Plan C: Cyprus

Today we had been planning on going SCUBA diving but that was cancelled due to the weather. I think we are SCUBA cursed. Every time we try to get something set up either the weather is bad or one of us is sick. It’s getting to the point where we are probably forgetting how to do everything.

Plan B was to go to Piraeus where all of the ferries depart from and take this nice sounding cruise that visited three different Greek islands. Well… we got to the docks and couldn’t find the right boat and none of the travel agent offices seemed to know what we were talking about so we gave up.

I was having a little brain storm though. The island nation of Cyprus was very nearby and when we looked it up a round trip ticket was only $100ish. Why not?

We had a fruit juice break.

We booked a flight later that evening and then had a few hours to spend in sunny Athens. We headed over to the Acropolis Museum to learn a little more about what we had seen the day prior.

Even the area outside the entrance to the museum is cool. The ground is made of giant glass panels where you can see active excavations taking place.

Apparently many of those nice white marble statues that you’re used to seeing used to be in full color. Some of the statues in the museum had a replica nearby painted how it would have been to give you an idea of the original. Lydia liked these but I thought they looked pretty garish. Especially when the statue is of a god I don’t want to see it with candy apple red lips and bright yellow hair. It reminded me of something a little kid would color. Oh well.

A nice statue with its clown equivalent.

This was an exhibit I enjoyed about how they made the different pigments. That cross section of a pot in the center there is illustrating how they made white by suspending some lead in vinegar and something else to get it to oxidize, which they would then scrape off.

The Erechtheion’s Caryatids were an especial favorite of mine and they were in a section of the museum which allowed pictures which was nice.



The Acropolis is so important it even has a Lego model.

The museum has a section built for the Parthenon’s marble exterior statues, many of which are in the British Museum, as a way to pressure the British to return the statues. I thought that was an interesting bit of international politics.

This is a little model of what one end of the Parthenon's top part is supposed to look like. There's a lot  of godding going on there.

We did a little bit of strolling afterward to find lunch at a place our guidebook said was killer.

The Drachma was Greece's currency prior to the Euro.

The cheap flight we snagged was on Ryanair which was a notable experience. They are one of those airlines with an initial low price which then attempts to fee you to death. They were going to charge us $15 a person just to print out our boarding passes so luckily we found an internet cafe ahead of time to print them out ourselves. Baggage is another danger zone but luckily we just have our backpacks so we got through the fee gauntlet unscathed.

Once on board it was kind of amusing. There were ads on the backs of the seats, and spots for ads on the overhead compartments although they weren’t being used on this flight. During the flight they came by with maybe 5 or 6 different carts full of crap they were selling: food, drinks, toys, perfume, some kind of portable cell phone charger, etc. The music that plays while boarding even had ads in it.

My favorite sell was when they came out with these scratch off lottery ticket things that were supposed to benefit charity.

There were no tray tables and no seat back pocket things, I assume to save on weight and to make cleaning the airplane faster. It was sort of like if IKEA ran an airline. It wasn’t a long flight and it got the job done so more power to them.

The emergency info was just printed right on the seat back.

Paphos, Cyprus is sort of like what the Caribbean was supposed to be. Very quaint and serene. Somehow I got wrapped up in this minutes long conversation with the hotel man about the banana plants next door. He was very friendly and had plenty of time to spend talking with us. Cyprus is sort of like Greece’s little brother, so I got the impression that Greece’s economic woes are being shared with Cyprus.

Said banana plants.

The hotel was pretty nice and dirt cheap.

I don't know if it's the whole country or just this hotel but they had that unfortunate "no flushing toilet paper" policy.

Cyprus has an interesting history. Apparently it was conquered by King Richard I while on his way to the Holy Land for some crusadin'. He wasn't even planning on conquering the island but some of his soldiers ship wrecked there and were imprisoned so he laid the stomp down. Richard apparently didn't even want the island because soon after he sold it to the Knights Templar. So awesome. More recently there's been a bit of a tug of war over the island between Greece and Turkey. The Republic of Cyprus has legal authority over the island but the northern half of the island is under Turkish occupation, which is a major roadblock in Turkey's flirtation with joining the EU as Cyprus is a member state.

