Back in Athens

Well. We have had quite the eventful day already (and it's only around six in the evening). We've really gotten quite lucky. So I'll go in order.

1) We had no problems getting back to Athens from Delphi. The gentleman sitting a few rows in front of us, throwing up in a plastic shopping bag, however... not so much. In his defense, the road was very curvy. Ick.

2) After the bus, we found our metro station to head back to the hotel. Guess what!!! The metro is shut down today, due to a strike. Awesome. We were able to find a cab right away, which was great, and overall have not been particularly inconvenienced by the strike. But it's very exciting anyway.

3) The reservation that we weren't sure that we had actually made with the Parnon Hotel came through. We got our room and all else was right in the world.

4) We went to McDonald's for lunch. It was very tasty. I got a happy meal - it tasted just like in America (with the exception of the soda - I guess that you can't have everything). Kinda hit the spot, in a big way.

And then we headed to the Acropolis! Since we had a better idea of where we had to go, we made it up there a lot faster today (though we did go more or less straight up this time, which was quite the hike). There was so much more up there than just the Parthenon, which was of course awesome in and of itself. Quite a bit to do - plus the views were absolutely spectacular. And still, it was not all that crowded. We were never really inconvenienced by people, so it was a very pleasant experience all around.

After the Acropolis, we wandered down through the Agora, and stopped to go through a museum or two. We hit the city again (predictably) in an area that seemed to be exclusively dedicated to tourists (woo!). So we browsed for souvenirs. We didn't buy too much, figuring that we would be back in Athens on Monday and Tuesday after Santorini. I really liked souvenir shopping here - the vendors were, by and large, very laid back and hands off. They did not accost you as you went down the street. A few would stand by you and tell you about their discounted prices, but generally, they pretty much just let you look.

Then, on the way back to the hotel, we had one of the highlights of the day (for me at least). We were offered weed. Twice! Now, a little bit of background. No one has ever tried to sell me drugs before. Ever. Not in high school, not in college, not in the Caribbean or Germany or anywhere else in Europe (Please, if anyone has traveled with me and believes that I have actually been offered drugs before and was just too oblivious to notice, let me know - I had no idea). So this was very, very exciting. We said no, but Katie and I laughed about it for the rest of walk back to the hotel room. We had actually planned for this eventuality. Katie had noticed something on the way to the Acropolis (I forget what now), but we decided to come up with a code for when there was something noteworthy going on that we didn't want to come right out and comment on. The code word was platypus (it's always my code word... real subtle). So right after the guy offered to sell us weed, she turned around to me and we both said platypus at the same time. I'm not sure that it was actually all that funny, but I am still giggling on the inside (and the outside, who am I kidding?). Quite the ridiculous experience.

So now we're back at the hotel. We'll probably go out for dinner soonish. But I don't know that anything else that happens today will really beat this afternoon. It was pretty tops. And then tomorrow we go on our three island tour! Huzzah!