We Are In Greece!

Hello everyone. As you know from my title my family and I are in Greece. We arrived in Athens on Monday after two long flights and little sleep. From the airport we decided to take a taxi to our apartment. Our driver had a hard time pulling up our address but we had faith he knew how to get us where we were headed. After driving through the maze of Athens' streets, he stopped at an apartment building, and we took all our stuff out of the car thinking the building was the correct one. We unloaded our bags, payed him and he drove away. We walked up to the building to ring the doorbell for our apartment but none of the names were correct, so we stood around scratching our heads and biting our nails for awhile (not literally, just metaphorically, although we did stand around for awhile) until our hopeful savior walked up to go into the apartment. We asked her if she knew where our apartment was, and she said nothing because she didn't speak English (and we definitely don't speak Greek) but suddenly another women walked up and she knew what we were saying and helped us. We thanked her and walked away following our new directions - go straight, then right, and then left. After walking around for awhile we realized that it should have been two rights, but at least we got safely to our new little home. 

Athens from above

View from our apartment

There is a ten hour time difference with Greece and Point Arena which means it has been really hard going to sleep on a regular schedule. Our first night we only slept for about three hours. This has been really hard for our daily routine. Today we woke up at three in the morning but went back to bed and didn't wake up till around one in the afternoon, so when we ate it was like lunch and breakfast at the same time (AMAZING). Although we have been suffering from extreme jet-lag we have managed to get out of our apartment for a night time walk to see the lit up Acropolis and today for a walk up to Lykavittos hill for an amazing 360 degree view of the city. The hill's name means "Hill of Wolves" because in ancient Greece the hill was covered in pine trees and wolves inhabited it. 

Acropolis all lit up 

Our neighborhood is centered around a small square called Exarhia and the sides of all the buildings are covered in spray painted words and art as high as you can reach. The man we are renting our apartment from said they are often political. There are also cool murals. I will continue to write about my explorations of Athens and beyond. 

Street art

Street graffiti