June 23, 2010 - Today started out slow after everyone slept in until 10:30 - just not rush here! We all met up at an outdoor cafe that we all know. We are all comfortable in our little section of Athens. We had lunch at an "out of the way" Greek restaurant. The owner did not speak any English, Tom managed to order a meal that everyone liked. During lunch, the owner's grandson brought his cars over to our table to play. He was cute and we managed to catch him on film. It was a rainy day so we took in the Acropolis Museum - it was really magnificent, but we soon confirmed what we already knew - Nicholas hates museums! Julie finally took him out and Tom and Tommy watched a film on the history of the Acropolis. It has really been through some hard times over the last 2,500 years.
After the museum we set out for another walk to explore more ruins. We made our way through the back streets of Athens to Monastiraki to explore Ancient Agora. The grounds were rather large. We looked at two temples and it started to rain so we quickly ran into a small cafe to have a drink and wait for the rain to pass. The sun came back out and we made our way into Monastiraki Square for some shopping. I bought a pair of leather sandals - Monastiraki is the place to buy leather sandals! Tom tried to bargain with a shop owner for a bottle of Ouzo for Papa, but the owner wanted no part of it! Tom had a good time, but he paid full price for that bottle!! We soon realized that the U.S. World Cup soccer game was about to start and we really wanted to watch it. England was playing as well and, of course, most cafes and bars had that game on. We found a great little cafe that was willing to change the channel to the U.S. game for us. Some of the others in the cafe were not happy, but they soon were cheering with us when the U.S. won! Our waiter was very pleasant and told us that he had family in Baltimore. As a matter of fact, his wife was visiting her sister in Baltimore this week!
After the game, we wandered through Monastiraki and Plaka back to our apartment for a short rest. We had dinner on another rooftop restaurant, took a walk and called it a night.
No comments:
Post a Comment