DAY 2: May 7, 2008 - Athens, Greece (cont.)

Last night our roommates arrived. They are from Australia and have been backpacking for five weeks. They say that this hostel is one of the "dodgiest" they have stayed in, which we guess is promising since we don't even think it is THAT bad. They also like our accents, especially when we say "y'all" which is kind of ironic since most Americans would be entranced by their Aussie accents.

This morning, as we were leaving the hostel, we passed by what we thought was a small market. It ended up being several blocks long with lots of fresh produce, fish and a few other random things. We walked through it before heading to the metro system to head to the main part of the city. We bought some kind of Greek cake from a street vendor for a quick bite of breakfast…it was alright but nothing special. Then, we headed to Bank of America for attempt #2. When we got there, the lady at the reception of Bank of "AMERICA" barely spoke English. They did not do withdraws or have an ATM anywhere is Greece, so we had to go to another bank where we had to pay fees, but we needed cash.

From there, we walked to the National Garden. Danny was pretty disappointed with its maintenance, but we had a lot of fun playing on the playground (see pictures); they had a lot of equipment we'd never seen before. Right next to the garden was the Parliament building. We got there just in time to see the Changing of the Guards. It was really different. The guards had horseshoes on the bottom of the heels of their shoes so that as they performed the change they clopped along. They also wore khaki kind of kilts and big pompoms on their shoes. We read that the Greeks take this outfit very seriously, so you are supposed to be careful not to laugh at it. Also, once they were in position, another man in a camo suit came and straightened up their outfits and repositioned their guns so they were just right. The guards stand so still that when I was getting my picture taken next to him it seriously seemed even less personable than taking a picture with a statue. He did not seem like a person at all.

We walked from there to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. On our way, we passed a street vendor who was selling these sesame seed-covered bread rings that they seem to sell everywhere. Needing a snack, we opted to try a chocolate filled one which was DELICIOUS! When we got to the Temple of Zeus, we were surprised to find that we were allowed to enter with our passes from the Acropolis from yesterday. The columns of that structure were HUGE, and we took lots of pictures. We also saw the ruins of some old Roman baths and the Andrian Gate, a huge archway. We got some good pictures of them all.

After that, we went to the Olympic Stadium of 1896. On our way there, we passed Zappeio, which aren't sure what it is but it was on our map so we figured we should get a picture. The stadium was a lot of marble and very narrow around the track. The seats came right up to the edge of the track. As we left there, we found ANOTHER playground where we played some more before heading back to the market.

Near the market, we saw some of the ruins we had taken pictures of yesterday, so we decided to double check what they were. We got to go into the Roman Agora, again with our Acropolis passes, and got a more up-close view of that. In the market, we did some souvenir shopping and had a quick gyro to go. One thing we have noticed about Athens is that there are "stray" dogs everywhere…some of them have collars but there do not appear to be any owners anywhere in sight. We saw one such dog laying on the side of a street literally belly-up! - except he was breathing. Apparently, that's how he napped. We got a picture (of course) because we thought it was pretty funny. After our shopping excursion, we came back to the hostel to charge the camera (yesterday's photo shoot was tough on the battery!) and rest a little before heading out to see the city's nightlife. Look for additions to come about tonight. Yassou (hello or goodbye!).