Whirl Wind Tour

Yesterday, we landed in Athens after a 10 hour flight from JFK and officially began a whirl-wind tour of Athens around noon (Greek time). One thing we realized, is that Greece is not always hot and warm. Unfortunately, we havent' spent much of our time in anything but 2-3 jackets and our rain coats. Hopefully, we'll be able to wear those shorts and sandles we brought.

Athens is a huge city of about 3 million, but most of the city is essentially concrete apartments and communities that have sprung up since the 1970's. So, we spent all our time in the historic part of town where many of the ruins are within walking distance. Paula found a self-guided walking tour off Rick Steve's website that we decided to try out. It's designed for a full day of sight seeing, which we further compacted into 5 hours. Without boring you of all the details of our tour, we ended up seeing the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Roman Agora (essentially the Roman town square) and the Temple of the Winds, Hadrian's Library, the Ancient Agora and the Acropolis of course. We enjoyed winding through the streets and taking everything in until the time difference caught up with us...we then took a 3 hour nap...oops!

We thought we'd try to get an authentic Greek dinner while in Athens. We shared a greek salad, Paula had a bowl of fish soup (essentially a full cod broiled with potatoes and carrots), and I enjoyed octopus in wine. The dishes weren't much to look at and our experience with Greek cuisine wasn't exactly like Anthony Bourdain's. However, we're unfazed and will try again.

Now, we're here on Mykonos in the Greek Islands. Despite the gray and cloudy weather, it's beautiful. We're excited to get to know the town and explore the island a bit over the next couple of days.

That's all for now from the McJohnson Times.