Congo Palace Hotel Glyfada

... at the bottom of the hill and the rows and rows of stone benches stretched up the hill. Most of it isn't there anymore, but what was left was cool. A few small temples that were being repaired also lay nearby. We could also look across the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, a functional theater dating from the Roman period (160AD). The many marble rows creating a semicircle around the stage at the bottom was so cool! After another walk up the hill, we were on top ...

... of marble out of the sand as the sun went down. Geesh. In Greece, even the sand is made of marble. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant overlooking the beach, and then we found a little store where finally, after three months of fruitless searching, I found the perfect souvenir to bring home for the Bear. But it's a secret. I did indeed get us back to the city successfully on the tram, but we weren't done yet. We then walked around the shops of Plaka looking at ...

... process, or maybe lame attempts at decoration. But no! They're actually the way you access the wiring and plumbing innards behind the walls. Electrician poked around the wiring, sounding more and more vehement as he talked in fast Greek to Kyria. Greek speakers often sound loud and aggressive to American ears -- like people are always arguing with each other, even though they're not. He pointed to the wiring and asked me in English ...

... you know it, its boarding time. No it's not, they have changed the gate, and we are delayed 30mins. Ok not so bad. We get on at 11:30am, and started to taxi, but now we have to wait another 20mins on the tarmac because of traffic. Finally we take off, and land in Athens 2 hours later. The first thing I noticed about Greece/Athens is that it's very arid. Second was how hot it was, and thirdly, how humid it is. I'm picked up at the airport, but yet another limosine. My lucky day ...

... look up and see 6th century BC ruins atop a hill not 15 minutes away!!!!! The ruins and museums have all been great ... we've seen so many things, it's hard to know what to mention. We have one museum left to see - the National Archaeological Museum - and apparently that's pretty good as well, heaps of relics from before Christ was a lad! Once we do that, we are off on the first of our ferry jaunts to Crete to hike the Samaria Gorge!!! Catch you soon.

... of our situation that Claudine not only entertained the prospect but started a negotiation on the door price. I fear the doorman had far less English than Claude assumed and may have thought he was engaging in a discussion about the chance of her performing and the necessary musical accompaniment. I flinched everytime Claude started a price negotiating sentence with "Doncha..." We wound up in a coffee shop which served a pretty good hot chocolate and ...

... Pita bread and Tzatziki (and it was the best thing ive ever tasted sauce-wise) and i had chicken souvlaki as well. delicious! but very, very filling. Then we went back to the hostel, and i tried to go to sleep, but these two idiots in our room were being noisy, and kept the light on until i had to go slam it off (they were reading their book at midnight... i needed to deal with the situation). But yes. and one of them needed to keep the bathroom light on ...

... ocean (540 tons still remain). Locals are irate because officials have dragged their feet in preventing the oil from escaping into the sea...it's a pretty bad situation. Our stop on the island of Paros was cut short due to the "rescue mission" but we still enjoyed a walk around the small town and a little shopping. From there we caught a short flight back to Athens where we then boarded another flight to Rome, Italy. For me it was so nice ...

... the city had changed a bit. On the whole, Athens is not a particularly striking city and for the past few hundred years few people would have the gall to rate it as one of Europe's top cities, but in terms of Western history, few places on the globe hold a candle to this Mediterranean gem. After not more than two hours on the Acropolis we understood that the great oak of Western civilization was planted in the rich fertile soil of Athens and that even now the city's ...

Lets see here...yesterday after class we all went up to Northern Greece for the evening to a place called Glyfada. This is a town with a lot of American things to do, although we all got bored with it rather early and wanted to leave. There were many American resturants-KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, and others-most of us ate at Applebee's. Then later we went to an ice cream shop and got some AMAZING ice cream-so good. Shopping was the thing to do to kill time...girls, if you ...