November 14-16. Athens, Greece.

The dogs in Athens were among the most hilarious phenomenons I’ve ever seen. All over Athens there are these huge, fat homeless

dogs that look like they could be werewolves, they're so huge! It must beall that amazing Greek food, I guess. But anyway, in addition to beinglumps of lard, they are all also COMATOSE, I swear to god! They just lie in the middle of streets and sidewalks, sleeping, I guess, and nothing you can do, no noise you can make will wake them up or startle them! And they all lie in packs - we went to the Temple of Zeus, and there were SIX mangy, plump dogs all lying down, passed out from so much eating! And then, the few that ARE awake, follow you around everywhere! We had this one dog follow us across one of the busiest intersections in Athens - he just waltzed across the crosswalk with us! I felt like he was our tour guide, telling us all the stories behind everything in his head. I started making voices for him, it was great! And then he had to stop and poo, so we just kept walking, and later, like half an hour later, he found us again, and started following us again! It was hilarious!! Oh Athens . . . hehe!

Greece is fun, although Athens isn't the romantic oceanside view that you see in all the postcards. But as any historical city, it has its own beauties, which we saw as much of. We started out early the first day, 8 am and saw the Acropolis with the Parthenon and Ancient Agora, and such. I really enjoyed that - if you like the Roman Forum, you would like this. The only down side was that it was sprinkling a bit off and on all morning, and everything in Greece is outside, but oh well. It wasn't too bad, and the sun came out later. Also, since its off-season for tourists, they're reconstructing a lot of the

Acropolis, so there's scaffolding everywhere which kind of takes away from the grandness of it all. But it's still pretty amazing!

We also saw the ancient temple to Zeus, which was really cool. Then on to the National Museum of Archeology. We got there about 25 minutes before it closed though, so we kind of had to rush through it. It was interesting, though - lots of statues, sculptures and old pottery, gold, and artifacts like that.

Good thing is that Greek food is really good, and really cheap! We had the authentic Greek gyros, at a little place that we found by recommendation of our Greek hostel owner. We also had dinner the first night in Greece in the center of the city at one of the many restaurants with waiters waiting outside, calling to you, begging you to come in and eat. At this place, we fell in love with the guy outside, who promised us a bottle of wine on the house. He sat us next to the window, and recommended mousaka and other delicious food for us through the open window between his pleas for business to other passers-by. However, confusion ensued when we tried to ask for the check, they brought us a platter of fruit, free. Confused, but pleased, we promptly ate the fruit, and then asked for the check again, but before we could get the words out of our mouth, they brought over ANOTHER bottle of wine! On the house! And to top it off, the waiter said “For the beautiful ladies by the window.” Apparently, we were good business bringers, and they wanted us to stay as long as possible. Really confused, and starting to get slightly frustrated, but not about to turn down free wine or compliments, we sat for a while longer and sipped our wine. FINALLY, after two bottles of wine, appetizers, Greek salads, mousaka, and our fruit platter, we were able to get the check and leave.

Aahh, Greece. :)