Crystal City Hotel Athens

... came to the Athenian city-state. Augustus eventually came to town, carrying with him a statue of himself. Subtle, right? Essentially Roman Emperors were revered as gods back in Rome, and he wished the same to be true in Athens. He was a nice enough guy, so the Athenians went along with it.

***Roman Agora***

After this venture we were ready for lunch and headed ...

... ATVs we went on the internet to check some stuff out for our travels after greece. the internet was not that great so we didnt really get much done. we headed over to the beach where we went the day before and saw our friends they greeted us and we laid on our stomachs to get some sun on our backs. not the best idea to go in the sun again but i was only in santorini two days so i had to soak in all the sun i could..you know! a little burn here and ...

... having supper. It's been a
great day, both at the hostel and out in Athens. The only weird thing
at the hostel was that I was woken up by one of the live-ins
screaming. It was two floors away, and it still woke me up. Oh, and
then I was asking for a sheet at the front desk, wearing a Canada
shirt for pajamas, when the guy behind the desk asked if I had any
maple leafs things. Those of you who knew me abroad, of course I did.
So I gave him a handful or two of ...

... for those stores we had remembered as landmarks for our return. As we saw the market that was the location for our morning start of the bus ride, we pushed the stop button and left the bus. We had boarded the bus in the morning with two other couples and to our surprise they had all returned on the same bus as us. It was but a moment after leaving the bus that we looked down a side street and before us beyond the foot of the street and out in the harbor was the White ...

... octopus, anchovies, fried feta, fried cucumber balls and of course Greek salad. He also plied us with lots of raki (ouzo without the aniseed). Bloody strong stuff. Ouzo is like the Greek national drink, or so Dimitri told us. I ordered a wine after my first dreadful glass of raki, and it came out in a carafe! After dinner we went into town to the hip area for more drinks and to meet the two teenage american girls that would also be ...

So, the boat arrives (about an hour late) and we have to get to the Canadian Embassy for 9:00am. One problem, we have no idea where it is. We have the address but no idea where in the city that address is. Once we unloaded we decided to find the nearest metro station and ask once we got there. We took a bus (without tickets but we couldn't get any where we were) and soon got to the metro. Unfortunately there is no one to help you at the metros to figure ...

... officers gathered in pods of two and three, peering about suspiciously. We decided this would be a good place to use an ATM machine, and so it was. We wandered through the Plaka, which is the old city of Athens that sits in the shadow of the Acropolis. It has been turned into a SHOPPING mall with every known kind of shop - in the bazaar idiom. The streets in the Plaka wander around and every so often we would catch sight of the Acropolis towering above in the distance ...

... the islands because the locals would feed them and sometimes take them in. The stray dog situation was distressing in Athens, but on the island the dogs looked so healthy, we weren't positive if they were strays. One even turned up his nose at the treats we offered. He did accept them eventually, but we think he was being polite. The dog followed us back to the villa and we didn't want him freaking out Santo, so Pete had to take him back into town ...

... actually wasn't joking when he said he didn't have a license. Backsheesh is a tool of the devil. Egypt is the most tiring country I have ever been to. Between the heat, all the things to see, and the constant hassling from locales, you end the day EXHAUSTED. That being said, Egypt is the most amazing place I have ever visited. It is impossible for anything else (that I ...

... was hard to tell if there was anything at all original remaining from the ancient structures. So, at least to me, the Acropolis looked at its best when Paul and I viewed it from other lookouts across the city, starting from just behind it at the Monument of Philopappos, and ending up further afield having walked to the top of the steep hill at Likavitós.

In between we had paid a visit to the slightly disappointing remains of the Temple of Zeus and the original modern Olympic ...