our athens regret (in a good way)

"athens is noisy." athens is dirty." "athens is chaotic." "athens is a hole." that's what you always hear, right? well, it's all true.

road through the old agora leading to the acropolis, athens, greece

but what else is true is the fact that it packs a whole lot of awesome.

caveat: no attempt here has been made to enlighten, educate or even shine a new perspective on a city that's been written about a million times. here below is a quick impression of a bunch of "wow." wow that such a noisy, dirty, sprawling, chaotic city could be that seductive. ok, maybe not seductive, but more like grab you by the lapels and kiss you in a kind of rough, affectionate way.

our regret is that we didn't schedule more than the four days we spent there. running out of pages in our passports (that's a great feeling!) we decided to head to athens, from crete, to visit the u.s. embassy and have pages added. worked like a charm. what surprised us was just how sad we were to leave athens, and greece in general. two and a half weeks on crete lulled us into comfort and athens was a slap in the face. but in a really good way.

yeah, the parthenon is behind me but everyone knows
what that looks like. look at this sprawl!
athen, greece

this city goes on forever and there's no better place to get a sense of that than from the acropolis. everyone talks about the acropolis, and they should, it really is that fantastic of a place to visit and absorb, but no one really conveyed the sheer expanse of concrete madness that would splay out below us. wow. just wow.

after getting our bearings and checking into our hotel (hotel attalos) a couple blocks from monastariki square and dying to see the city, we... took a nap. that's right. a nap. THEN we headed out. now here's the thing about athens... "honey, let's go to that mini-market for supplies." "ok, wait, what's this? a three thousand year old ruin across from the stop-and-shop?"

i mean, that's the thing. we had dinner with friends our last night there and literally, ten feet to our right was a 12th century church. we're eating souvlaki, drinking wine, chatting about current events and at any moment we could get up and place our hand on a wall of history. AND, from that spot, we could look into hadrian's library. from 12th century to the 2nd century in 180 degrees. and in the middle? the stop-and-shop!

poor guy. athens, greece

favorite spots for us were, of course, the acropolis and the new acropolis museum. it's unrivaled. it's every postcard you've ever been pummeled with all your life. but the older national archaeological museum a mile or so walk up some of the most busy, some would say seedy, streets to an oasis of calm, and one of the most impressive displays of mycenaean finds you'll ever see, blew us away.

the athens open market was a rush! it straddles athinas avenue with a loud, boisterous atmosphere selling every kind of fish, meat, vegetable and fruit you can imagine. the unrelenting meat hanging from hooks for an entire block is something to behold. the fish slime through which you walk in the middle part of the market is not for the squeamish. ok, maybe not as bad as the pigs heads hanging from hooks in the meat market, but you are IN IT when you enter this section. and do these people love octopus, or what? it's clear they do. and it's not for show for the tourists (think pike's place market, seattle), this is a working, functioning market and the people who come to shop here know what they're doing. they have no problem bumping you out of the way either. we ended up with a sack full of olives, carrots, bread, cheese, sausage, figs... for about $10.

just another 13th century church laying about.
athens, greece.

this list could go on but if there is one thing you should take away from this rambling post it should be "go to athens." just be prepared to experience everything you love and everything you hate about travel to happen every single minute.

next stop: istanbul. we'll report back.

the things you see

"the things you see." uttered by a friend, maureen m., when our conversation was stopped mid-sentence many years ago at an outdoor cafe while a completely skinned, uncooked hog on a spit was paraded by two men past our table and into the restaurant next door. we've repeated that phrase nearly every day while traveling.

we've been on the road now for 100 days and if there's any wisdom we can pass on, it would be this: save your plastic bags. seriously. trust us on this. michelle's got a pretty serious collecting, collating and storage routine down now that we're never wanting for proper storage of anything we carry, and when you move around a lot like we do, it becomes quite the priority.

our cretan throne, 3rd century b.c., fallasarna, crete

you're welcome.

we've learned a few things, taken some notes and made up our minds about things we never really thought were that important, like plastic bags. who knew?

so, a little 100 day wrap up:

1. the world is full of fantastic people, or at least the small part of the world we've seen so far.

2. people of dubrovnik are exempt from statement number 1. especially the old folks at the green market. such a stunningly beautiful place this old city is and such a stunning contrast are the manners of its citizens. we're tourists, we get that, and we really try our hardest to be unintrusive and, at the very least, (see #7) learn a few words to ease communication and, we hope, offer some sort of message that we're trying. *sigh* in spite of this statement, you should absolutely visit dubrovnik.

3. there are a LOT of different toilet designs in the world, some of which take a few minutes of concentration to figure out, including the push button on the bottom of the tank which is hung on the wall over a cretan commode. we both looked around for a good minute or so until we looked up. it was the only thing left in the bathroom that we hadn't pushed.

3a. the same goes for showers of the world. some you pull, some you push, some are completely inoperable once you've lathered up and a slipperiness factor has been introduced and you're reduced to "hhhooooonnneeeyyy..."

birthday, mirce, brac island, croatia

4. we love our keen hiking shoes. couldn't imagine a better pair of shoes to cover all of our bases. these things have brought us across old european cities, over the green hills of the austrian countryside, the rocky hills of south crete and a couple of pretty fine restaurants.

5. don't underestimate the power of a leatherman. we've used ours to cut cheese, to fix a shower head, to cut off a toenail, to open beer and wine bottles, to pop out a sim card... if the airlines ever take it from us, we may break down and cry.

6. a map and a metro pass is your ticket to happiness. european cities have got it down when it comes to public transportation. we've seen way more of a place than we could in the u.s. with the purchase of a few dollars worth of tram passes and a free tourist map. berlin, budapest, vienna, zagreb all come quickly to mind but you could drop in there any european city or town.

kissamos, crete, greece

7. regardless of the language where you find yourself, communication really does come down to a few common words and some body language. we haven't traveled so far away from home but almost everyone speaks english to some degree. even if they don't, if you can say "thank you," "good morning," "nice hair" or "the bill, please," whether or not you can even remotely understand the reply, you'll be half way home.

8. ask the person next to you, "so where are you from?" most of the time we get an unintelligible reply in some language we don't understand but sometimes we hit a goldmine and make an immediate friend. meet a fellow traveler who has been on the road and you share an instant bond. everyone wants to share experiences and recommendations and after however many days they've been surrounded by languages they don't understand, or are too tired to try to find meaning in those words, a little common english goes a long way.

9. don't judge a new place by first impression, let it come to you. we've learned this in a couple locations where after only a day or two our opinions were completely changed. it's amazing just how quickly some new place becomes familiar. that vague unsettled feeling when you first arrive, particularly after a long or arduous transit day of some sort, quickly fades away with a night's sleep and a wander around town. or a quick conversation with a local, however cobbled together.

10. take a break. take a vacation from your vacation. learn to identify those moments of information overload, when looking at or visiting something with profound historical or cultural significance and all you can think about is taking a nap... go take a nap. don't "power through." trust us on that one, too.

today, we've been invited by our new friend arianne to a "chestnut festival" in elos, on crete. we're hoping for the crowning of a chestnut queen! "the things you see."

midpoint of an incredible hike, lisos, crete