Amsterdam Bound

This post was written on Sunday 12/20

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Greetings from Athens airport,

Currently Amsterdam is being blanketed in white in preparation for Christmas. An unfortunate side effect of this is that we are now facing an indeterminate delay.

Aside from this minor hiccup, our trip to Athens has been amazing. Chris was a fantastic host, showing us the best of Greek food, music, history, drinks, and food. Here in bullet form, we will give you the highlights.

• Visiting Greek food markets, including the central market and the local lykee where amazing and amazingly cheep fresh produce is sold

• Cheese: while one would think that we got our cheese fix in Italy, it was only a preview for Greece. Here we experienced the wonder of having grilled and fried cheeses as the primary protien for many meals, whether as the filling on a breakfast pastery, or served alongside salads, bread and legumes for dinner.
  

• Finding some truely authentic establishments, including an unmarked cellar restaurant and local live "Greek Blues" bar. Our lunch in the cellar restaurant was complete with being scolded for even asking where to sit, followed by joining a table with another couple who proceeded to buy us several rounds of Greek resin wine. During our visit to the bar, Chris promised that we would see some drunk people performing traditional dances. He delivered on this promise, although he was the only one to perform, much to the delight/dismay of the other patrons.
  

• The sites: Of course no trip to Athens is complete without seeing the Acropolis and many other ancient wonders. We found our favorite on a day trip excursion to the magnificient Temple of Poisidon. The remains of this temple sit up upon a cliff overlooking the sea in the town of Sunio. It is truely a miraculous site.
  

• The people: seeing and doing everything greek was a great time, but it was just as great to spend time with Chris. We were also fortunate to catch up with our friend Ioannis, who we went to Brown with, and had previously attended the high school where Chris currently works.