Days 204-206: Athens, Greece

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Athens! Athens was a pretty cool city, we liked the feel of the actual city. It was really easy to get from the airport to the city on local buses (cheap too!) and felt completely safe to wander around. We did find that the Greeks aren't a particularly friendly bunch though, I don't think we could point out a shop or restaurant which had any spectacular service, but so be it. We were also constantly cracking up at the groups of Africans trying to sell their items on the street. They'd lay out everything on big sheets and as soon as a cop came near they'd grab up the corners of their sheets and take off round a corner waiting for the cops to go. As soon as they had left, they'd be straight back, putting out their wares again. It was quite amusing to watch! ;-)

We spent the first night wandering the streets of the Plaka area, going through the Markets and exploring the main squares.

The next day we went to the Pathenon (which was a little disappinting as it is currently COVERED in scaffolding!), the Ancient Angora and the Temple of Hesphestos. In the afternoon we were down at Monastiraki Square and saw this guy take off with an old lady's bag - he goes sprinting past us with this woman screaming after him - and then from out of nowhere, this policeman took him OUT! The cop literally dive tackled the baddy at about 100km an hour, you could hear the crunch of impact! It was pretty cool to see actually! The police were on him in a second and obviously had lots of practice at bringing people DOWN! Ker-smack!

The next day we walked several km to pick up our ferry tickets to Mykonos, visited the Temple of Zeus, shopped for Brookie's bday present and did more wandering around. While shopping, saw a guy start a fight in the same square, , and again the police were on him in a second! Then big fights ensued and the streets just fill up with people staring on, we thought it was pretty good entertainment!

Athens was a nice city to visit, but bring on the islands!

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