Good morning, Greece!

Confession: this is my first time out of the US. Well, except for Canada. And does Puerto Rico count? Regardless, in a way you could say I’ve been looking forward to this trip for years and years. 

Last year while sitting on a porch in Chicago, enjoying the last days of summer, Matt and I made a promise to each other that no matter how crazy life was, we would take a trip out of the country before the end of the year. And life did indeed get crazy (hello moving across the country!), but a promise is a promise – and so here we are!

We managed to roll out of bed around noon, which is something like 2am PST. Tomorrow we’ll have to do better since we have 9am tickets to the Acropolis Museum (!!).  After some cappuccinos and spinach pies for brunch we made our way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. I did not want to leave this place. Words cannot describe it. You could not pull me away, so I stood and stared for nearly an hour, making Matt walk around the temple with me two full times. 

Next was the Panathenaic Stadium, home of the Olympics and pride of the Greek people. The only stadium in the world made entirely of marble, according to our audio tour guide man. We sat in the throne for Kings and Queens and ventured through the caves that Olympic athletes would use to enter and exit the stadium. We watched the sunset from the top row of seats and stood on the gold medal stand before leaving. 

At this point I’ve realized that everything in Athens exists in the shadow of the Acropolis. It’s high on a hill and it’s hard to miss. You could see it from every major site that we went to today. It’s comforting, since we are staying very near to it, I have not ever felt lost. It also helps traveling with Matt who looked at a map of Athens one time for approximately 12 seconds and now knows his way around like a regular Greek. I’m not sure how much of this is hubris, but he hasn’t been wrong yet!

On our walk home we came across a Greek yogurt shop, which, yeah. You don’t just pass by Greek yogurt in Greece. I have a feeling we’ll be eating a lot of yogurt over the next week. We couldn’t decide what to get so we walked out with one of everything (I’m not kidding). There is currently sheeps milk Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts in our fridge that I can’t wait to devour!!

But first, we’re off to dinner! Our AirBnB host recommended a restaurant to us “that has the good fish”, so we will obviously be going there! 

 καληνύχτα! (Goodnight!)