Why not now?

A

I think "why not now" might just be my new mantra...I saw it embedded in the stairs at a cool Istanbul shop called Mae Zae. They also had large pins with that saying, but they seemed a bit too bold. Of course I liked the name of the shop too, because my moms name was Mae, and Jim liked to call her Maezie. But I digress...

I just had to show you where I am blogging from, gentle reader, because right now I feel like one lucky girl! I could easily stay here for a week( or a month), but unfortunately tomorrow is another travel day. 

Isn't this a lovely view? And if you climb higher, there is surely a view of the harbor, but we can't do that because the penthouse with the sea view is occupied. But we are happy on our sunny terrace with a view of the orange and lemon trees- or is that one of the orange/ lemon trees we saw in Antalya? 

Any guesses where we are? No, not Turkey. We are hopscotching our way across the Mediterranean Sea to Itay, and this is a very brief stopover in Greece. 

Perhaps we should backtrack to our first days in Athens, though.

We arrived from Istanbul to gray skies over Greece. Hey, I thought it was always sunny here! It put a little damper on our mood, along with our spartan ( haha) hotel room. We decided to rent a car, since it would cost nearly 35$ each way to and from the airport, and we could get a car for 4 days for a little over $100. We just couldn't bear trying to schlepp our suitcase onto the metro, making two changes. Maybe when we were younger, but no more, because you arrive exhausted and cranky. 

So we navigated our way to our hotel, and only had to stop and ask directions 3 times before we found it. I wrote out directions from the hotel website, but am not so good at reading Greek , so that was a bit challenging. But I say that we each have half a brain, so together we figure things out!

Our goal that first day was to find a new SIM card, which we did, and then lunch. We found a great place nearby that was so new they didn't even have their lights put up, but the food was delicious and we think they'll be very successful. A lunch of lemony roast chicken over rice and a huge Greek salad cost $12. 

The next morning I tried the bougatsa(?) at our local coffeeshop. Flaky crust with a custard filing. Mmm. 

We hopped on the easy to navigate metro, which took us right to the Acropolis stop. This was not built when we were here 25 years ago, and much has changed. I'll not pretend that Athens doesn't look a little rough around the edges after years of austerity measures, and 25% unemployment. There is a LOT of not so attractive graffiti everywhere, which makes me think there are a lot of disaffected , angry youth with time on their hands. Maybe they need to put the spray paint under lock and key like they do in Oregon.

We decided to take a ride on the hokey little tourist train that drove past most of the highlights, allowing us to hop on and off all day for only $5. A bargain! 

This was our first view of the Acropolis, which brought back memories of our last trip over 25 years ago with three young boys. Sam was under 3 and the first thing that happened on our first day in a Greece was that he fell running down this hill and abraded his face rather badly, so he had a big scrape on his cute little face for much of the trip. 

There were lots of street performers plying their trade

It made for a lively atmosphere. We both agreed that our son Jacob would be quite entertaining on his stilts here, too. 

A typical Greek church

And an inspiring flower vendor.

More ruins in the city center

Where you can shop for your Greek goddess attire- the tiny child size ones were pretty adorable.

And handbags in every size and color...

Then we got to the part of town that really interested us, which was the flea market.

It was all here- from china, to old linens to books and jewelry. But the one thing I wanted, I couldn't buy. That was some old Greek letters and postage stamps. Yes, I could buy them-as a lot, but not just a few pieces. It was a HUGE stack, and the seller was asking $100. Maybe not a bad deal, but I couldn't carry half that many, and he just wouldn't budge! Ah, well...I thought of all my art friends and how they would have enjoyed the flea market browsing. 

All this shopping made us tired and hungry, so we sat across from the ruins with all the other Greeks enjoying a day out. I noticed that they were almost exclusively drinking coffee , or coffee drinks, but not consuming food . What's that about? Is it due to austerity, too? Maybe it is just too expensive to est out but a drink will suffice for hanging out in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon. 

This was the " small" mixed grill plate we ordered and it was easily enough to feed 4! I told Jim this is why the Greeks are in financial trouble- they give such generous portions in the restaurants! We ate part, and gave some to the fellow who came by asking for money. He probably would have preferred money, but seemed ok with a chicken breast and some bread. 

Our tram was just passing by, so we hopped on and rode around the circuit again.

For one last view of the balloon lady

And the acropolis under a darkening sky... I thought to edit this photo, but realized that it's a classic Greek smoker photo ! Seems like about 50% of the population smokes- EVERYWHERE! Maybe they're driven to smoking by the austerity measures...