis has small tear off tickets that are good for six other cultural sites (ancient Agora, The Theatre of Dionysos, Roman Agora, Kereameikos, The Temple of Olympian Zeus, and Hadrian's Library.
-when buying fruit they only sell kilos, making transactions quick and easy, and one kilo of cherries is a lot of cherries!
-buy an Oreo cream filled chocolate bar
-Airbnb.com works great ... So far. We payed €28 a night for our own mini apartment. Of course this was Greece so somewhat cheaper then the rest of our stops.
Sounds fun. By the way, we are having a girl.
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