Croissants, chocolate and fresh fruit?...Why not?!?

First impression of Greece? This sucks I want to go back to Istanbul!! We arrived in the early afternoon, checked into our hotel (which happens to be next to an erotica store and a corner where a good number of prostitutes hang out) and headed straight for the Parthenon. We quickly discovered that Athens is impossible to figure out if you have a map, know any street names or have a set destination in mind. The streets seem to change names at each block, most of the signs are written in the Greek alphabet and nothing runs parallel to anything else, or so it seemed.

Caryatids!!

At any rate, we made it to the tram stop and found our way to the Parthenon. We hiked up the marble steps to the acropolis and photographed some of the spectacular views of the countryside. I have to admit, the Parthenon was cool but my favorite part, as in art history class, were the Caryatids on the Erechtheion, or Temple of Poseidon. The story goes that Poseidon competed with Athena to see who the city of Athens would be named and they did so by each giving a gift to the city. Poseidon gave the gift of a well of water with a continuous supply and Athena gave the gift of an olive tree. Being called Athens Athena obviously won. So now Athens has plenty of olives, they may run out of water but they will always have olives!! Just to be on the safe side though they made the Parthenon the Temple to Athena and the Erychetheion the Temple to Poseidon as they so intelligently realized they still needed the ocean for business and angering or offending Poseidon was not a good idea. Once we got kicked out at closing time and navigated our way back to our neighborhood we partook of our first Greek Salad, complete with tomatoes, olives, feta cheese and cucumbers. I was so excited to have vegetables I actually ate the tomatoes!! It was something about the combination of the feta cheese, fresh tomato, onions and dressing that masks the taste of the tomato and makes them tolerable. The feta cheese here is absolutely delicious, it is creamier than in the US and not as bitter as what we get at home, it’s sneaking it’s way up there with goat cheese as an all time favorite!

We spent the next day seeing a number of other sites: the Roman Agora, Temple of Zeus, the Olympic Stadium, the National Gardens and the National Archaeology Museum. By the end of the day we were both tired and Athens had still not warmed up to us yet. We were told by an American college student studying in Athens that the city exploded in the 90s,rgowing faster than it could handle thus they built numerous square or rectangular buildings for apartments and offices and really gave no thought to the architectural design or creativity of the city. Compared to Istanbul Athens appeared kind of charmless. We also thought maybe the prostitutes on the street corner near our hotel was a sign that we were staying in a bad neighborhood but then found out that our neighborhood was not much different from any other one in the city. I also still could not get a good sense of where I was and really did not like that feeling.

At the National Archaeology Museum, Dad this is what a Philosopher is suppsed to look like.

But then things started to turn around. As we were walking home we passed by a Patisserrie which had tons of pastries, deserts, gelato, and the nicest girl was working there, one of the first nice people we met in Athens. We decided we would find a supermarket and buy various things we had been craving and further supplement that with sausage filled croissants, feta cheese filled croissants, strawberries we picked up at the market and for desert mini fruit tart and éclairs!!

Therefore our meal consisted of :
Croissants-savory and sweet
A carrot
Strawberry yoghurt with fresh cut strawberries
Chocolate milk for me, regular for Jami
Dried Apricots from Istanbul
It was one of the best meals I have ever had!!

The view from Delphi

The next morning we went to the main square and jumped on our day tour to Delphi, a.k.a the belly button of the world (Zeus called it a navel). The story goes Zeus let two Eagles go in opposite directions and where they met up again was the center of the world, this happened to be Delphi. In Delphi lives the Temple of Apollo and where the Oracle foretold the prophecies for the Greeks. Along the way there our tour guide told some Greek mythology stories and the story of Oedipus Rex which all reminded me of Don, my Montessorri school teacher who took special delight in teaching us Greek mythology and history rather than American history, truth be told the Greek myths are far more enchanting for an 8 year old!!The tour to Delphi was just what we needed, as we drove into the mountains and climbed Mt. Parnassus the dirtiness of Athens melted away into beautiful countryside, plains of olive trees and random archaeological ruins. We spent the day trotting around the mountain, seeing the temple, the theater and the original olympic stadium, ate lunch in Delphi (ate Moussaka—a cleverly disguised eggplant dish) then headed back to Athens. We stopped in a small town along the way for people to shop but seeing as Jami and I do not have a lot of money and the dollar is abysmal against the euro we snuck off. My main goal was to find cheese and olives to bring home but instead we found a coffee shop and hot coacoa. Also, we stopped by a bakery to sample a couple of different kinds of Baklava. Both types we tried were incredibly delicious. Melting in your mouth as you take a bite, one was quite syrupy and had whole nuts at the bottom of it and the other one had a number of different spices in it making it taste a bit like pumpkin pie, must have been nutmeg or cloves… but both amazing!! We made it back to the hotel, stopped off for another Greek salad and now we have to pack up to get ready to take a ferry to Hydra, one of the Greek islands, tomorrow morning!! Things are looking up!!