Our first full day in Athens

Today was our first full day in Athens and it started out great. Our Hotel, the Lotus, is just nothing short of terrific. Everything is new and clean and bright, from the all-marble bathroom, to the crisp new bed linens. We didn't have much luck with the internet, but I suspect that it had something to do with my using an American DNS rather than a Greek DNS. In other words, if I put in www.google.com it would usually never load. But if I put in www.google.gr it would load pretty quickly. Of course, knowing that didn't help me when my web site and blog site are solidly U.S. One of the best things about the Hotel is the breakfast. My goodness, it was a banquet! They literally had something for everyone and every taste. Naturally I went right for the Greek yoghurt and honey, something I've missed since I was here over three decades ago. But they also had all manner of hot dishes like eggs and bacon and potatoes. They had baked tomotoes to keep the Brits happy, too. After my double helping of yoghurt and peaches I also tried the custard, which was excellent, a cheese pie, and some sort of coffee cake which I would have eaten more of but just didn't have room. After breakfast, the Hotel staff kindly voluteered to babysit our bags while we went exploring. The concierge promised that it would be easy to find the nearby metro station and ride it into the old part of the city. Well, he turned out to be right on. Within minutes we had found the metro station, bought our tickets, located the right train, and were on our way. Four stops later we emerged into the sunlight percisely at our destination, the new Acropolis museum. Wow! What a place. Four floors devoted to all the artifacts from the Parthenon and surrounding digs. The museum itself is perched atop an ongoing dig. To keep from disturbing the site, the building was erected on concrete stilts. They've provided glass floors in some spots so you can view the archeaologists going about their work. Terrific, terrific place! After strolling the museum all morning, we had a very nice lunch in the museum cafeteria. The lunch was made even nicer by a Greek woman and her young daughter who invited us to sit with them and talk about life in Greece. After lunch, Concetta and I climbed the long stone path to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. Though much abused over the twenty-five centuries it has perched atop that rock, the temple is still nothing short of magnificent! Though we strolled completely around the perimeter of the Acropolis, the best thing we discovered was to find a resting place and just gaze at it. But all too soon we noticed the day waning. It was time to jump on the metro and retrace our steps to the Lotus Hotel, grab our bags, hail a cab, and make the afternoon dash down to the sea and our home for the next two weeks, the cruise ship Aegean Odyssey. Of that, more later.

Tonight, as I sit here in the ship's computer room, I have encountered a bit of a problem concerning the blog. Though this shipboard machine on which I am typing this account works much better than I experienced with the Lotus Hotel's connection, the IT folks have locked out the USB ports making it impossible for me to add photos. I'm not sure how I'm going to remedy this problem. Maybe come down here at midnight with the laptop and disconnect their machine. Arrrrr, matey. Me thinks this calls for treachery. What think ye?