Get Awesome Gets It Everywhere: I'm on a boat!...to Crete...

Athens has been fantastic. We can't say enough good things about it. It's a melting pot of culture and has a unique, busy, metropolitan charm. The people are, for the most part, beautiful and friendly. It lends itself to being a bit dingy, but a lot of that is probably due to the fact that every building is white. And busy. It's striking to be atop the Acropolis and look out and see a sea of white. That was also amazing; you can walk blocks and kilometers in the bustling urban area and look up and "oh hey, there's the Acropolis!" Very cool.

JD got GA onto Couchsurfing.org and through that we met some really great people. Our new friend Vanessa was quite awesome. We met her at the Acropolis, as well as a few other folks from CS, for a free concert and had a blast on top of a hill across from the Acropolis. Great conversation with great people. We met up with Vanessa a day or so later for more of the same in what is apparently the "riot area" and had some good food and drink with more great people and met another friend, Roxani, who we're looking forward to hanging out with again.

Another aspect that stood out was the flora and fauna. It's an arid climate and has many of the same plant life that you can find back in Arizona, except there's the Mediterranean sea. Which we got a more intimate experience with, thanks again to Vanessa. She took us about an hour outside of the heart of Athens to a beach looking out at the Temple of Poseidon. Awesome, awesome, awesome day sunning, swimming, skipping rocks, talking and partaking of some fine Greek baked goods. Towards sunset, we went to the Poseidon temple. Probably the most gorgeous sunset ever.

It was interesting to compare how the stone work had aged versus the temples in Athens.

We've since booked our tickets to Crete. We rented a car for a week so we can drive around the island and camp on the beaches. We also picked up fins and snorkels. Our boat leaves in the evening and we'll arrive in the morn. It's gonna rule something fierce.