Athens

Our flights from Pittsburgh to Toronto and from Toronto to Athens all went smoothly. Everything was on time and no cancellations! The long (9 1/2 hour) flight from Toronto to Athens was made more bearable by the fact that I had a row all to myself - 3 seats across. Joe was on the aisle across from me and the seat next to him was empty. So we were very comfortable. Unfortunately that didn't translate into more sleep. I slept (lightly) for maybe an hour, so I was kind of walking around Athens in a trance today.

The ride from the airport to the hotel was interesting. A young man who is a driver for a limousine service picked us up. When I spotted him holding a tablet with our name on it, the first thing I did was go to him and ask him if we needed to go through customs (we had just retrieved our luggage). He looked at me and said, "Customs? What is that?" My next question, I thought, should be: "Do you speak English?" How could he not know what customs is? However, after asking the question, he simply turned and began walking toward his vehicle, so we followed him. Once in the vehicle on the drive to the hotel, he asked us again what customs is. We explained it to him, and he said no, they don't do that here, lending to my initial impression of Greece: no long custom lines, I like it.

On the way to the hotel, we discovered many more reasons to like it here. Greece is simply beautiful. On the approach to the airport, we had a bird's eye view of the area, where you could see some rocky island mountain peaks poking up out of the Mediterranean - simply gorgeous.  Athens reminds us a lot of southern California: hills surrounding the city, very arid, total sunshine, low humidity, very pleasant weather. Along the drive from the airport to the hotel, we saw signs to Thessaloniki and Korinth. It was fascinating to see highway exits to places of very familiar Biblical names. Also, the Greek word for Exit is Exodus. Hmm, makes sense. We totally enjoyed the ride from the airport to the hotel. This place is beautiful. I absolutely am in love with Greece.

If you are a reader of my previous blogs, you may remember that I like to learn how to say "thank you" in the local language. The Greek word for thank you is Efcharisto. (This word may look familiar to Catholics reading this blog.) Anyway, I decided to try it out early, before arriving in Greece, so when the stewardess on the plane handed me some food, I replied "Efcharisto". She must have thought then that I was fluent in it, because she responded with a couple of sentences that she rattled off in Greek. Fortunately, she continued walking down the aisle giving out food as she spoke and did not wait for a response from me, because I did not understand a word she said. Okay...wait for it - it was all Greek to me! I continued to say "Efcharisto" to others (our driver, the man at the hotel, people at the museum) and all of them responded with slight surprise and a nice smile that seemed to indicate an appreciation for speaking their language.

Joe enjoyed nice conversation with our driver from the airport to the hotel. We drove through some parts of Athens that were very vibrant. Joe noted how there were lots of young people out and about. Mr. Driver commented that that was because the young people have no jobs and they still live at home with their parents, and are thus able to go out shopping, dining, etc. all day long. He had a very negative impression of the Greek economy. He said that it is very bad, that it always seems to be bad, and never improves, and that there are better opportunities for young educated people in other parts of Europe, so many of them leave Greece after they graduate. He said you can't make much money here, that you work long hours and barely get by. Some of the streets we drove through were very narrow and crowded, with lots of dense traffic. There were lots of pedestrians, and the people seemed to just wander in and about through the traffic, darting here and there, and expecting that drivers will look out for them. Also, there are lots of motorcycles and they drive wherever they want: in between lanes of traffic, on the sidewalks, wherever they please. Mr. Driver said that occasionally people get out of hand and start yelling at each other. He referred to these incidents as being one where someone is "looking for a teacher", apparently a well-known expression here. It means that when there is a confrontation, someone bigger and stronger than you will teach you a lesson, if you know what I mean. Bottom line is, you don't want to be "looking for a teacher"! (Note: I keep referring to him as Mr. Driver, because we asked him his name numerous times and could not understand what he was saying. Mr. Hotel Clerk also tried to help by spelling his name. Sorry, we still didn't get it, but I think it started with Pa. Guess we have to work on our Greek.)

We arrived at our hotel around noon and even though check in time was 2:00, our room was ready, so we were able to go in and freshen up before hitting the streets of Athens. Our room has a nice view: we can see the Acropolis up on the hill from our hotel room window. 

After we freshened up, we immediately set out in search of gyros because that's what you eat when in Greece. Upon the advice of the man running the hotel, we found a place a few blocks away. The food was good, but the gyros didn't look like they look in the states. They don't serve the meat wrapped in pita bread. They just have the bread on the bottom of the plate, with the meat and toppings over the bread. Also at the place we ate, there was a big slab of meat of some kind hanging in the window (pork? beef? lamb?) and with someone occasionally shaving it. 

While we were eating, a young lady with a small child (maybe 7 years old?) approached our table (we were sitting outside enjoying European-style cafe sidewalk dining) and she began speaking in a foreign language, maybe Greek, maybe something else. She kept pointing to our food and then pointing to her son. We finally figured out that she was asking if he could have the last piece of pork that was sitting on the plate. We were both done eating and neither of us were going to eat it, so I gave it to him. Of course, we were glad to let him have it, but a rather unusual experience.

After we ate we went to the National Archaeological Museum. 

We are rather proud of ourselves for figuring out the Greek Metro system. We were told the best way to get around Athens is the Metro, even though a taxi would have been much easier. However, we did figure it out, purchased our tickets, found the station, got on the right train, and made it to the museum. By the time we got to the museum, which was a little walk from the Metro station, jet lag was beginning to set in. So after viewing the very interesting artifacts - there is a lot of history here, needless to say - we ditched our plan to do a walking tour of Athens, thinking we'll save that for tomorrow. We headed back to the hotel and tried very hard to comply with sage advice about not going to bed until evening and immediately adjusting to local time. But having gotten very little sleep on the plane, it simply was not to be. We ended up falling asleep for a little while, but hopefully will still sleep well tonight, and look forward to exploring more of Athens tomorrow before embarking the cruise ship late morning.