athens

This is my favorite picture from the whole trip.

Athens had approximately six hundred zillion street dogs. They seemed reasonably happy and clean, actually; I think somebody or some organization had to be taking care of them. None of them were mangy or had fleas and a couple actually had collars, though no nametags. They all looked related, too.

We arrived in Athens early enough on Sunday to actually have time to explore it. Our ferry to Santorini was at an ungodly hour Monday morning, so we crammed as much of Athens in as we could. Cedric had been there before but he was very good-humored about my need to be a tourist. I've always had a bit of a thing about ancient Greece -- plus I'm an archaeology major -- plus I just took a class on Greek Art and Archaeology -- so I was more excited than I probably had any right to be. We hit all the major tourist sites we could: the Acropolis (Pantheon, Temple of Athena Nike), the Temple of Olympian Zeus (arrived after it closed, but peered through the fence for a while), the Agora.

After his long trip (India, China, South Africa, artistic pictures available on his blog) Cedric was very tan and very skinny. Oh my.



Theater (later that day they were rehearsing some opera -- Carmen, I think):



Parthenon:



Temple of Athena Nike, with caryatid pillars:



Looking down on the theater from the top of the Acropolis:



The Temple of Olympian Zeus:



(through the fence)



View of Athens. which is the very definition of urban sprawl:



Cedric in front of the Acropolis, humoring me:



Next up: Santorini.