Stray Dogs and the Erect-a-thon

7/10/08

Today we started our explorations at the New Acropolis Museum. It's a very modern building set below the Acropolis (all the old stuff on the top of a big mountain/rock). The museum happened to be built on the site of more ruins and a good portion of the place is dedicated to glass floors so you can see the ruins below (as pictured with me on the glass). It's not finished yet but it is apparently quite controversial because the museum wants to knock down two Art Deco buildings so nothing blocks the view from the museum of the Acropolis. The buildings are pissed because they were given protected status in 1988 but the government has now stripped it of protection at the urging of the new museum. Who knew architects had such big egos?

At the Acropolis today, while I sat in the shade and drank two water bottles and Bobby took countless pictures of columns and then sketched pictures of the columns, I happened to sit down next to the protectors of the Ancient sites. They may sound intimidating but they are really two old ladies armed with badges and whistles. Their job consists of telling people not to smoke or not to sit in certain places but we happened to catch them chastising a man for having his shirt unbuttoned revealing his not-so-fit physique! I wonder if he had been young and fit if the old ladies would have objected so much. The Acropolis features the Parthenon, the Erechtheion (or Erect-a-thon as I nicknamed it - clever and original, I'm sure) and a giant entryway, a whole bunch of theaters and caves. It also has some of the most amazing views of the city. Bobby took about 4 billion pictures so don't worry about ever needing to take your own if you end up getting to this place. I did my best to be patient (if Bobby reads this he will definitely roll his eyes) but since the only refreshment served here was water, I was itching for lunch!

After the Acropolis, we wandered down to the Plaka for gyros again (they are soooo good) and then over to a little bakery near the hotel and picked up a flaky pastry filled with creme and covered in powdered sugar. Then we went to a coffee shop and ordered "freddo cappucinos" which are literally cold espressos that then have the hot foam of a cappuccino on the top. The result is a layered drink that doesn't mix so as you drink you get creamy foam, then sweet cold espresso. And it looks cool. We ate our pastry and coffees in the terrace garden of our hotel, which is the coolest (or should I say least-hot) place we've found. If I didn't mention it before, you have to pay 10 euros a night for air conditioning from 10 pm to 7 am (they didn't even tell us the price for the daytime), so since we are cheap our room is mildly sweltering.

After a round of cold showers and late afternoon naps, we hit the streets again heading to Hadrians Arch and the Temple of Zeus. The Temple has only 16 of the original 100 giant columns left but the result is still impressive. They are massive in size and beautifully decorated at the tops. If you imagine the place with all of the columns and a giant gold and ivory statue of Zeus in the middle, you can kind of understand what all the fuss about the Greek gods might have been.

Then we wandered through the National Gardens, which should probably be renamed the Forgotten Gardens as they seem very unkempt and neglected. They are huge, and feature plenty of trees for shade and a fountain that turns off just when you are about to take a picture of it (see picture). On the other side of the gardens, we found the Olympic Stadium, which is huge, very marble-y, and quite impressive. After that we wandered up to the trendy district Kolonaki which had all the designer stores, trendy restaurants, and nicely dressed people. I felt a little under dressed in my Merrills, sporty shorts, and stained white tank top compared to all the greek beauties in their short, very sophisticated dresses and sparkly heels.

We found a tiny, roasted-chicken restaurant that was in our guide book and had a delicious dinner of their specialty, the chicken, and a tomato salad with crusty bread. Definitely a good choice for the price and that we got to have a proper seat at a sidewalk table. After a small dilemma on whether to tip or not, we got ourselves quite lost but in the process found a park where many of the cities stray dogs live. I am quite fascinated with the amount of stray dogs in Athens. They roam the streets in packs and seem to know the city so well that sometimes they wait and cross the street with the pedestrian traffic. They are mostly quite big dogs, all very cute, and for the most part seem completely friendly and harmless. You see them sleeping all over the place. I found two that looked just like my dog Molly's cousins and they were taking care of each other at the Temple of Zeus. At the park we found a man with grocery bags full of bits of meat and bones and he was walking around giving some to each dog. He didn't seem very official but rather just a good Samaritan who helped feed the neighborhood dogs. In our wandering we also found a 24-hour Internet cafe and thus the copious posting! Hopefully we will find our way back to the hotel with no trouble and you will see some more posting in few days.