Day One: Athens

Waiting for my bag at Ellie's flat, but no matter. There is certainly enough to read and pictures to look at. I'll stay occupied.
Last night was fabulous! Ellie's friend Alex took us to dinner (late! I don't think we ate until 10) just a little jaunt outside the square in Plaka. He ordered a whole menagerie of Greek food; Tiny grilled fish (I still don't know what kind of fish. Everytime we asked, he just said "Little fishes!" "Ok, but what kind of little fishes?" "Little fishes!"), yummy octopus, tzatziki with bread, a garlicky eggplant puree, boiled greens, which he called "horti," and the best feta I've ever tasted in my life. It's different here, with an earthier, more grounded taste. Not like the nearly offesnive zing that stateside feta has. And so much wine. The restaurants buy entire barrels from the vineyards, so there's nothing bottled about it. They come by the kilo and it's served in sort of a large shot glass instead of stemmed glasses. I drank enough to not remember how much we drank....
We must have stayed at that retaurant for hours. Sat outside, watched people watching us, talked aith Alex about what the world thinks of the US and what the US thinks of the US. The way, Obama, Bush, etc. Good conversation! And some kind of wheat flour and honey dessert served with green apples and cinnamon. Yum.
Up to Ellie's rooftop garden afterwards, where we were introduced to Ouzo. Yowch. A little bit goes a very, very long way. Turned in around 2am and fell asleep as soon as we laid down.


What we call this morning was really this afternon. Alex rang the doorbell at noon to wake us up. We probably would have slept the entire day away. Noon in Athens = 5am on STJ. Got dressed and went for coffee at Ellie's friend Kostas' shop. Tiny, perfect cappucinos. There is something called Greek coffee. Don't know why, but neither of us tried it today. Tomorrow for sure.
We got a little lost and did some "stupid American" loops around the square. Found out fairly quickly that Greek women do not bare their legs. Found out why. It turns out that two American girls in pink cotton dresses and flip flops can catch some eyes around here.
We walked our naked legs to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Kind of like the Eiffel Tower in that it was so much more massive than I could possibly have predicted. Huge pillars....it was amazing. All under what I'm sure was the very watchful eye of the Acropolis.
Then we sauntered into a garden. Stumbled upon a fountain, which I think was part of a museum. We will check that out tomorrow.
We got a little more lost then, but managed to buy our ferry tickets to Syros for tomorrow morning. One ticket for Erin McNaugdt and one for Jamie Vandenbrag. Yes. We're still having some troubles figuring out all the ferries and flights...it looks like we might need a travel agent for that. We'll see.
We got lunch at a tiny little bakery in Plaka. And baklava. Yummmm. The whole bakery was like a treasure chest. A hundred clear display boxes filled with cookies and pastries , pretzels, bagels and treats I haven't tried yet. I could probably have spent a million carb-filled hours in that place.
We ate in Ellie's garden, marvelling equally at the Acropolis and the feta, each tied for the spot of "Favorite thing about Athens." Well, those and Alex.
There are a mllion touristy shops here, not unlike St. Thomas. Also, men selling these weird jelly balls that splat and then return to their shapes. Men that sit on the sidewalks all day long. Splat. Splat. Splat. I wonder how many of those they actually sell...
Ooh, and music! It seems like you hear music everywhere. We passed a man playing an accordian in the street, much like people would play a guitar on a street corner in the states.
We came back to the apartment at 3 to wait for Air France to deliver my bag. It's almost 8 now. It just came. The poor man who was delivering it spoke no English and was not sure where Ellie's house was. That was an interesting phone call. I still have no idea how he found us, though saying that he found us might be less than the whole truth. I heard what sounded like a big van pull up and looked out the window at a man holding my backpack and looking up at the apartments, no doubt wondering how on Earth he would find the right one. I had put a sign up at the bottom of Ellie's place to ring "This----> doorbell for the lost bag." In English. Well done. Needless to say, the doorbell would not have rung because of my brilliant sign. I ran outside, got my bag from him, and all is well. I love the relieved look on his face when he realized that he wouldn't have to go around ringing all sorts of doorbells until he found the right one.
Erin did a bit more walking around while I waited here. She rounded the corner and found a Hard Rock Cafe and a McDonald's. Hello, America. I thought we had escaped you for a bit. We haven't seemed to encounter much anti-American sentiment. It probably would have been different were Obama not in office, but we'll see. So far, the people we have spoken with have been very nice. Even to awkward Americans.

getting there....

10/23

My goodness, Europe is beautiful from the sky. I have no perspective right now, really. I haven't a clue as to what I am looking at or how far above it all I am.
Not sure that I have ever seen snowcaps from above the peaks. The tiny, winding roads I see are certainly not as tiny as I think. For some reason, geographical logic be damned, I feel like I am looking at a little model version of The Sound of Music. Green hills and white mountaintops...
I will have to look at a map when I get there--I want to find out what piece of Earth I am flying above and look at those mountains from the ground.

Sometimes I'm smart. Not all the time, granted, but sometimes....sometimes. When I went to Greece, I kept a travel journal. I wrote down every tiny bit of every huge day so that I wouldn't forget any of it. And now, in lieu of telling my family and friends all these stories one by one, I'm just going to post the journal here. Read away, friends.