Athens: Day 4

We took a bus tour to Delphi on the fourth day. They picked us up in front of our hotel and spent almost another hour picking other people up at theirs. It would've been better if they'd just told everyone to meet in the central square so we could start out earlier considering it was a 2 hour drive each way, but whatever. The drive started out kinda crappy, foggy like crazy and we couldn't see a thing. We were all worried that there wouldn't be a great view and we wouldn't get the full Delphi experience. But about half an hour before we got there, the fog vanished into thin air and all that was left was a bright sunny blue sky. The mountains were amazing, unlike anything we've ever seen before. In the distance was a snow-covered Mount Parnasus and it was beautiful.

We arrived at our destination, the Temple of Apollo. Mostly ruins spread over the side of one of the mountains. Apparently they used to sacrifice goats and other small animals to the gods there. This is also where the Oracle was located, which is kinda like that scene in "300". The tour guide said that there once was a small building where they kept her inside, with little or no ventilation, as ether fumed out of the ground. She was so jacked up that she would just spew incoherent ramblings, and that's what the elders would use to make important decisions. Sweet.

On the way back we stopped at a nice restaraunt on the side of a mountain where they served us a pretty descent meal. There was a walkway to a balcony so you could look out into the valley and see the water, but I can't remember what sea it was. We also stopped at a scenic lookout to see this small village that people come to go skiing during the winter. It was really cool because the whole village was basically built into the side of the mountain. We hit some traffic on the way back, so it took about 3 hours or so, part of which we slept during.

We got back to town, wandered around until dinner time, then went back to the restaraunt that we had eaten at a couple nights before cuz it was so damn good.

Athens: Day 3

We walked out of our hotel on the third day and immediately noticed a rather large group of police on the other side of the street. They were in full riot gear, helmets with faceshields, flak jackets, batons, and full length riot shields. I grabbed my camera and took a couple of quick shots. Then we saw there was another group on our side of the street about a block down. Just when we started to wonder what they were doing there, we heard a faint chanting coming from down the road. It kept getting louder and louder. Then we saw the group of protestors. They had a large banner in front, and a bunch of them were holding black and red flags. Of course the signs and chants were in Greek, so we have no clue what they were protesting. I started to focus my camera on the crowd, since this seemed like a great opportunity to get some cool shots of something that you don't see every day. But Kim stopped me because I was oblivious to the fact that the guy who was walking about 10 feet in front of the protest was yelling "NO PICTURES NO PICTURES!!" at the top of his lungs in my direction. I really wanted to ignore him and start shooting, but I wasn't sure if this was really a peaceful protest, or the kind where one of them would grab my camera from me and either smash it on the ground, or beat my ass with it. I decided not to risk it. The protestors continued down the street, with the cops flanking them on each side. As far as we know, there were no incidents and we still have no idea what it was all about.

We spent the rest of the day checking out the other sites that were included in the tickets for the Acropolis. The coolest site was the Temple of Zeus, which is a series of huge columns, one of which was knocked over years ago in a terrible storm. We also spent some time shopping for cool Greek pottery. We ended up buying 4 plates that are handpainted with cool designs around the edges and cartoonish drawings of gods and goddesses in the center.

Got some dinner at another outdoor cafe with a great view of the Acropolis all lit up, then went back to the hotel.

Athens: Day 2

On the second day we went to the Acropolis. Unfortunately, they've been doing restoration work on it for about 7 years now and there was scaffolding all over the place. What really sucks is that it looks like they're only working on one building at a time, but they put the scaffolding on all the buildings except for one. And there were only about 4 or 5 guys working when we were there. No wonder it's taking so damn long. But even with the masses of metallic eyesores, it's still all very impressive. It took us about 2 hours or so to wonder around and check out all the cool stuff up there, then we headed back down the hill and had lunch at another outdoor cafe at the bottom. I had some fantastic baked meatballs in a tomato sauce. Mmm-mmm!

They only charge 12 Euros (about 18 bucks) to get into the Acropolis, and the ticket is good for 6 other historic sites around the city, so we went to check some of those out next. It's a really good deal considering all the stuff you can see, and I think they could easily charge twice that much if they wanted to. We spent the rest of the day at the Ancient Agora, the Roman Agora, and the Tower of the Winds. All of which are mostly ruins, with lots of cool columns and huge half broken pots everywhere. All definitely worth seeing.

Once it got dark, we just wandered around the city some more. You can see the Acropolis from almost anywhere and it's lit up beautifully at night. But like an idiot, I didn't bring my tripod so I couldn't really get any good night shots of it. We weren't very hungry since we had a pretty late lunch, so we just grabbed a little McDonald's and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Athens: Day 1 (aka Thanksgiving day)

We didn't do a whole lot on the first day, since we didn't get to the hotel until 3am the night before. We headed out sometime around noon, and decided to just spend the day getting a feel for the city and trying to figure out what sites we wanted to see and when to see them. We ate lunch at a little outdoor cafe that was right next to the ruins of the Ancient Agora, with a great view of the Acropolis. The weather was perfect the entire time, sunny and always in the mid to high 60s everyday.

