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April 2000

Athens

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 21:50:27

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From Jacksonville to Atlanta to New York to Athens is about 13 hours of flying total so when we arrived in Athens we were intent on getting to our hotel and taking a nap before even considering much else. We had changed money in New York at an exobritant rate but we wanted to have a little Greek cash on hand upon arrival. This was a good idea because that way we had much money for the cab driver to extort from us. Our cab ride was lengthy, informative (maybe), and about 9 times the going rate. Part of this was because of games with the meter (which we had been warned about), and part of this was because he was moderately good at switching a 5000 drachma note for a 500 drachma note without us noticing (until later). This was pretty much the worst thing that happened to us while we were in Greece though so at least we got it out of the way early. Plus there's the consolation that given the way they drive in Athens, that particular cabbie was almost certainly killed in traffic before we even had these pictures developed.

Our initial opinion of Athens from that cab ride was that it was polluted, dingy, crowded, and not particularly interesting to look at. After spending more time in the city, we came to the conclusion that we were right from the beginning. The trees in this picture cover the slopes of Filopappous hill and this is one of the few green spots in Athens. It's from this hill that the previous picture was taken. Our hotel, the Hotel Austria, is located at the base of this hill. The unimaginative architecture seen here is duplicated as far as the eye can see in all directions. When we arrived at the hotel, we decided to climb up to the monument on top the hill and take a look around before our nap. It was a pretty uneventful hike to the top, although the graffiti'd turtles were a bit unusual. Graffiti turns out to be one of the national pastimes of Greece. More on that later. Behind all the buildings in this picture (1) would ...

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