Athens

I like Athens. I know everyone says that it's dirty and not a fun place to be and basically you should see the sights and leave right away, BUT I like it. :) Today was great and started out with the girls who are staying in my room, Joy and Jessica, and I went out into the city today. We first went to the port, Piraeus, so that I could buy my ferry tickets.

My new plan is that I will go to Rhodes tomorrow night on the 7pm ferry, arriving in Rhodes the next morning around 11am. I will stay in Rhodes for three nights, then ferry to Santorini overnight on the 12th and stay in town there for two. I will take a ferry back to Athens on the 15th during the day. I like my hostel here so I will probably stay here that night and then the next day, the 16th, I will head over to the Peloponnese for a week. Then I will return to Athens and spend some time doing day trips in and around the city and fly out on the 25th to Paris!

After visiting the port the girls and I went to the new Olympic Stadium and took a few pictures. We met a guy there who was telling us that tomorrow THE marathon is happening where people will run from Marathon to Athens, which is kind of fun. I think it's a little ironic that Eddie will be doing his half Iron Man on the same day. Yea for people running races on November 8. :)

After we went to the stadium we walked over to the Temple of Zeus and took pictures and stuff. We were informed that the Acropolis and all the archeology sites are free on Sundays during the winter time, so we decided to wait and go to the Acropolis tomorrow instead of today. After visiting Zeus' Temple we walked toward the Acropolis and climbed Mars Hill or the Aeropolis. It was SO beautiful and so much fun. After that we visited the Ancient Agora which was also quite fun. I really enjoy the girls and we had fun posing as statues and I was able to get a few shots of myself with sites without holding the camera myself. :)

Once it was 5 and the basically kicked us out of all the sites we walked through the markets some and bought some little oranges, then took the metro back to our hostel. We stopped at a grocery store on our way and bought pasta, pesto, a giant tomato, and some fresh feta cheese to make dinner with. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed a nice large meal together. It was so much fun and great. I ended up with WAY too much feta, so hopefully I will be able to eat some of it tomorrow! :)

I am feeling much better about Greece - I was struggling a little last week. I think it's helped for me to be in a new city and finally be seeing some of the sites that are so big and grand that they make me stand in awe. It's amazing. I also got to see a friend from Seattle (a girl who lived in Moyer with me back at SPU) who is traveling in Europe. We have actually been in the same city a few times already, but never managed to connect. It was fun to see her in Thessaloníki. I am also glad to have my ferries figured out.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Acropolis and the Archeology Museum (I think?) to take advantage of the free Sunday admission. It should be a good day. Hopefully I'll be able to load some pictures to facebook before I get on the ferry tomorrow. I just put ones up from today - so check them out! I will be putting a video up shortly as well. :)

P.S. I don't think I've said anything about this yet but did you know that in Greece you do not flush your TP down the toilet but instead use the garbage bin in the restroom? It's true. It's also true that in a public restroom it's a good idea to bring some TP and soap of your own as it is often not provided. The upside is that you don't have to pay to use the public restrooms as you often have to do in Europe, but I don't think I'll ever get used to tossing the TP "in the bin" instead of flushing. In my opinion, the Greeks are advanced in some ways, but not so much in others. :)