We made it to Greece! We got into Athens at about 9.30 am this morning. I changed my currency to euros, and we hopped on a bus after deciding that a taxi would be too expensive.

The entire bus ride I was worried that we would miss our stop because the driver didn't speak much English, and the bus stop signs were only in Greek. But it turned out fine, and an hour later we were dropped off at Syntagma Square, which is about ten minutes walking from our hotel. We thought that after sleeping a little on the plane that we would be rested enough not to have jet lag, but we ended up crashing for about 5 hours.


This is Fran.

After refreshing ourselves with sleep and showers, we wanted to walk around and explore the area of our hotel. The Omiros Hotel is in downtown Athens, and there was a lot going on. We walked back to Syntagma Sq, which is where the old Parliamentary building is. I'm not sure if its actually still in use, I know that Greece has had a lot of political upheavals in its time. But there are guards posted out front, and when we walked by, they were doing some sort of inspection/changing of the gaurds.


Next to the Parliament building, there was the National Garden, which was beautiful. I wasn't expecting a huge park right in the city center, but I guess it could be compared to Golden Gate Park or Central Park. There were statues everywhere, and little gazebos for sitting and watching the people or the many fountains. We stopped at a little coffee shop within the park, and got baklava and kataifi, which were delicious. There was a sort of little zoo in the park, and there were goats, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, peacocks, and lots of other colorful birds.








Walking more, we saw a lot of shops and coffee bars. Mainly I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the Acropolis, which I'm told is really close to our hotel. And then, in a break between the buildings, I saw it.



I was so excited to finally see it! Even though it was pretty far away and I didn't recognize what part of it I was seeing. We are going there on Friday, so there will be real pictures of it then.


Anyway, we are about to leave to go eat dinner. Fran and I both want to find somewhere where we can mingle with the locals and meet people. And of course have good food.