Hello, Athens!

Yeah, I am not going to try to use Greek letters to say hello to Athens. I legitimately have no idea what it would do to the URL of this post. We woke up and had the worst grocery store pre-packaged chocolate croissants ever (but at least they were only €0.29 each) to get fuelled up for the day. We grabbed a bus from right outside our apartment over to Syntagama square.

The goal was to catch the 11am changing if the guards, but we walked into the park thinking it would connect and missed it. Oh well, at least we were in an incredible park. As soon as you stepped in, it was like you have left the city entirely. All we could hear was the cocophony of birds squawking some major feelings, though we could barely see any. There were random statues and fountains all over the place. We wandered the paths which were arranged in what can only be described as a “spaghetti layout” that would make the urban planners in Kitchener-Waterloo blush.

Eventually, we made our way past a playground (that we didn’t stop at! Yet.) and made our way out of the park. The first thing we saw was a little pond with a statue of… Someone (this place has a lot of statues, and we never did find the statue of Alexander the Great)… And there were turtles there! Then we found the Statue of Olympian Zeus. Except that it is “just” some pillars, most of which are covered in scaffolding. We felt that we got a good enough view from the fence that we didn’t feel the need to pay the €20 entry each(!) to go see them. And no, this is not the first time we will have this feeling. Because the same thing happened just down the road at the Kallimamaro, or Olympic Stadium.

By this time, we had been wandering for about an hour, so it was time for the playground! We made our way across the road (Athens crossing signals are *short*) back to the park. This was a pretty solid playground, even though we had been spoiled by Spain. Jordan couldn’t go down the two story tower because it was too hot, sadly. There was also a water tap there for filling up the bottle. Very important for the 35° and sunny day. Like Madrid, Athens is a mostly dry heat, so it didn’t feel so terrible, especially in the shade.

With a new goal to get to the 1pm changing of the guards, we set back out to get to the right place at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Greek Parliament. And we succeeded! Buuuutttt were 30 minutes early. With little shade, we pondered our options when the guards started moving. I guess they do a mini version at the bottom of the hour. Perfect! Greek guards moving is a very special gait. They push their leg out, pull it way back, push it out, wiggle it, point their toe and then slam their shoes (which have tap dance style metal plates on the bottom) to the ground. It is like a cross between the hokey-pokey and Dutch Jump style dance, but way slower. Going to go out on a limb and say that Leonidas and the 300 Spartans didn’t walk like this to fight the Persians (though that would be an amazing outtake for that movie).

Mollified by the 5 minute mini display of the funny walk, we decided our terrible croissants (so bad that Emily only ate half of hers) were no longer sufficient and set off in search of food. Fortunately, Syntagama square is at the top of a corridor that has tons of shops and restaurants. We stopped at Meat the Greek, and despite the pun based name, we stopped there. The food was all great. We started with a Spicy (more like Spiced) Feta dip with pita, then got beef and pork gyros, fries and a chicken skewer for Jordan. Kieran, of course, liked every single thing on offer, though the slices in the dip got too spicy for him eventually. Even Jordan finished her entire skewer, almost a first for the trip. And the value was great, as all of that food came out just to €24!

Just down from there was our first Greek Orthodox Church of the trip and it didn’t disappoint. Plenty of iconography, beautiful stained glass windows and a top-notch roof. We opted not to go into the crypt for €3, though. Mostly because Kieran in the stroller would have been wildly inconvenient. Even the little mini chapel next to it was similarly beautiful. Not sure what the purpose of the mini chapel next to the real church is, though.

After the church, the next street down was a super long string of independent shops. Most of them sold similar souvenirs including, for some reason, Greek Sex Cards. I’m not sure if they are playing cards that are Greek sex themed or if they are like an adult sex prompter, but needless to say that we didn’t spend the €3 to find out. There were also lots of clothes shops that continually threatened to separate us from our Euros to get adorable children’s clothes for all of the babies, but we managed to keep hold of the money for now.

And no day (except yesterday’s crazy travel day, of course) would be complete without gelato and/or sorbet. It was 3pm and Jordan was not yet done checking out the shops of Athens, so we headed down the street yet again. But we didn’t make it vey far because Kieran was fed up. So back we went to the metro (one stop, then switch and two stops) to get back to the apartment. Kieran then fell asleep about 100m from the Airbnb, but Emily managed to get him back down.

One thing to know about Kieran right now sims that he is in his shrieking phase. 90% happy shrieks, but they are very prevalent. So much so that sitting on the balcony of the 4th floor (European 4th, so 5th to North America) that he confused the heck out of some guys on the ground floor who could hear him but not place the sound. Hilarious. At 6:30, we headed out for dinner. This is quite early for Greece, but luckily the places around us are all open.

This time, Emily got moussaka (so good), I got a Salmon Fillet with seaweed salad (also good) and Jordan got Meatballs (pretty good, though much better when dipped in the Tzatziki sauce). Kieran, of course, loved it all. By the end, he was nearly in a food coma, so instead of waking around the neighbourhood like the original plan, we headed in. It was 8pm, so reasonable bed time anyways, especially since we are waking up early tomorrow to head on a day trip to the island of Aegina. Though I write these final sentences now at just past 9:30 and Kieran still fights actual sleep. Oh well. We will just have to drown our sorrows in the €2.99 1L plastic bottle of terrible rose wine that we have turned into Sangria while we watch the new Ted Lasso.