We also went into about 347 souvenir shops, many of which had all the same crap, except that it was all pretty damn cool crap. There were a ton of solid brass Spartan helmets of various sizes that were so friggin' sweet that I knew I would not leave the country without one. There were also some small warrior figures that were really cool looking that I wanted. And even though most of the shops all had a lot of the same stuff, the difference in pricing was all over the place. The Spartan figures I wanted were 22 Euro at one store, 17 at another, and 12 at yet another. That's a difference of 15 bucks per figure! The pricing on the helmets were pretty much like that, too, but they were way more expensive. The tiny little ones were as much as 80 or 90 bucks, while the life sized ones were around 1000 bucks.

The guy at the reception desk at the hotel gave us the name of a great restaraunt to have dinner at, and it was so good that we ended up going back a couple nights later. Souvlaki is now one of my favorite dishes and we're going to need to find a Greek place somewhere around here. And the Greek beer "Mythos" aint too bad, either.

Our Greecian Adventure

We just got back from a 5 day trip to Athens (Greece, not Georgia) and it was the most amazing place I've ever been to. I've always loved all that Greek mythology and stuff, but I never imagined I'd actually get to see where it all came from. I bought a new 4GB memory card specifically for this trip, and it was definitely a smart purchase considering I used up the other 7GB I already had by the halfway point. I ended up taking 666 photos (not on purpose, just turned out that way).

I'm not even sure where to start. There's so much that we saw, but I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I haven't started uploading them to the flickr page yet, probably take me a few days to sort through all of them.

I'll break each day into a seperate entry and try not to make them too long and boring. Stay tuned...

Woo-Hoo-Hoo!!

Kim and I went shopping downtown at someplace called "The Stalls". I don't really think that's what it's actually named, but that's what the people she works with call it, so it's good enough for me. It's kinda like an indoor flea market. There are tons of little shops crammed together, most of which are clothing and shoes, but there are a few other random items. I stumbled upon a little store with an american flag hanging on the front and I decided to check it out. It turned out to be a little army surplus-ish kind of store. At first glance it just appeared to have a bunch of camo clothes. But I stepped in and found a gas mask hanging from the ceiling. It was ok, but not great. I was just about to ask the guy how much it cost when I noticed the bad ass mask hanging on the other side. The guy said it was 100 zloty (about 40 bucks) so I told him I might come back later, kind of hoping he would lower the price a little, but he didn't. I had already decided that I was definitely going to buy it, but I tried to barter a little when I came back 20 minutes later. He didn't bite, so I paid the 100 zloty and was on my way.

Anyways, to make a long story short: I got a new gas mask yesterday and it kicks ass.

Marine Ball(s)

Last night was the 232nd Marine Corp Birthday Ball and wow was it a blast! This was my first one and I can't wait for next year. All the trouble I had to go through just to rent an overly expensive Polish tuxedo that looks almost like a regular suit was well worth it. I'm not exactly sure how many glasses of champagne, white wine, and pomegranate juice with vodka I had, but it was just enough to get out on the dance floor and shake my groove thing. I was even able to get my little Kimmy out there for a song and a half, which is quite a feat. We had been almost dreading this thing because we thought it was going to be stuffy and boring, but we had such a great time. We are definitely going to more of these things!

STDs

There's been a ton of construction going on around town for the past few months, and all the workers have jackets with big white letters that read "STD".

Hehehehe

All Saints Day

Thursday was a Polish holiday called All Saints Day where people go to the cemetaries and leave candles on the graves. We went to the largest and most famous Warsaw cemetary, Powazki Cmentarz, to check it out and it was amazing. Candles were everywhere, most of the graves had no more room to put anymore on them. Unfortunately there were way too many people there for me to set up my tripod and get some good shots, so I went back the next day when the sun was out. I spent about 2 hours taking photos and I probably only got about halfway through the cemetary. And I only took pictures of a very small amount of graves. I can't even begin to guess how many people are buried there, it's by far the biggest cemetary I've ever seen in my life. I didn't even get to the section that has all the people from WWII and the Warsaw Uprising. Plus, there's a Jewish cemetary next to it that's about the same size as the one I was in. I'll be going back sometime in the next couple of weeks so I can get more shots, but I uploaded a bunch to the Flickr page, so check 'em out.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewedman/)

Halloween update

I couldn't find the liquid latex at any of the stores I went into, so I had to settle for the ninja outfit. It actually worked out pretty well, better than Kim or I expected. And everyone at the party said it looked good, so I guess it was a success. But next year I'm definitely going all out. I found a place online that I can get everything I need, and I'm going to order some stuff to play around with soon.