Saturday, September 15, 2012

Day 12 - Athens!!

Today has been an awesome day! I finally got into Athens!!!

I took a train from near my suburb to get to the centre of old Athens. As soon as I walked out of the train stations it was tourist madness! People everywhere!! From in the square outside the train there are lots of small side streets to walk down and they are jam packed with people and lined with tourist shops full of everything. Jewelry, leather, trinkets, clothes and food. LOTS of really good smelling food. While walking down these streets you will catch a glimpse here or there of something old and crumbling and generally epic. For me, I happened down a street and barely noticed at first, then took an instant look back over to find that just up ahead was the Acropolis.
The freaking Parthenon!!!
How cool is that?!?? Its one of those things you have known about forever and you've seen in movies a million times, but is it actually real? Could something so old actually still be just sitting here??
Yes! And it's incredible.

I didn't actually go up to see it full on but you can see a lot from below. I continued browsing around at the shops and doing the obvious touristy things like taking pictures of everything and looking at useless souvenirs like they are precious jewels.
Let's be honest. We all do it.

After a while, and when I say a while I actually mean ages, you come out of the shop streets and end up at the base of the Acropolis (mountain,hill,rock?) and also at the Acropolis museum. Which I've been told by my 8 year old is better than the actual Acropolis..
I'll let you know after I see them for myself.
Next to the Acropolis there is a rather large rock that you can climb up on and get the most incredible view of Athens from. Again, being the touristy tourist that I am, I took tons of pictures here before moving on.

Back through some shop streets and had some Greek yogurt with strawberry jam. Very good. And then on to an open top double decker tour bus for, you guessed it, a tour. The ticket allows you to get on and off whenever you would like within 24 hours and you also get a free second day, the ticket can be used to tour Athens or the harbor or both. The tour I took was to the harbor.
What an amazing view.
Mountains, city, ocean, yachts, sail boats and cruise ships. And said cruise ships are obnoxiously sized. Like floating cities.

After my tour I went for more souvlaki (my new love) (sorry Chad) (just kidding, I won't replace you with food) ... And then after souvlaki I had more yogurt, except this time it was frozen and strawberry flavored, and had cream puffs in it, strawberry and banana flavored cream puffs *drool*

I'm gonna need to find a gym while I'm here...

Train ride home, more food, write this for YOU, and bed. Looking forward to more discoveries tomorrow.

Until tomorrow.
xoxo

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