ATHENS! -best trip planned in 15 minutes ever!

Athens was the best 15 minute planned trip. Props to me and Dunc, if I'm allowed to give props to myself..

I couldn't really sleep Thursday night because I wasn't tired but was really excited. Me, Carrie, Alex, and Dunc met at our gate at the airport. I knew the trip was gonna be great when Dunc was getting felt up by security and was thoroughly searched. The look on his face was priceless.

It was nice flying on a real airline instead of RyanAir! However, after the layover in Germany, I was stuck next to an overweight American who liked to shake his legs and be annoying. He didn't pay to invade half of my seat..

The weather was great when we finally touched down. We hopped on the metro after some confusion and eventually found ourselves in the middle of the city. We walked down the main shopping street and the girls' eyes were just glowing. More on that later.

Our hostel was on this quaint little street with some cool shops then a whole square of restaurants. The smell was simply phenomenal. We checked in and they told us that we were gonna be split into different rooms. I was not amused, as I had requested the same room for all of us and had received confirmation. I pulled up the email and I was right. We were upgraded to a private room. Score.

My main objective for Athens was to eat. And did we. We headed out for a

restaurant. There was one right outside the door. Excellent. The managers of all the restaurants stand outside and try to convince you to come in with free drinks and dessert. It didn't take much convincing for us! We started out with fried eggplant and fried saganaki cheese. Saganaki is my favorite thing and reminds me of Greektown in Chicago. I got lamb slovaki for my main dish. It came with fries and the white cucumber sauce. Very delicious. A perk about eating with Carrie is how she never finishes her meal and is happy to share afterward!

We were quite tired, so we took a 30 minute nap that accidentally turned into 2 hours. No big deal, everything was still awake and alive. We walked around and took in more delicious scents and heard live music everywhere. A stray dog started following us thanks to Carrie. She called him Rover. It was strange to see how many stray dogs and cats there were in the streets. We saw more than 50 in just a few days. Rover followed us for over 2 hours and even waited for us as we got our SECOND dinner. We couldn't resist. I had more saganaki and got chicken kebabs. Too good! The waiter gave us free dessert, honey and yogurt with some sort of moist cake thing. We all loved the environment.

From the street, we could see the acropolis all lit up in the night. It was beautiful. It would have been incredible to see it in its original form.

After returning to the hostel, we stayed up talking and it felt like a slumber party. Getting up in the morning was still hard. The beds were comfortable, especially to tired bodies. We left in the morning and got Greek pastries for breakfast then headed to the Acropolis museum. There were thousands of ancient artifacts. My favorite thing was how the museum portrayed fragments of the artifacts. They would align them like a puzzle and added a mold and a design of what the entire artifact used to look like. Again, the detail and craftsmanship is incredible when you think about how long ago these objects were constructed, especially without today's technology.

We started up the giant hill to the acropolis. The path was lined with remnants

from ancient temples, stages, and such. The view was just amazing. As we reached higher and higher, we could see more and more of the city and the sea. The top was too cool. We were finally staring at such a monumental piece of history-and it wasn't in our history books! We were also dumbfounded because Rover had found us at the top! Crazy odds.

We walked around and found more remnants and eventually had to happily give in to our hunger. At a street-side restaurant, we ordered an appetizer plate with the most amazing food. It consisted of fried cheeses and eggplant, sausages, tiny meat balls, other cheeses, a delicious potato salad, tomatoes and cucumbers, and other fried mixes that we could have easily made a meal out of. But it didn't stop there. We had toasted bread with olive oil and olives. Then the main dish. Alex and I ordered moussaka. It looks like lasagna and has a bottom layer of potatoes, another layer of eggplant, and minced meat on the inside. It was a generous portion and Alex couldn't finish. We didn't have room for dessert!

We headed to the flea market next, which was a few streets lined with little shops. The girls went nuts. I bought an Athens t-shirt (I'm getting a shirt from every country I visit). Next we went up the main street with more commercial stores. The look in the girls eyes was indescribable. How women rationalize their purchases and encourage each other to make them-incredible!

We went back to the hostel because we were wiped out from walking all day. Another accidental 2 hour nap! We got ready to go see the Athens nightlife. The map we had wasn't ideal and we got lost. We found some random place to stop into, but we quickly decided to move on. We found a place with some live music. The girls were a bit tired so we took them home. Dunc and I left again and found some ridiculously cheap yet delicious food. We went to a bar near our hostel and just chilled. We had a good laugh when we got back to find Carrie locked out of the room because Alex had fallen asleep!

We had to check out the next morning, but the hostel let us keep our stuff in a

storage room. We went on another walk and took in some more sights. We had lunch at a cafe and headed back to the main square. We noticed some streets blocked off and security everywhere, including the riot squad. All of a sudden, parades of Muslims started pouring into the square, waving green flags and chanting. It ended up being a peaceful demonstration, but we couldn't really find out what it was for.

Dunc had to leave to catch an earlier flight, but we continued on to a quaint yet giant park that had a little zoo and a creek with cool stone paths and bridges. Then we found the Athens Poet Sandal Maker. He is a very old man now, but he makes custom sandals. The Beatles are among several famous customers. Carrie and Alex both bought a pair. It was cool to see them made and cut right before us.

Our weekend had to come to a close and we headed back to the airport. We arrived 20 minutes before boarding. Good thing security is much quicker in Europe! Our flights weren't too bad, but it was really late when I was finally able to settle into my bed. It was a great weekend for sure. And Alex and I (and Brian) just booked tickets to visit our friend Max in Germany for Spring Break! Now time to catch up on some work..