A lot of people, when commenting on our facebook pictures, have mentioned that it looks like we’re having so much fun. Yes, of course we are. But please know that we’re also doing some very responsible tourist things. We’ve already reported about our trip to the Acropolis. As if that’s not impressive enough, the very next day we went on a private tour to a museum, a monastery, and Delphi.
Sarah booked a tour for us with the famous taxi driver George. From what we could gather, he’s a very reputable tour guide who drives you around in his Mercedez and offers a wealth of historical information. We were pretty excited to meet George and see what all the fuss is about. Sarah walked down from our hotel to meet him and said, “You must be George.” And he replied, “No, I’m Tony.” So now we’re wondering just who this George is. Does Sarah’s greeting compare to walking into a Wendy’s and assuming that the girl behind the counter is Wendy herself? Oh well. Tony won us over pretty quickly, despite the time he spread out a map across the dash to show us where we were headed. Eyes on the road, Tony. His knowledge of Greek history seems endless. If we were in the car, he was talking. Well, I guess I can’t know for sure because I kept falling asleep in the backseat. I worked really hard at each site to learn a lot and show that I am really interested in this stuff. I just get tired sometimes.
Early on in our drive Tony mentioned Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great is one of those guys whose name is familiar, but my knowledge of him is actually very vague. I asked Tony what time period Alexander was from, and he decided to take us to a museum built near a battlefield from Alexander’s conquest. We saw a lot of old stuff there.
We all loved our next stop – the monastery. Over 300 monks used to live there, but now it is inhabited by only three. This is the kind of place you just want to get locked in at night so you can really explore….so many nooks and crannies and stone walls and steps. The cathedral was ornate, and the landscape was so naturally still…a beautiful combination.
Delphi was the main reason for our tour. At some point, you know in history, this spot was believed to be the center of the world. People would travel here to consult the oracle as a way of communicating with Apollo. It takes quite awhile to walk through this area, and it’s built into the side of a mountain, so it was a strenuous walk at times. Some highlights – Sarah told me to do a yoga pose on a rock podium, so I tried to, but then was asked to step off of the very ancient piece of history. Woops. Sarah and I did some dancing on an ancient stage…pretty crowd pleasing. And we visited the museum on site where the three of us got a case of the giggles. I could feel the curators eyeing us, so we had to leave before we lost all control.
The near purse snatching: It was our first night in Athens. On our ride from the airport, the cab driver showed us which street to look down to see the Parthenon. What a moment of – Oh my gosh we’re actually here. He also told us that it was a 15 minute walk from our hotel. After checking in, we decided to take the walk.
Something else you need to know to fully understand this story – Sarah is pretty accustomed to carrying a large purse that is really more of a satchel. It’s a great bag, but she bought a snappy new little thing for our trip. It’s a great size to slide just the essentials into, or you can slide the whole purse into a satchel and it seems more like a wallet. It’s a great purse for our trip.
So we had walked all of two blocks from our hotel’s front door and were waiting at a light. Also near this light was some punk kid. He eyed Sarah’s purse, ran over, and grabbed a hold of it. Poor little dear. He didn’t know who he was messing with. Sarah is quick and maybe part cat. She snatched her purse right back. But that punk kid broke the strap. A little disappointing, but not like it could have been, I guess. Welcome to Athens, girls.
For those of you who think I don’t live enough in the realities of the world, we did check around a bit to see if purse snatching is something we need to look out for. Does not seem to be a common thing as far as we can tell. Little fella, if you had asked me for some money, I might have given it to you.