3 June

3 June

I woke up early for no good reason, especially since tomorrow we have to be headed towards the airport at 5 am.  Roger eventually got rolling and we went down to breakfast.  Apparently there are more people staying Sunday night than Saturday, because the restaurant was full and the Greek menu items weren't as numerous as Sunday and there were several empty plates.  I guess today was destined to be a foodie day.

After breakfast, we did a trial walk down to the next closest Metro station.  The one that is closest doesn't make the airport connection early enough for us.  It took about 10 minutes, so it isn't going to be too arduous of a walk pulling our suitcase.  The lady at the front desk said we'd be hard pressed to find a cab at 5 am.  At the station we also figured out how to buy an airport ticket, which was rather comical when things got lost in translation.  We eventually worked it out, but I'm glad we sorted it out today instead of tomorrow.  No wonder people get confused at DC's metro.  We left the Metro and walked down to the Greek Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The guard changes every hour, so we caught the 9am change.  After the formal change and inspection, you can stand by one of the guards for picture taking.  Only one person at a time is strictly enforced.  We then walked back to our hotel to lighten the backpack, because it had warmed up enough to take our long sleeves off.  Since we had a two day Hop on Hop off pass, we got on the bus and headed to Piraeus which is the actual port town for Athens.  There are two big cruise ship piers, several ferry landings, and industrial shipping piers.  The audio on the bus informed us that Piraeus is the third busiest port in Europe.  (Google the first and second if you want to know.)  The Aegean is a pretty blue, but still not warm this time of year.  The audio pointed out several interesting places along the way, like the sex and bordello blocks, which is adjacent to the foreign business center, as well as several 2004 Olympic venues on Poseidon's Avenue.  Unfortunately the Greek economy is extremely depressed, so the venues aren't generating capital.  The unemployment rate for people under 30 is over 25%. 

When we got back to Athens from Piraeus, I told Roger that I wanted to go to the Central Market.  The Athens book suggested it as an interesting place to see.  So we switched buses and headed to the Varvakios Market, where there's a meat, a fish, a nut, a spice, and a fruit and vegetable market.  Being a grocery person, all were very interesting.  I counted over 23 different types of olives on average for sale.  Strawberries were e 1 for 1 kg (1eruo = $1.30 USD, and 1 kg = 2.2 lbs)  Bananas were about the same price.  There were also birds, chickens and rabbits for sale in several different shops.

Once walked down and back on Athinas street we headed to the Omonia Square, which has a 10 story department store.  This had been pointed out by the bus audio that said there was a good view of the city from the cafe on the 10th floor.  So we went to see what we could see.  Of course you have to buy something in the cafe, so we bought 2 chocolate cookies, a Sprite Zero and 1 beer.  Roger has no problem with cookie and beer.  The view wasn't bad, but the cafe only covers about half of the top floor, so I was a little disappointed.  The cookie was good, so I got over my disappointment.

We then got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel.  Once we got back we realized that we had sort of forgotten about lunch, except for cookies so we went back out.  We had sandwiches and gelato for dinner.  Roger says that Italian gelato is way better than what the Greeks call gelato.  We then got lost walking around trying to find a bakery, so we had something for breakfast instead of airport food.  We had earlier taken our map out of the backpack when were were sorting things out, which was rather dumb of us.  Fortunately Roger's compass on his watch pointed us back in the right direction and we made it back to the hotel with getting off the beaten path.  It was sort of nice to walk down the side streets, as there was very little car traffic. 

There is considerable difference between road traffic on Sunday and Monday.  It looks like a sea of yellow cabs on Monday, when yesterday we only saw an occasional cab and bus.  Motorcycle traffic was also a lot heavier and cars seem to zip around the main streets.  There are a lot of streets that cars only park on, and motorcycle is the only way to transit the street.  We saw several vehicles being parking ticketed, as well as motorcycles for parking on the sidewalks.  Generally you see police in packs, on average we never saw less than 6 in one place and they ride two people per motorcycle.  We saw an interesting life snapshot, a lady had a dolly with two milk crates in the meat hall.  One of the crates had garlic in it which she was selling as she walked.  We the police confiscated the garlic crate and a shouting match ensued and the lady was given a ticket of some sort.  A lot of people were sort of watching the scene play out.  Roger thought it was interesting, especially since two corridors down there was another lady sitting at the entrance to the meat hall selling garlic as well. 

On to Istanbul.