June 24, 2009 – Journey to Greece

This was a great day. We flew into Athens. Had a very interesting meal on the plane. It was some kind of Greek cheese and ham with a little caprese salad, stuffed grape leaf, and some tortilla wrapped up with a fishy smelling meat and cream cheese. I did not eat the suspicious smelling roll up. Everything else was really good! European airlines sure are nice. From the airport we had to take a bus into downtown Athens. Europeans aren’t really big on seated transportation, so it was an hour of standing and holding on to a pole, my backpack, and 50 lb duffle. Naturally I ended up flying into a little old Greek man. Very graceful. Once we found our hotel we got cleaned up and went for dinner. Now, the streets in Greece were designed to confuse the pirates when they were chasing people through the streets. Consequently, they confuse tourists. Our hotel receptionist dude (who has a great sense of humor) took us to the Plaka for dinner. We ate outside at a little taverna. We wanted some authentic Greek meal, but once we realized that we could understand the language around us at all the tables we knew we were at a very touristy eating establishment. We just told the man what kind of meat we wanted and he surprised us. I was surprised with chicken covered in a thicker longer rice and melted cheese over the top served with French fries. Yum… Anyhoo, it was a cool place to sit because there was a lot of outdoor dining and people in the streets. After dinner we walked around Athens for a couple of hours. It is huge and very confusing. We stumbled upon parliament which is huge and has a really nice courtyard with a fountain and people selling fake goods (purses, sunglasses, bootlegged DVDs, etc). The courtyard is all marble and is very pretty. Speaking of marble, there is a really cool graffiti painting across the street from our hotel talking about the marble in Athens. I guess the Brits just took a lot of marble pieces from Athens and Greece wants them back. England said they would loan the marble back for a steep price, but ultimately they would want it back. They stole it though! Weird little debacle. After this we roamed around a bit more.  We ended up at a little outdoor restaurant that had a big Greek men’s band with authentic music. Very cool. It was a lot of clarinets and drum kind of things. We decided to try Ouzo. Ouzo is Greece’s pride and joy. They only make it on one island and it has an anise seed flavor. We had all been warned about its strength, so we proceeded with caution. We did not like the Ouzo! Anise seed is not the best flavor, so we just had a couple of beers. We walked around Athens afterward for another hour or so and then came back to the hotel. Pretty decent first day in Athens!