I walked to the National Archeological Museum to see the biggies. It was a beautiful building (no graffiti) and the stuff inside was fascinating. Traveling alone, I could spend as much time as I wanted and I wanted about 2 ½ hrs. I walked back through some dicey areas* to the regular shopping. I did some of the city walking tour in one of my books. This included the meat and fish market nearby which was quite the experience. I am from a meatpacking town, but this was quite old school. I had wooden blocks near each booth with butchers flailing knives and meat chunks a-flying. I knew what rabbits and pigs and chickens looked like, of course, but there was this one animal that was skinned and cut in half that looked like a giant lizard—turns out it was lamb. I took no pictures because the mental image was enough. circled back to the Parliament and it looked the last night of a music festival. It was quiet. Of course, I don’t know any Greek. There were some English signs about Goldman and Sarkozy+Merkel=Nazis. The walking tour was part history, part religion, part current events, part sightseeing. I got stuck around the Special Olympics site (which is also very near the Parliament.) Security there seemed to be more—you didn’t go buy a ticket so go away. Lots of visitors and (not so wisely*) they were all wearing the Special Olympics lanyards and IDs.
I haven’t been in a Starbucks yet, but I decided to stop for an iced coffee and a cookie near the Plaka Old Town and the power was off! Whether it was a politically motivated blackout or just a normal not enough electricity black-out, I don’t know.
My goal was to go to the Acropolis late and leave when it closed around 8 pm. I took the long way around and up and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It is something. Of course it is falling apart and there is plenty of scaffolding, etc. in y pictures. Picture taking got compulsive. Along the way, I saw the famous caryatids that are columns in the shape of women. There are rip-off versions at the Museum of Science and Industry. When traveling solo, people see you take pictures of sights only and frequently, they’ll ask if you want one. This happened twice and I met 2 very nice people.
The first was an advertising guy from the US, moved to Thaos in Greece, running his own island promotion firm. He had guests in town and I saw him 2 days in a row. He was helpful in providing advice about the upcoming strikes and I learned that he spent 4 years in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The other was a Bangladeshi woman doing her post-doc in biomedical engineering at Texas. She was a very nice woman—we were the last 2 people off the Acropolis. We ended up hiking up Mars Hill (of Apostle Paul fame) and going shopping together. I saw a sweater from a Greek designer in Mykonos that was ridiculously expensive. When I saw it again in Athens and it was merely expensive, I decided it was a sign that I should buy it. We had dinner outside at a taverna in the Plaka in a different area than the previous night. We managed to sweet talk the waiter into cutting up a fish for us. It was another late night. People don’t even start eating in Athens until 8 pm and 9-11 is more typical.
*As I write this, I have talked to 4 people who have been ripped off on the mass transit or streets of Athens. One had her luggage taken from the metro running from the airport to the city center. Nothing valuable taken, but she has no clothes, shampoo, etc. She says she isn’t a rube—has traveled a lot in London and Chicago, etc. Here the deal is lots of pickpocketing, etc. Typically, I usually get nervous when there is no one around or creepy people are around. It seems that this situation is one where the crime is more likely to happen when you are surrounded by people. I haven’t been on the subway or a public bus since that first awful experience from the ferry and my paranoia and supporting habit have been justified! The Special Olympics people (contestants and their family) wear signs around their neck hence my unwisely comment.
