Athens

We arrived in Athens on Monday afternoon with just enough time to check in to our hotel, take naps and then head to the small town near our hotel, we stayed outside the city near the beach thus making our walk to dinner each night filled with sand, water and if you have facebook, jumping pictures on the beach! Anyway, the first night, eager for Greek food, we headed in to town searching for the first Greek restaurant we could find. We had already determined that we would eat Greek food and only greek food for the following week...and at that, we were pretty damn successful. However, on that first night, we seemed to be walking down the International Street walking by Italian, American and Mexican Restaurants. You name a non-Greek type of cuisine and we probably walked by it. However, we did persevere and found a cute Greek restaurant where we sat outside and ordered ourselves some pita, tzatziki (you'll notice that was consumed a lot), a warm goat cheese dish, beet salad, greek salad and chicken kebabs. It lived up to every expectation.
The next morning, we woke up early to get a jump start on our first day in Athens, which we planned to spend seeing the sites. We climbed the Acropolis and saw the Agoras. Enjoyed Greek Salads, Tzatziki, Dolmas (also a trend you'll notice, although this one was the best--served warm in my favorite greek soup broth) and Spanikopita. Then continued on to see the Olympic Stadium. We got lucky as with the strikes in Athens, everything that day was closing early around 3ish. Thus, exhausted, we went home for naps then headed out to one of the restaurants we spotted on the beach the night before.
Our second day in Athens, we planned to spend exploring the Plaka. DING! DING! DING! For those of you paying attention to dates or current events, we were in Athens on the day you probably saw it on the news filled with riots and strikes in downtown. However, we planned ahead and decided we wanted to go into the city center so we left bright and early, before the taxis joined the strike and hit the plaka for some shopping. Then enjoyed a long lunch, yes there was tzatziki, before trying to find a way to get home. The hotel had told us we could probably find a cab but we were out of luck so we did as they told us and called them to see if they could get us a ride home. They directed us to the tram, which was conveniently located near Parliament. DING DING DING AGAIN! Yes, Parliament is where the strikes and fire and bombs and riots you saw on TV were happening. What kind of hotel tells you to go to the strike? Luckily, we didn't listen to them and continued to look for a cab, which we successfully found! By then, of course, we managed to be hungry again and went to dinner again in the town near our hotel, a Mediterranean place, yes there were more dolmas and tzatziki, and grabbed some gelato for our walk home on the beach.

By Wednesday night, I couldn't believe the next morning, I'd be boarding a plane to my last destination on our extended semester vacation. However, Santorini was next and there's nothing bad about that.