Exploring Athens

I am happy to say that I am writing this post with a full tummy (I know it's hard to believe that I, Lauren can get full, it surprised me too!), but here I am with a happy tummy, relaxing and getting ready to share with you what I expected to be an ordinary day here in Greece (I don't think they really exist anymore), and what turned out to be a day filled with exploring and LOTS of good omnom!

We started off early yet again (so early that I had to make way for nap time later), but this time we headed to the Agora. Luckily there was a good amount of shade to provide us with some relief from this blazing heat wave that Greece is experiencing right now, but not enough to make the class go by any faster...

This is how they keep the meat warm.
This guy is scraping off the meat just
before wrapping it in pita bread.

After we looked around the site for our 2 hour class, some friends and I set off for a little exploration, but this time we were prepared to get a little lost (notice that I said "a little" there, we don't wanna be completely confused in a foreign country!). For the first half of our adventure we checked out the back streets of the Plaka area (area now familiar to us with lots of tourist attractions) and we found 2 different museums, both of them were free and the workers there were really nice, one even refilled our water bottles for us!

After that we grabbed a bite to eat (yummy chicken pitas that are only 2 euros!), and rested for a little bit before we set out for the second half of our exploration. 

For the second half, we basically picked a direction and walked, it's that easy. Don't worry mom, we always kept track of where we were going and made sure to be aware of our surroundings. The unexpected part was that I didn't feel too much out of my comfort zone, but that was probably because I was just in awe of everything that was going on around us. So whenever we got to a fork in the road, or if we got bored of one street, we simply picked the road that was of most interest to us and continued on. It was quite a nice walk actually (and we were walking at a fast enough speed to get some breeze too!), and I'm seriously considering maybe doing the same thing tomorrow just in a new area. 

Now here comes the good part! After we made it back (aka we didn't get lost...this time) and I took my nap, I got up to get ready to head out with the group who had planned on heading to an Irish pub right before going to see the new Spiderman movie. Unfortunately we got to the pub an hour before the place opened, but a worker there was nice enough to relieve us from the sun and offer us some water (so nice!).

Sombrero shaped nachos, yummm!

The majority of the menu was in Greek aside from a few English titles such as Silly Hot Dog (I opted out of this one) and other things. But there was one dish that seemed to speak to my stomach, it was the Mexican Nachos, wait a second, a Mexican dish offered at an Irish pub in Greece? Yup! Sounded weird enough for me, so a few friends and I decided to split them along with the Irish Cheddar Chicken (this one makes a little bit more sense here). The nachos were some of the best nachos I have ever had in my life (we even ended up finishing off some of the others nachos who weren't man enough to eat them themselves, and the chicken was pretty good too (but this time nachos > chicken).

I don't know if I should tell you, but on the way back to the dorms we might have stopped for a crepe... I walked for 2 plus hours today okay, so I deserve to treat myself! But what was really cool, was on our final walk home, we passed by some guys that we had tossed frisbee with the other day. At first I had to do a double take and I still wasn't sure if it was them, but when they saw us, we exchanged a friendly hello! It just amazes me that even though we played for less than 30 minutes and had barely just met them, they were nice enough to take a second to stop and say hello, is almost makes me feel as if I'm a part of the community (not really, but I'm getting there!). 

Guess what tomorrow is? It's Friday!! We've still got class early early in the morning but afterwards the weekend is ours to take! We even have a birthday to celebrate on Sunday (more cake for me!). Happy early Friday to you :)