Thursday, March 06, 2008

Greetings from the Parthenon!


Ali and I spent our first day in Athens with a short list of things to accomplish. He didn't get to eat his gyro yet, but we did walk around incognito, successfully causing several people to talk Greek to us, and even someone to ask us directions. We saw some ancient stuff and walked around, shopped in the flea market, and ate some delicious "country fries" from McDonald's Athens.


Today we are headed out for a few hours after a lazy morning and determined to check out the styles and fashion of the Greeks. Let's just say so far Greek fashion seems to be a mixture of influences without being particularly stylish. I can see the impact of H&M on the younger women and a sort of international poverty on the men. The dudes look pretty cool on their motorcycles though. And the women love high heeled boots... even when hiking up the slippery rocks on the way to the Parthenon.


The streets we have seen are dirty and run down; graffiti of an unskilled type is prevalent. There's a lot of trash everywhere, even in more tourist-focused areas which are typically the most manicured in a city. Dogs are everywhere; we don't see people walking them on leashes but rather they run free in the city without being curbed. Public transportation seems quite good and the trains run on time. There was some sort of employee strike on the trains from 12-4 yesterday but it did not affect us because we were frolicking among the ruins.

The weather has been cool in the morning and dusk, but gets pretty hot in the sun during mid-day. We have not seen the rain that was predicted.

Tonight we're headed on an overnight ferry to spend the next 5 days in Crete. Looking forward to settling into a hotel for more than a couple of days.

ps: we have found some great chocolate but can not find any Dr. Pepper here.

4 comments:

k-bomb said...

H&M reminds me of Luxembourg. I bought some great stuff! Sounds like you're having an adventure. I love it when I'm somewhere foreign and people think I live there. It's fantastic:) Good luck!

The 2 Nicks said...

Nick and I are both extremely jealous of you two. We are DYING to go to Greece! Have a wonderful time! And keep posting photos! It gives me motivation to save money for a trip there!

nelly said...

unfortunately, H&M is a huge fashionista in europe! i see it here in england and when we visited sweden, oh my goodness!

looks like agood time, enjoy crete!

Anonymous said...

Ah, thanks for the reminder about that flea market in Athens -- it's amazing what you can find there, everything from old x-ray machines to silverware to electronics to... you name it. You could spend hours and still not see everything.