Athens is a yellow dot sale. I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner! You know when you go to a retail store and they have the 'All Yellow Dots are 70 Percent Off!' sale? And you FUUUREAKKK OUT(!) nudging a few people out of your way to get to the racks? Some things are treasures, and some thing should be ALOT more than 70% off? That's Athens.
For instance- Did I tell you that Erik and I were in their botanical gardens and happened to walk past a large beautiful building with open doors? We walked inside and there was the EXPO TO TOP ALL EXPOS. There were corridors and corridors of stuff. Beer vendors, CHOCOLATE VENDORS, Coca-cola, smoothie vendors, cookie vendors, and cigarette vendors. We were give huge plastic bags, and we just made big circles. We were clearly the only tourists, so I have no idea why we didn't get kicked out. We were grabbing iced coffee after ice coffee. We had so many that our bags were starting to break, so we had to sit down and make a game plan. If I got him another beer, he would make a swoop over to the kit kat stand and the ice coffee stand for me. DEAL. (DEFINITELY EQUIVALENT TO A HUGE SCORE- MAYBE A FAB T-SHIRT FOR 2.50 OR SOMETHING) Only one problem people were allowed to smoke (A great pair of jeans with a whole in the crotch). Smoke EVERYWHERE. Who wants to enjoy a nice iced coffee with some too greasy potato chips when there are 17 cigarettes within a 6 foot radius?! By the time we left, we could hardly walk our stuff back!!!
Dogs crossing the street by themselves. The dogs in Athens are some smart pups. They literally and I'm not kidding, sit, watch traffic, and once there are no cars, they cross themeslves. I never got sick of watching it!
Meat and fish market. If a city has one, I go. It's an incredibly large part of the local culture, it is the ultimate cross roads of people & food. Athen's market was a tid bit different. It was hidden. We were walking down one of the busiest streets in Athens, and I saw a bunch of bags of nuts for sale. Curiosity won, and we were crossing the street. The closer I got to the entrance, I realized it wasn't a nut and fruit shop, but a meat hall of some sort. Again, the smell. Do you have ANY idea how different and considerably more pungent dead goat smells?! Walking in each butcher had his own little stand with around 5 goats hanging. All we're skinned. Their heads were intact and tied with a plastic bag to catch the excess blood. Athens is ballsy. They're different. Again with the yellow dots. If I wanted to I could have easily stretched my arm out and touched the goats. They weren't hanging behind the counter, but directly above it. We were literally eye to eye with these 'bahhhhd bahhhd' (HAHAHA) things. Alright, so, blood on the floor. On the butchers. The artillery these men had!!! THE BIGGEST, shiniest, scariest butcher knives I have ever seen.
'Oh, you want a leg?'
'Make it two!'
WACK. WACK. Literally, one for each. That's a mean knife.
In my book, this is equivalent to a tremendous find. If we're doing the whole yellow dot thing, this is when I'd be calling my sister. MOLLY!!! Molly, listen. I just found these pants... and so on.
This meat market never ended. Almost 90% of them carried goats. We turned a corner to the fish market. I was glad to substitute the DEAD FISH smell for the goat smell. Seriously? It's true. This was the first time we'd seen shark. I'm talking a 8 footer. One of a million reasons that I have trouble in open water.
Amongst all this craziness were Cafes. I turned to Erik and asked if 'he'd like his frappe with a bit of goat blood or fish scale?' because that is literally how it was. An open air market, things flying, people yelling, blood on your shoes, stench in your nose. Doesn't it make you want to pull up a chair and drink a coffee? Well, Athenians don't mind. Every 10 vendors or so there was a cafe. These people amazed me more than the vendors! They just reach their cup over to the fisherman, 'Can you put a little cod oil in here for me? It needs a bit more froth.'.
Lastly, our walk up Philopappou Hill. I can't do the pictures justice, so I won't even try. We did find a baby turtle. Erik picked him up, and said 'I wonder where your mom is?'. I laughed. Oh, Erik!! How sweet! You still think he should have a mom! A little rustling from the bush revealed a gigantic turtle. HUGE. 'Erik, set that down slowly...' They looked to be snapping or atleast could take off a finger or two. From this point on, we'd left the other 10 turtles we saw alone.
All in all, I'd say we came away with some great scores. Another great time in the Global shopping center.
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