I would say that some people who asked how long we were staying acted just shy of insulted that our stay would be so brief. This was pretty similar to how locals responded in the Caribbean. I wonder if really small countries are self conscious of the fact that there isn’t really much to see and do.

Well it was already pretty late so there wasn’t much time to do anything other than walk to a little restaurant in the neighborhood. Lydia had some souvlaki which is what the Greeks sometimes call gyros. It's a long story. This was comparable to what we’ve had in Greece except it had an unfortunately large amount of cilantro.

An Athens Sick Day

Today we were supposed to go to the Greek island of Santorini but I was having a serious gastrointestinal situation so we stayed in the apartment and Zeke and Angela went on without us.

After a bit of recovery I tentatively explored a couple sites in Athens as a consolation prize.

We headed over to the Acropolis to see what was happening. I was walking along the Parthenon minding my own business when a big gust of wind blew my hat off my head and into the Parthenon, past where tourists are allowed to tread. The gods themselves were jealous of my rocking free camo Keystone Light hat and stole it from me! Not cool, Athena.

We saw some other old stuff, yada yada. By this point in our trip I’m having a bit of ancient building fatigue. On the whole I would say the Greek ruins seem much more ruined than those in Egypt from the small amount that I saw.

Greece has the same circle bread (my name) things for sale as they did in Turkey.

The other thing on my must-see list was the changing of the Evzones at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square. These fancily dressed dudes bring to mind the Swiss Guard at the Vatican but these guys even have an extravagant march to match. Their kilts are said to have 400 pleats representing the 400 years of the Ottoman Empire's occupation of Greece.

We finally got to go to a supermarket that we found down an alley after much asking around. It was a small, fancy Whole Foods type place but I really didn’t care. We got some cheese, wine, tomatoes… pretty typical Greek stuff. I bought a little carton of fresh apricots which were pretty damn good.

My stomach was still questionable so that was all the excitement I was interested in for the day. We brought our grocery prizes home and snacked on them.

The building across from ours.

Getting To Athens Then Taking It Easy

Today we we flew from Cairo to Athens but after that we pretty much took it easy. We didn’t want to pull a muscle overdoing the tourism.

If I ever have kids we are dressing like this once a week.

Egypt Air gives you free newspapers in coach! I think that's a first.

We booked another Airbnb for Athens but this time instead of someone meeting with the owner we were given a set of instructions out of Mission Impossible. In summary we were to go to an address and type in a key code to enter. Then a few floors up we would find a small safe attached to the wall where we entered another code. Inside the safe were a few containers. Opening the correctly marked contained would yield our room key, which we then needed to take to a different address to get our room. It was a lot of work with heavy bags but was actually kind of fun.

A nice long, slow lunch outside reminded me why Europe is awesome. There wasn’t a huckster pushing pyramid statues to be seen.

After some napping we went to find dinner in our new neighborhood. There was a restaurant in our guide book that made food according to ancient recipes that sounded awesome and after a bit of effort we found the place. Unfortunately that place had closed but a new restaurant called Abakas had taken its place. Why not?

The menu was entirely in Greek without any pictures. Our waiter was very patiently explaining every dish in detail but we just told him to bring whatever he thought we’d like. It was a risk but the other way was taking forever.

First he brought some complimentary shots of strong raki which is a close sibling to ouzo. They are both aniseed flavored but ouzo must come from Greece and I guess raki can come from anywhere though it's usually associated with Turkey. Next was some bread with honey mixed with olive oil as a dip. Appetizers kept coming and after the fourth we were starting to worry what we’d signed up for. Luckily next was the main course which was a giant chunk of lamb which we were supposed to carve ourselves and share. It felt kind of like Thanksgiving. Last was a complimentary dessert. It was a pastry that was maybe fried and covered with powdered sugar with I think sweet ricotta inside. It was pretty much a cannoli in a different shape.

Our waiter was awesome and was even so kind as to book us a taxi for the next day. He said he was from the island of Crete and offered pretend condolences when we said we were headed for the island of Santorini.