facts and myths

This is a giant plant of kebab, souvlaki, gyro, and psito pork/lamb.  And it was freaking delicious - intense, tender, smokey, salty.  Mmm, meat.

Eaten half in the rain, while watching the hustle and bustle of Monastiraki Square as the sun sets and all the lights come on.  I like crowds when I'm not entangled within them.

The one thing we never found was kokoretsi.  Regret.

Oh yes.  Passed this sad, used and abused wedding cake that looks like it could've been beautiful once - what a lovely reminder of how I do not want to have a wedding.


You can't really go to the birthplace of all my naive ten-year-old confusion about and fascination with Greek mythology without visiting the incredible sites themselves.  I loved how elaborate it all was.  How graceful the names sounded.  How specific each god was.  The stories always seemed to blur the lines between real and imaginary for me.  The connections, familial or otherwise, remind me of my own detailed imaginary world where I created a whole new family tree for myself.  I didn't really have the most firm grasp on reality...

But how could you when the Acropolis sits above the city overlooking anyone's ordinary day?  And the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium, the Ancient Agora, and Hadrian's Arch are all interwoven with street traffic and coffee shops?  It blew my mind.

I've never seen immature pomegranates before, so this was the most exciting part of my day.  Is it weird that they remind me of Kevin from Up?

Our last moments in Athens were on the rooftop of Maiandros.  The story is that we passed by this place on the first night after already having eaten.  Restaurant Pusher showed us some pictures of the view of the Acropolis and gave us his card.  We stumbled past this place again in the midst of sightseeing, and Restaurant Pusher miraculously recognized us in the daylight.  Color me impressed because here I was thinking we blended in with all the other Chinese family tourists.  So we promised to return for dinner.  Man was Restaurant Pusher excited to see us when we managed to make our way back.
We didn't get anything we hadn't gotten before with the seafood platter and gyro plate.  I was less of a fan of the seafood after having just come from the islands, but I did enjoy the appetizer/dips/sauces sampler plate (because you know me and sauces).
And it helped that they accepted credit cards on the day the banks closed.  I guess that was our cue to leave... that and the plane tickets.