Don't eat the olives

Athens, Greece
74 degrees, sun with clouds

Picture this:  Me.  Sitting on a balcony.  Eating olives that I bought at the athens market and they are delicious and tasty.  Looking at this.

SHAZAM

not. too.shabby

Athens is a pretty cool place.  We are staying in the plaka area which is right near the acropolis as you can see.
Before I tell you about today, let me go back 24 hours and tell you about the dinner I had with a greek family.  Dr. Lakis Nikolaou, who is a friend of Alex's family, had us over to his house to meet and greet his family and then go out to eat with them at a greek 'tavern.'  His house is pretty unbelievable.  First of all it's huge.  The second point about it is that it looks like some sort of decorating bomb went off inside the house.  Every surface is covered in something shinny which I believe is an accurate reflection of his wife's personality- vivacious, and some sort of North Carolina/Greece hybrid (they lived in North Carolina for a time).  Anywho, their choice of decor is not the point.  The point is dinner, which was awesome.  We ate with our two hosts and their three children Anna, Olga, and Costas who are all older than us.  Anna and Olga went to school at UNC and Duke so we got to swap study-abroad stories with them which I really enjoyed.
We gave them full control over ordering food so we could get a good sense of what a greek dinner is actually like.  Tzatziki, lamb and potatoes, crispy lamb, cheese pie, beet salad, a spinach-like salad (which they described as grass), fried potatoes, salad with feta, fried zucchini, and lots of yogurt and honey for dessert.  I coulnd't help laughing at the amount of food I was being served- lamb, lamb again, potatoes and lamb- it was all delicious though.  We spent four hours eating and talking and eating.  It is a dinner I won't soon forget.

Now on to today.
We started by heading up to the acropolis like good little tourists.  It was a beautiful, clear day so we got great views from the top

As an objective third party I would like to express my concern over the pace of the acropolis reconstruction project.  Furthermore I would like to give a "wag of the finger" to the previous unsuccessful reconstruction projects, which now need to be corrected.  That aside. The acropolis is great!

I think my favorite part about visiting was all the old marble.  **Nerd alert** Its cool to imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who walked around up here and what they were doing.    

Next we headed to the agora for some more ruin-y goodness.  

Here is one thing you shouldn't do when you go to the agora, or anywhere in greece for that matter, don't eat the olives from the trees.  Just don't do it.  I did and I'll tell you it is disgusting.  It didn't even taste like olive oil, or even like an olive! 

So if you ever go to the agora and see some ignorant tourist spitting near an olive tree try not to judge them too harshly I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

We also got a chance to see the Temple of the Olympian Zeus.  Or the former temple known as the temple of the ... you get it- there isn't a lot left.

A few laps around this and we were on our way once more to the National Gardens which is a great little park in the middle of the city.  

To end the day we walked to the original olympic stadium. We didn't get to go in because we got there a little too late but I'd like to go back tomorrow if we have time and walk a lap or two.  

There is SO much to see in this city.  So many gorgeous historic sites but also some really beautiful, quiet back streets.

The city, like this goofy-ass dog, can just sneak up on you and charm your socks off when you least expect it.    

 

The dog- named cow (by me) followed us home from the stadium.  I wish I had something other than olives to feed him.

-Allison