On the second day, we went back into town to cover any monument or landmark we didn’t hit already. As we walked out of the terminal toward the bus stop, the street side was swamped with cab upon cab. Thankfully, there were hardly any cab drivers to bother us (otherwise I would have gone ballistic) because it was the first day of a 48-hour strike. No more did I have to deal with in your face cab drivers, thank god.
So we went from attraction to attraction, we made our way to Monastiraki and then headed to the Central Market, where there was plenty of fish and meat to be sold. Going to the Central Market is not for the faint of heart, the meat is presented in its most grotesque form, from straight up dead pig to skinned baby sheep. If I wasn’t somewhat desensitized to it all, I might have turned vegetarian. Oh, and I spotted a Filipino couple looking at fish.
For lunch the girls had Souvlaki, because I had it yesterday and they wanted to try it, and I had Moussaka. It’s simply lasagna without pasta, and with eggplant. It’s not bad, it’s not healthy.
From there, we passed city hall, and then landed in the Archaeological Museum. (Or was it the national history museum?) Either way, the place was filled with relics and artifacts from generations of ancient Greece. It took us three hours to traverse. I took three naps to get through. This place is huge and informational, but not exactly the most stimulating place in the world. We wondered how people could work there.
Somehow we made our way to a shopping district and Hang and Brianna looked at T-shirts and dresses. I quickly knocked off a couple souvenirs on my to-do list, and I looked for some ukulele strings. The first music store didn’t have ukulele strings, but the owner tried to get me to buy a ukulele for one hundred eighty euro. Are you crazy? Not even if it was straight koa! But after I did a little showing off, he offered it to me for only one hundred. As tempting as it sounds, and as much as I would like an acoustic uke on the boat that could help me go toe to toe with the devil a la Devil Went Down To Georgia, I knew I had not only one, but two with me. Also, one was on my back.
Moving on to the third day, Brianna, Hang, Veronica, and I headed out to the ferry to see if we could get a ride to Aegina. Fortunately, as we got there, there was a speed boat headed in that direction for about 23.50 euro round trip. When we got there, we spent the day at the beach, relaxing in the water, trying to teach Hang how to swim, trying to teach Hang the ukulele, eating, and sunbathing/taking a nap. We found a living conch, which was cool. We also found a sea urchin, which was not cool, but thankfully nobody stepped on it. There were lots of fish in the water, but when more people came to the beach, they went away. Overall, it was a fun day.
For dinner, I had longunisa tosino (I can’t spell for the life of me, deal at this point). The head waiter Ronnie on the ship introduced me to the chef Dany, who was also Filipino, told him I was the one asking for adobo, and then the two quickly conversed in Tagalog, which was over my head still. A couple minutes later, Ronnie shows up with a plate and a couple pieces of tosino from the crew kitchen. Another waiter Darwin came a little later with some kanin. It tasted pretty good, though it was wasn’t fresh hot. It definitely tasted like home cooked food though. They’ve made me feel so at home here. Brianna scowled at me for getting my own ethnic food while she could not get hers. I love the crew.
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