Athens

Greetings from Athens, Greece! We arrived here this afternoon after spending last night at a beachfront hotel not far from the Rome airport. This was in a very non-international-touristy town. We were feeling pretty adverturous after spending a week in Italy so we went to a very local family-owned restaurant for dinner. I really think we were among the first Americans to ever darken their door. The owner/waiter/(maybe cook?) did not speak a word of English...not even "yes." But we managed to get great meals of homemade pasta as a farewell to Italy.
This morning, with great sadness, we returned our rental car, a Fiat Panda to which we had become quite attached, and flew to Athens. (If they ever sell Fiats in the States, specifically the Panda, I highly recommend it!)
Our hotel here is nice, nothing really fancy, but the location is perfect and we have a balcony that looks straight out at the Parthenon. This picture was not taken by us, it's from a Google search, but it's not far off from what we see from our blacony!
After checking in, we immediately went out for a walk around the city. The weather was perfect: about 70 degrees, sunny, and breezy. We just looked at all the touristy shops and then had a very Greek dinner: salads loaded with great feta cheese, mousaka, pork-ka-bobs, and watermellon.
Our first impression of Athens (although we've only seen about 20 blocks of it) is very positive. This area if very clean and there are lots of nice stores, restaurants, and hotels. It looks like they really did a lot of recent renovations for the Olympics and much of this part of the city is spotless. Several of the smaller streets are pedestian-only and believe it or not, they are made of squares of tumbled marble*! We wish we had countertops that nice!
Right now, it's 1:30am here in Greece so it's Monday afternoon in the States. I'm at a 24-hour internet cafe actually listening to the broadcast of the Ole Miss football game. (Alexis is asleep in hotel about 5 minutes away.) The internet is an incredible thing.
Tomorrow we are going to all the Athens sights--the Parthenon, Syntagma Square, and the National Museum which has artifacts dating back to 1000's of years B.C. Should be fun.
That's it for now...hope to post again soon, probably from the island of Mykonos.

* This is a term I know only because Alexis is an interior designer.