May 8, 2009 – Day 134 – Athens/Delphi, Greece

What the hell is so wrong with us that no one will pick us up?! Frustrated, lost, and literally seconds from missing our 3:30 bus to Delphi, we were passed by at least 10 empty taxis that refused to stop to pick us up despite our safe location for pulling in and hugely obviously waving arm. We had crossed the highway, the crossed back, and finally crossed back-back once more trying to figure out why it was that whenever we crossed the 6 lanes of traffic without a stoplight or crosswalk that all the taxis started passing like mad on the side we had just crossed from! We just couldn’t win!! Read the rest of this entry »

May 7, 2009 – Day 133 – Athens, Greece

A thousand apologies, dear readers, for we are as bored writing these last few posts as you are of reading them. Still no package, a second painfully expensive flight delay. We are hoping just as you are that something exciting will happen VERY soon…

Random photo off our balcony

May 6, 2009 – Day 132 – Athens, Greece

So we’re stuck here for 2 more days with nothing else to do. Wish we would’ve known so we could’ve stayed on Tinos! Went to National Archaeology Museum this morning and came out to find it cold and raining. Museum was interesting at first then mind numbing (3 euros students, 6 nonstudents). Some cool things like ancient medical instruments, jury duty tickets, and hair accessories. After a while the massive amounts of (seemingly endless) sculptures got a little boring but it’s definitely worth a visit especially for history buffs. Otherwise, yet another disappointingly boring day for posting…

Shield crest

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May 5, 2009 – Day 131 – Athens, Greece

Restless, cramped, noisy 4 hour ferry back from Tinos to Rafina for Lindsey, awesome, freezing cold, blissful solitude on deck for Saben.

No one braving the cold

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May 4, 2009 – Day 130 – Tinos, Greece

Stepping off the ferry onto Tinos, we quickly sized up the tiny isle. It was perfect for us. Despite the cold weather and fierce winds with clouds threatening rain at any second, we were ecstatic at everything that lay before us. It was the white buildings with classic Greek blue shutters and rich pink flowers in the window sill, small streets winding uphill and between buildings, the absence of people and thus, the absence of noise. Everything came together to make us forget the crummy weather and appreciate the misty fog passing across the highest mountains and ancient stone walls and the numerous dovecotes left over from Venetian rule around the 18th and 19th centuries. We spent the day driving around in our tiny rented Yaris admiring the charming countryside of the island.

Our hotel

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May 3, 2009 – Day 129 – Rafina, Greece

Small fried fish, if you saw that on the menu, what would you expect? One small fried fish one a plate, right? Yeah me too, but in fact that small phrase can mean more than one thing. In Greece apparently it means ”TWENTY (very) small fried fishes.” So while Saben sucked away at his jumbo shrimp, Lin was throwing down some serious fish carnage.

Before

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May 2, 2009 – Day 128 – Athens, Greece

The National Gardens in Athens are dreadfully boring. Although admission is free, there are essentially no flowers except a few small rows of pansies and petunias by a couple entrance gates and around the base of a monument. Mostly it’s just a park with dusty paths and over pruned hedges on the verge of death. There is a filthy little fish pond with turtles too but the water is so dirty that you can’t even really see the fish but only a few orange darting spots below the surface. The turtles just hang around on the rocks that are oddly stacked in the middle while pigeons hop from one turtle shell to another, completely oblivious to the fact that they are standing on top of a (very unhappy) fellow creature.

Flowers and the fence

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Day 127: Athens, Greece

Well, we came to experience other cultures not just the sights and restaurants. Today we got quite a bit more than we bargained for. Having grabbed a quick breakfast to go, we crossed the crazy traffic around Omonia Square (which is only filled with sketchy people doing sketchy things or yelling or watching people either to eat them or to rob them, hard to tell because the look is so similar) to eat our sandwiches. Moments after we sat down, two men crossed the square and pissed in the bushes (sorta, they didn’t really try to hide). Immediately after, some other guy goes into a nearby area of the same bushes and digs around in some trash on the ground. And immediately following that, the air is filled not only with the now all too familiar smell of piss but also, mysteriously, of shit. We’re both totally disgusted and simultaneously got up and headed off the square. Read the rest of this entry »