April 1- Dana came arrived at the hotel from London around 3 am and we all talked and caught up on our lives. Around 4:30 we decided to get some sleep and then awoke around 7:30. After showering and breakfast we headed out for some sightseeing and of course shopping since Ang and I had scoped out some stores the night before. For those who have never been to Europe, stores open around 9 am and then close somewhere around 1 or 2 pm and then re-open around 3 or 4pm and stay open till around 6 or so. So sometimes you have to window shop first and then go back to actually shop in the stores of interest.
We did fairly well on the shopping in the first couple of stores. I mainly stuck to purchasing jewelry but we spent some time in the Plaka district of Greece. After shopping we walked to the botanical gardens which were quite lovely and then on to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is similar to ours in D.C. except that you can walk right up to the Tomb and you can stand next to the guards and have your picture taken as long as you don't touch them. We missed the changing of the guards by 10 minutes or so but I did get my picture taken. Later back at the hotel, Dana and Ang were talking about not seeing the Tomb and what a bummer it was. I was confused so I informed them that we actually did visit the site. Dana went back to her camcorder and reviewed her DVD to confirm that we had actually been there!! We all got a good laugh from that.
After visiting the Tomb we headed back towards the Acropolis and had lunch and then headed back to the hotel. We dropped off our stuff and then headed the southern part of Greece to Sounio to visit the Temple of Poseidon. It was a nice drive (especially since we had a driver) and the weather was great. The temple was cool to see because it had been built in the 5th century B.C. The Aegean Sea was right there and there was a nice breeze.
The story of the Aegean Sea is that King Aegean had a son named Thesis who had left to slay a monster and promised his father he would return and when he returned he would change the sails on the ship from black to white if he was successful. Every day Aegean would go to the Temple to watch for the ship, his son returned but had forgot to change the sails so Aegean thought Thesis had been killed so he jumped to his death into the sea below. Thus the naming of the sea.
While visiting the temple, I was posing for a photo when Ang jumped in and we made funny faces at each other. Dana snapped the photo and from then on, every temple we visited we did a funny pose and called them our Greek god poses. We had great fun doing that all week.
After coming back from Sounio we met the rest of our tour group and had a glass of Ouzo. It is a liquor that is very strong and tastes like licorice. I didn't like it but that could be because I don't like licorice. We had dinner with our group and met a couple people. The three that sat at our table were from Phoenix, Oregon and didn't know each other (Kathy and Rod and Pam.) until the trip. They even lived just a few miles from each other. It was kind of cool to have people from Oregon on the trip even though Dana and Ang teased me because I could go anywhere in the world and met someone who knew where I was from or knew someone I know!
We finished dinner and wrote out a few postcards before heading up the street to a local bar we saw on our tours outside of the hotel. It was called "Jukebox" and we thought it looked like a biker bar, except it had scooters out front. We went in and ordered our drinks and then proceeded to check out the jukebox. The bartender informed us it didn't actually work!
After our drinks we headed back down to the hotel and off to bed. Tomorrow we are visiting the Acropolis and Parthenon.
No comments:
Post a Comment