Day 34

Today was all about the site seeing in Athens. The first one was the Acropolis, with the Parthenon on top (like a cherry). So off we went on the Metro. It was really close to the city. Awesome!

When we got there, we all walked to the entrance of the park that surrounds it. As with all famous tourist stuff, you had to pay to get in. However, mum took one look at the height of the Acropolis and decided that it was too hot for her to climb. After calling her a wimp, my folks decided to go looking around the area instead while Sandra and I manned up.

It was pretty cool. Toursists all around but the views were great. The Parthenon was pretty cool as well despite being surrounded by cranes and scaffolding (they're restoring/rebuilding it again). I can see why, but they more they rebuild it, the less authentic it seems. Either way, this was the place to do a handstand photo.

I don't think we've mentioned it in the blog yet but I've been making a point to do a handstand in each country next to a one of its most famous symbol. On the great wall in China, next to a field of Windmills in the Netherlands, Edinburgh Castle in Scottland, Big Ben in England, the Eiffel Tower in France and the Colosseum in Italy. So it would only be fitting that the Parthenon represent the glory of Greece.

However, after taking the most epic photo, the handstand police blew their whistles (literally, they had whistles), came over and made us delete the photo. WTF dude, can't I take a photo of the Pathenon? Yes, but not if you're posing. Oh man...

So the handstand police were really people hired to make sure ignorant tourists like myself follow the rules. I came to realise the peace keepers were all around the top of the Acropolis so finding somewhere else to do it was just not going to work up here. In the end, I had to take one elsewhere in the city with the Parthenon in the background. Meh, it'll do. We know the truth!

We decided to walk back to where we would meet the folks. This time, we would go the other way to be different. We didn't realise, but we accidently walked out of the park. That didn't matter, we'd walk around the park. Good in theory, but the foot path that we took (the road split into two) got blocked half way around. This must happen to tourists a lot, because in that time span, we met up with 2 other groups of tourists following the same deadend trail. When we got back to the place where we left the park they wouldn't let us back in. Bitches. We caught up with the folks the long way around.

The next stop was the port of Piraeus. Not that there was much there to see, it's just a port. Either way, we decided to go there. Sandra and I decided to go back to the hotel for some R & R and to see if I could recover the deleted photo from my phone while the folks went on ahead.

As I said, there really wasn't much there. It was a port. A relatively busy one, but just a port. So Sandra and I sat down and has some food. We had some 2 Euro pita gyros (little souvlakis). They were awesome! If I lived here, I would totally go back to that place! After some icecream, we tried to call the folks to let them know where we were. In typical parent style, they didn't answer. However, they ended up finding us anyway which was convenient.

Back to the city and the ladies of the group went shopping. I decided to bum out in the hotel. We then went to dinner where we got hassled by the walking salesmen again. We counted 7 that we had to wave off.