First thing on the agenda today was to get the rental car back. Easier said then done. We got directions from the front desk at the hotel, with our map in hand it sounded pretty simple. Well people have been talking about the demonstrations going on in Greece and this time we were affected. Roads were blocked off so we took an hour to go maybe a mile, probably an hour and a half since it took us almost 2 hours to get the car back. They had roads closed down which we didn't know so we were fighting to go forward between busses, scooters and pedestrians. You know how people here don't really know the road signs? Well scooters, don't really care about roads or lack of them. They would drive between cars or up on sidewalks and in between all of that you had to keep an eye on pedestrians weaving in between cars. With one green light we would be lucky to go forward one car length, usually, we didn't. Once we got out of the circle of hell we had to use the map to figure out where to go. First off, their traffic lights are on the side of the road, not overhead so Nancy wouldn't notice them. The funniest part is when we were turning right and the cars started honking at us. Nancy pfft and said Greek drivers. I was like you ran the red light! Needless to say after that, I told her whenever the light was turning red. Secondly, the street names are written on the buildings and the writing is small. All of us have horrible vision. Not a good combo but we did eventually make it to the care rental place (after we stopped at a gas station for directions, we were close!).
We all breathed a sigh of release once we dropped the car off. Nancy most especially! Honestly, I would have never tried to drive in Greece, I give her major props for that.
We didn't want to lug our bags to the metro stop so we took a cab back to our apartment. Luckily we have a good idea how to get there, none of the cab drivers knew where it was. Even the taxi's GPS drove us in circles. We would just tell them the metro stop and direct them in from there. Since the day was rapidly flying by (2 hours going nowhere) we just took time to refresh ourselves and headed out. I really wanted to hit the Central Market. Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods went there for one of his shows. They have great fresh food. You know food motivates me but also, I thought it would be a great place to take photos.
So we hopped the metro and off we went to Monastiraki, the area where the market was and funnily enough, a couple of blocks away from where we had been trapped earlier in the day. If we'd known that we could have left our stuff in the car and walked over and missed the traffic nightmare. Oh well.
We walked around to get the lay of the land but we were hungry so decided to get some eats before we did some serious wandering. I picked where we were going to eat based on the fact that there were 4 cops eating in there. It's not because of the fact that cops eat at the best local places, it's because all of the cops in Athens are freaking GORGEOUS! Seriously, I would say 90% of the cops we saw, maybe 95% of them were just my type. And we saw a lot of cops while in Athens, I made sure to stop and ask them directions any chance I got, even if we knew where we were going. I'm bummed we didn't get pics with some of them.
The food ended up being really great and only 2 euro for a gyro or souvlaki. Even better! In Europe not everything comes with ice so it's a crap shoot when you order a soda whether you're going to get some or not. I always ask for ice if they don't bring it since I love my soda ice cold. They didn't have ice but the waitress brought us frosted mugs. She got a great tip. She didn't need to bring us the mugs and I always appreciate it when someone goes the extra mile, especially when they are busy.
Before we left the restaurant I had to go to the bathroom. Well this guy followed me up, he heard me ask where it was and was chatting me up while we were on our way. I'm a friendly sort, I'll chat with you. Then he was there when I was washing my hands (separate restrooms but the sink was in the hallway) and chatting some more. He wanted to try and kiss me (last time some stranger tried that move I was in New Orleans) and I wouldn't let him. Then he asked to take a photo with me. I agreed. Then he tried to lean in for a kiss then. I put my hand up to block his face. I should have remembered his move a half an hour later. I made it to the safety of our table unscathed, little did I know what was next.
From everything I've read the said the smell was pretty pungent in the Central Market. They did not lie. Pungent is an understatement. Because we got there so late in the day, they didn't even have the seafood out but you could still smell it. Su practically ran thru the market, I think it might have had something to do from the bloody floors, lol.
As you can see, it wasn't busy at all, so instead of pics of a bustling market, we were the center of attention. People asking where we were from. Trying to say hi to me in Chinese. Calling me over to say how beautiful I am (I shouldn't have put lipstick on after lunch).
