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.