Heavy Metal Taxi

Hot. It's very friggin hot in Athens.

Today was our first full day in Athens. Last night we ate dinner on the roof of our hotel, where they had a beautiful view of the Acropolis (the hill where the ruins of the Parthenon, etc. are) which is all lit up at night.

Today we decided to take a cab to the Acropolis and see the ruins. Our cab driver began asking us if we liked Bruce Springsteen since we were from th USA. That pretty much turned into a conversation about Heavy Metal and he put on the new Dream Theater album as he drove us as close to the Acropolis as possible. I don't know about that reputation about the cab drivers being shady.....

The ruins were cool, but once we got back down the hill, we realized that we had skipped the museum at the top. So back up we went. We found out later that the weather was 99 degrees today, which is unusual for June. So that sapped us of our strength and we spent a good deal of the afternoon napping in our air conditioned hotel room.

Intersting side note: yesterday we saw some Sheik-looking guys standing outside our hotel with bullet-proof vest wearing security guards. Today they installed a metal detector in the lobby. And while we were napping, we were awoken by a protest in front of the hotel. The police had even blocked off the streets. Um, yeah.

Turns out there was a student protest right in front of the hotel on the 16th, just days before we got here. http://www.connpost.com/ci_6151207?source=most_viewed
Our hotel is right across the street from the Parliament Building, so maybe that had something to do with today's angry shouting.

Anyways, now it's almost 10pm and the sun JUST went down. We finally understand why Greeks have a siesta in the afternoon and stay up super late eating dinner. So we're off to eat in the ancient town of Plaka. Tomorrow's our last full day in Greece, but we're both so sick of the sun now that we may end up doing something lame and in-doorsy. Good bye!