It hit me hard this past week that I only have a short time left in Greece. AND there will always be more left to see... So I decided that for this last week (besides the 7 hours per day of working), I will do my best to be a tourist. I started this past weekend, and here's how it went...

I spent Saturday morning, doing a food tour of Athens. Yes, I know that I have been living in Athens for about 2 1/2 months now, but I mostly eat in my apartment, rather than trying new things that are native to Greece. So this tour was an experience.

Here was our menu:
Loukoumades-- doughnuts with honey and walnuts

Amazing olive oil-- the smaller bottle on the right was lemon olive oil

Sheep feta cheese with cherry vinegar on top

After this, we went through the meat and fish market. I have a NASTY video of everything that I saw, if only the video could capture the smells too. :( I saw things that I've never EVER wanted to see-- cow brains, hooves, a whole rabbit, etc. I'll try to upload the video, but I think it's too big.

As if seeing raw, freshly killed beef wasn't good enough, we went into another butchers shop. Miran is a family owned restaurant over 100 years old. We tried Pastourma-- an air-dried salt-cured beef, topped with some garlic and other spices. The word "Pastourma," in Turkish, means 'to press' which refers to the process of pressing the meat before it is hung to dry.

So after that grotesque experience-- our guide calmed us down by walking through a fruit market. Although, I didn't realize that the zoning laws here aren't the same as they are in the States-- there was a pet store directly across the street from these exposed fruits... And i'm sure you guessed correctly, I didn't buy any of the fruit.

Our food tour ended after trying bougatsa and a frappe, then later with tsaziki and pitas-- both of which I have tried numerous times.

After the food tour, I decided to venture to incredible Benaki Museum! The neoclassical building imitates the classical qualities of the city-- a tetrastyle Doric columned portico made of white marble. The architect, Anastasios Metaxas, also lead the restoration of the Panatheniac Stadium. 

Inside the museum, I saw:

Gold leaf crown

Typical Greek outfits

AND LOTS OF POTTERY!!

On Sunday, I woke up early to climb Lykabettus Hill!! The hour and a half climb to the top was definitely worth it with the amazing view. However, I wish I would have known that there was a lift to the top, which was about 100 feet away from where I started climbing.

Creepy pathway

View from the top

After staying about 30 minutes on top of the mountain, I climbed down and wandered my way to Archaeological Museum. Next to this museum is the Athens Polytechnic School. The university if AMAZING, however, it has recently been destroyed by the graffiti from the elections and political tensions- such a shame...

My final tourist site that I visited was the Agora, seeing the Stoa of Attalos and the Temple of Hephaisteion. I got plenty of inspiration for my J. Neel Reid drawings! :)

Besides my touristy events, I've been planning my trip to Crete! I can't wait to climb the Samaria Gorge-- 16 km hike-- and see the Temple of Knossos. 

More later...