Adeventures in Athens

I can''t believe I have waited this long to post an update. I am in Athens!!!

So far I have loved it. . .or most of it. The week started out very cold and rainy, which isn't much fun when all the things I had planned to do involved being outside. But I found other things to do and am finding my way around in area of the city pretty well, after getting lost a few times.

I had an almost-crisis Tuesday, though. After being lost most of the morning (in the rain), I finally found where I needed to go and the sun came out. . . .and my camera died. The batteries were low, so I took them out, out new ones in, and turned the camera on. It came on, halfway. The lens came part of the way out and just stopped and the camera just quit responding. I was so mad. I wasn't sure what to do--I had my 35mm camera with me, but not much film. And to buy the film and then get it processed, for as many pictures as I had wanted to take here, would almost pay for a new digital camera.

I decided I would just wait to make a decision, although I did stop in a few shops and price new cameras. I went back to my hotel and got my 35mm and spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing and just taking pictures with that. 

Anyway, long story short, I think I must have gotten moisture in the digital camera. I turned the heat on as high as it would go in my room that night and just let the camera sit--and it worked. I got up the next morning and the turned on like nothing had been wrong at all. Thank heavens!

But you did not come here to read about my camera issues. Here is a list (abbreviated) of what I have seen in Athens so  far:

Acropolis

Hadrian's Library 

 Ancient Agora

Roman Agora

Hadrian's gate

National Museum of Art

Benaki Museum of Art--fabulous! 

National Archeology Museum--HUGE 

Anakofistia (a very quaint old neighorhood on the hill beside the Acropolis)

Folk Art Museum--nicely done, but not that interesting

Syntagma Square (Parliament Building)

Changing of the guard in front of Parliament

Omonia Square

A protest march--Wednesday all the government workers were on strike over an issue with pensions. Coming out of the National Archeology Museum, I walked right in to the middle of several thousand marchers. Of course, they were yelling Greek and all their signs were in Greek, so I am just assuming it was about the pension strike. There were police all around, but it seemed fairly peaceful.

National Cathedral

A bunch of ruins--it seems that every time they start to build something new here, they stumble upon ruins of something underneath. So there are a number of little fenced off areas in the middle of other things--parks, beside roads, next to buildings-- with a little sign next to it, explaining what the stones are.

There are other things--I just can't remember the names and spellings of them all right now.

The weather has started cooperating, as have the government workers and my camera, so the last part of this week has gone much better than the first part. I leave Saturday, but I think I have done pretty much everything I really want to do in the city, so I am hoping to head out to a Greek island tomorrow for the day. There are several within an hour's ferry ride of the port, so I am very excited about that--I hope the weather continues to stay nice.

Thanks for all your prayers! Happy Valentine's Day! 

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