Our Vacation Begins

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We arrived in Athens around 11 AM, which is a 7 hour time difference ahead of New Jersey. The weather was a comfy 78 degrees.

It was a pretty decent plane ride; I read my Angels & Demons for the most part and Eric got some rest, having had the window seat.

...the jet-lag hit us like a ton of bricks.

To our surprise, there was no customs station to report to. I thought that was odd since there was also none in Rome. Strange...

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We caught a taxi to our hotel, located in Lycabettus Hill, for 25 Euros. As a side note, the US dollar blows right now. According to Eric, it's $1.28 US to 1 Euro. That means we just took a $32 half hour cab ride. The gas here is also high @ 1.20 Euros per liter - that means $4.84 per gallon in the US. Anyway, driving through the hectic streets of ancient Athina, I noticed that this city have really narrow roadways. They are filled with cars, taxis, vans, smart cars and A LOT of motorcycles, like A LOT. It reminded me of the congested streets of Quiapo in the Philipines or the traffic-riddled avenues of Times Square in NY.

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Finally, we arrive in our hotel, St. George Lycabettus Botique Hotel. Leave it to Eric to snag us a room with a view of the mighty Acropollis - see for yourself... http://www.sglycabettus.gr/default.asp At this point, the jet-lag hit us like a ton of bricks. We took a nap, well, more like knocked-out for 6 hours.

By 9 PM, we decided to get ready and walk the streets of Kolonaki. It is the Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue of Athens, filled with shops, restaurants, bars and cafes. http://www.greece101.com/dest.overview.display-lid1-slid20-did7.html Lucky for us having had a late start, southern Europe, including Athens is open for business till the wee hours of the morning. If there was something Eric couldn't stop talking about, it was that he wanted to eat a Gyro - a real authentic Greek Gyro. His dream came true - not one, but two Gyros. One chicken to be on healthy side and one pork because we all know that's the better one anyway. As you can see, he was in heaven.

Needless to say, we had a busy day. Tomorrow, we lead off on a tour of the Acropollis and its surroundings. Untill then, kalee sperah - that's good night in Greek.