I was chatting up a cute guy asking him about his meat (no, that's not him) when another guy came over. He was very aggressive so the other guy walked away, dang it! Well this guy wanted to take a pic with me, since I was walking thru taking pics of them I figure it was only fair. Well turns out the offer to take pics with you is a move in Greece because he tried to kiss me too! I had my hand up in time to block him so he grabbed my boob. I wasn't prepared for that. I think he was just trying to show off to his friends. It was a quick feel. He's lucky he felt me up and not Su, she would have castrated him. I punched him in his chest and then picked up a very big knife. He got the hint and ran off.
Due to all of the distractions in the meat market I didn't get anywhere near the pics I wanted to get so off we went to get some fruit and olives.
This guy let us sample his olives, the best way to get us to buy. We are ruled by our stomachs. We ended up buying three different kinds of olives, kalamatas, pimento stuffed green ones and another that we think was brined in wine. 3 big scoops for 3 euro total. What a score!
As we were walking around we saw this shop. I at first thought it was leather goods hanging from the ceiling. How excited was I when I saw it was meats, olives and cheeses! My mouth was salivating.
We decided we needed some meats and cheeses to go with our olives and grapes. Our guy was great. I wish I made him look at the camera, he was also cute (a theme to Greece). Once he found out how passionate we were about our meats and cheeses he started recommending his favorites. We wanted local cheeses and meats. So even tho the pastrami looked fantastic we got some local ham and a pepper crusted salami. Don't really know what kind of cheeses we got, I know one was a goat and one was very buttery. As soon as he said butter we all reacted. We ended up with 3 kinds of cheese. The funny thing is when they wanted to know how much meat to slice Su quickly did her math and said 9 slices. She decided we would have 3 slices each, it made us and them laugh. He offered to vacuum seal our stuff to take home but we told him we were going to be eating them locally. I'm bummed we didn't make it back to buy some cheese for home. He also told us about a food festival he was working at but we wouldn't be able to make it because we would be in Mykonos at the time. I know, poor us.
The store also had these gorgeous displays of fresh spices. I would go back to Athens just to shop here again.
Normally this is the point where we would call it a day but we only had a couple of days in Athens so we had to make the most of our time there. Once we rested up, got caught up on the internet and got ready it was about 10pm. Perfect, that's dinner time for most of Greece. Our concierge, aka, landlord, recommended we go to Keramikos when we asked about local nightlife. It was perfect! As soon as you walk out of the metro stop there are restaurants and bars all around. We walked around to get the lay of the land. There was an outdoor concert going on and they were performing YMCA so of course we walked down the street performing for the locals.
We randomly picked a restaurant to eat at but once we looked at the menu we didn't see a lot we loved so we decided to eat apps and have a drink and restaurant hop. A little trick Barb taught us which we love. It's great when there are a lot of restaurants in walking distance. I have to say passion fruit drinks are my favorite! Of all of the various things we ate that night, this was our favorite, the mushrooms were so meaty tasty that they didn't need the prosciutto on top (and I love prosciutto) and beef carpaccio! While I would never prepare raw meat myself I love it. Serve it with slices of cheese and I'm in heaven.
The next restaurant we stopped at didn't really have a lot we wanted but we still had fun there. We ordered some kind of bean dish and roasted corn.
When we're talking about someone around us we sometimes take a photo so that the person we're looking at doesn't have all of us looking at once. I wanted to show Su what the guys behind her looked like so I had her pose for the camera. I love how this photo turned out!
We ended the night at Soho. I thought it would be funny to eat in Soho. By the time we hit there they had slowed down. We asked a waiter if they were still open and he said no, but the manager said yes, we win. My favorite thing about this place was they serve free bbg chips with our drinks. I loved them! My second favorite thing, they restroom is upstairs and it feels like you're walking across a catwalk while you're walking to it. There was even a little fog. I added a strut to my walk when going to the bathroom.
We felt bad that we were almost the last people there (again, where are the partyers, just cause it was a Tue.) but the manager said that he's up til 5am so take our time and if we wanted to stay past then, they leave the chairs out anyway. I love the people of Greece! BTW, we didn't stay til 5. We were pooped!
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