June 22, 2010 - Today was an adventure! We headed for Syntagma Square which is the center of the city. We first stopped to eat at a favorite lunch spot. The waiter made fun of Nicholas for ordering pizza for the second day in a row when they have so many great Greek dishes. By the way, this restaurant is called God's Restaurant and has a sign out front that says "Tomorrow, everything is free." They have very nice waiters that remembered us! While eating lunch today, a reporter came up to our table to interview us about the financial crisis in Greece right now. They asked our opinion about the prices in Greece. Tom spoke to them quite a bit. We have no idea where the interview would ever be shown! We ate Greek salads and headed to the Temple of Zeuss. After that, we made our way to the Panathenaic Stadium, a stadium made for nude male atheletes to compete. It is not the original Olympic stadium, but it was used to revive the Olympics in 1870 and 1875. It also was used in the 2004 Olympics for Archery and as the finishing line for the marathon. Nicholas had a great time climbing all over the 68,000 seat capacity stadium. He also went to the top and snapped some great pictures of the Acropolis.
We left the stadium and made our way to the Kings Palace and the home of the Prime Minister. We watched the changing of the guards, which looked more comical than official. We went around the corner to the Parliament building and the Tomb of the Unknown soldiers. Greek police were out in numbers, we assume because of the recent demonstrations. We watched the guards at the tomb and then got on the tram to head to Glafada to find Tom's old apartment. After a long train ride, getting off at the wrong stop and a crazy cab driver that didn't speak any English, we were unable to find Tom's old home while he was stationed in Athens. By the way, while we were all in the cab with a cab driver that couldn't speak English, we all felt like we were on Amazing Race! Fortunately, Tom remembered how to say "left", "right" and "straight" in Greek so he could at least direct him that way.
We survived that cab ride, jumped on the Metro back to Syntagma Square so we could explore some more. Nicholas didn't understand why we didn't just get off at our stop and go home. The rest of us wanted more adventure! We wandered through Monastiraki and made our way back to the apartment for a short rest. Monastiraki is another shopping area with many cafes, shops and winding streets.
We headed back to Plaka (our favorite spot) to look for another good outdoor cafe for dinner. We have eaten all of our meals outside so far! We found a great spot for dinner and a great spot to watch the Greece vs. Argentina World Cup game. All the cafes and restaurants had televisions outside so everyone could watch the games. Futbol was on everywhere we went! Our spot for dinner was a great spot to people watch and also watch the unwanted street sellers selling their purses, watches and sunglasses. While we were sitting and eating dinner, the police were spotted and all of the street sellers packed up their stuff and ran. I never saw anyone run away so fast! They have all of their goods spread out on a large sheet so that all they have to do is pull up the 4 corners like a sack and get out of there. The people of Plaka don't like these sellers and it is illegal for them to sell, but it doesn't stop them.
Tommy bought a Greece World Cup jersey from a shop owner that he met earlier in the day. When he bought the shirt it was for a #20. Tommy asked the owner if this player would play in the game that night. The owner said "he's the captain, of course!" Tommy was pretty proud to be wearing the jersey while we watched the game. We found a perfect spot to watch at an outdoor cafe. It was unfortunate that Greece lost the game - we were at least hoping they would score a goal so we could cheer with the Greeks watching the game! Tom and Julie shared a glass of Ouzo during the game. Julie just likes the smell of it. We had a great time, but, guess what? That #20 - never played - wasn't even on the team. We looked him up on the web and found out that he was the captain, but he took himself off the team because of an injury. Tommy went back the next day to exchange his jersey and tell the shop owner that he felt ripped off!!! The owner denied any wrongdoing at first, but then decided to exchange the shirt for him. He was obviously just trying to get rid of the jerseys, we noticed that he had quite a few #20 jerseys in his store!!
We took a detour on our way home to get another look at the Parthenon at midnight. We can't seem to get enough looks at the Acropolis - day or night.
On the way home, the street sellers were back and Tom went into action and bought Julie a leather purse for just 15 Euros - he did pretty good! Tommy was impressed and is very anxious to give that a try soon!
A great but tiring day in Athens!
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