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Monastery
These are the monasteries used in a James Bond movie Dax made the border crossing between turkey and Greece seem really intense! He had told us the history between the two countries and they don't really like each other. It actually wasn't bad at all. What was funny was the differences between the two sides. A turksih soldier actually saluted us, and theybwere all at attention as we drve by. The grreeks were just kinda lounging around, talking and smoking. There were also a lot of garbage cans spaced about 7 feet apart which was a little odd. Even more odd was all the trash that was *next* to the cans!
Our lunch stop was in a cute little town called Kavala. I knew there ws going to be a roman aqueduct there, but I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know that it would look the way it did! I was picturing something like a tube in the ground. Nope! The tube was on top of a vey tall bridge sort of thing! There were also some battlements which I took to be roman. We had lunch theree and I had an amaaaaizng gyro. It's kinda pronounced like euro. It was delicious. Walked around a bit and found a
pelican pay phone. I tried to think of a good caption for it. I liked "pelican you hear me?" or "I can't hear you, can you beak up?" and last but not least, "wing me again tomorrow." in Kavala I had the huge misfortune of being the first one to go to the public bathroom. No lock, no toilet SEAT, no toilet paper, no soap, no paper towels. What it did have was a small stall, a wet floor, and an overwhelming smell of pee. Awesome :s
We arrived in thessonoliki at our hotel. Not even a hostel but a hotel! It was very nice. We had a walking tour of the town and saw some cool old ruins. I wasn't fully paying attention because my camera had broken and I was trying to fix it 😞😞😞 I did remember hearing that many of the older churches appeared to be sunken because the road had been built up around them over the yers. W had dinner at this restaurant that overlooked the water at sunset. It was beautiful. I wish I had a picture to show you 😞
Today we are on our way to Meteora.
PeliCAN you hear me?
Too silly not to post :) They are cliffside monasteries. I believe they shot a James Bond movie here. Dax said I could borrow his camera and put my sd card in it, since he has been there so many times he doesn't need it until I can get a new one. I ended up getting a new one in Athens, for a reasssssonable price, but it isnt as good. Hopefully I can tweak the pics on my mac when I get home.
Man, Meteora was AMAZING! It is a series of all these sandstone fingers coming up out of the earth. And on top of a few of them, some monks built some monasteries. ONe is even in a James Bond movie, F
or Your Eyes only. They are pretty amaying.
Athens was a bit different than I expected. Rome was old and beautiful, and Athens was.... old.... It is pretty sad about how Gree3ce was in the thick of things way back when and started so much stuff, and now the captial is so....Athens. Dax said it was because the Turks invaded and pushed a bunch of Greeks out WEst, so a bunch of refugees came to Athens. So
they had to build a bunch of apartment blocks taht were quick, cheap and earthquale ready. So I guess that exyplains why it is so blah.It is a little wild that so many old ruins are randomly interspersed with such ugliness. Dax said that Athens was more of a city that has to grow on you rather than immediatelz like Rome.
Wehn I was in Athens though, I opted top do the Hop on Hop off tour because I like to write down the fun facts for later use. Plus, I could skip the parts I wasnt interested in, and stay longer in the places I was vs the walking tour some of the other people decided to do. Im glad I did. They said that it was a very quick tour that they were practically rushing all day. One bummer was that the Acropolis museum was closed that day 😞 I was looking forward to it, too.
I saw all the main sights, so I really dont think I should get into those. I did get some great pics with Daxs camera and managed to even get some without people in them! I
Changing of the guard
They are pretty silly, huh? also went to the national gardens, but what was particularly funny was the changing of the guards! They were wearing pleated skirt/kilts with 400 pleats! They had some shoes with big fluffy pom poms. They stand there and kind waggle thewir feet back and forth. Reallllllly funny!
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