September 9, 2016
On September 7th, Carli and I left Curtis and
Shannon’s place in Burbank, and took off on a big jet plane. For real, it was a
jumbo jet with a second floor for the premium class. You never would have known
though because they wouldn’t even let us common people up the stairs. We flew
from L.A. to Frankfurt, and from Frankfurt to Sofia, Bulgaria. We arrived in
the evening, and got a taxi to the Sofia, Bulgaria mission home. Carli had
helped the current mission president with Bulgarian before they left to start
their presidency there, and after they learned we were going to be in Bulgaria,
they kindly invited us to stay at the mission home. We got to bed late, and
were up early the next day to catch a flight to Athens, Greece.
We found a cheap flight from Sofia to Athens a few months
back and jumped on it. We had exactly 24 hours on the ground in Athens so we
hit the ground running. Once past passport control, we made our way to the
Metro station and rode into town. We came out of the metro at Syntagma square
where the Greek parliament building is. Since we left Sofia so early, and had
been traveling all day the day before, we were already exhausted, and very hungry.
There is a café right on the square, and were surprised at how cheap it was. We
got a Greek salad, a Greek sandwich with a side of olives and bread, with water
all for 12 euros. It was just what we needed to start the day.
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| Lunch at Syntagma Square |
Because we only had one day in Athens, we got tickets for a
hop on, hop off bus. As it would get us to the big attractions that we wanted
to see, and we wouldn’t have to worry so much about finding our way around. Our
first stop was the Acropolis. We walked all around it, but didn’t bother to get
tickets to go inside because the line was a mile long at the ticket counter,
and it wasn’t worth the 20 something euros a person entrance fee. We saw it
from a lot of different angles, and from a nearby hilltop.
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| Dinner we thought was at the Plaka |
My favorite part of the day was at the ancient Olympic stadium. Since it was already September, the bulk of the summer tourism was done with and I guess the tourists that were in town didn’t care to see it because there were only like 10 people in the whole place. There was an audio tour that talked about the history, and usage of the stadium which was cool. We had to get running and podium pictures of course. Carli was nice enough to let me share the 1
st place podium with her.
Through the entrance tunnel in the back left of the stadium, is a museum that I didn’t know was there until we walked into it. They had a big room with a display of every Olympic torch from the modern Olympics. They even had a Rio torch already. The brass cauldron in the middle of the room is the source of the Olympic torch’s flame. I was expecting a flame to be burning, but I suppose that’d get expensive. So sadly, there is no eternal Olympic flame that is burning in Athens.
We saw lots of other stuff, and according to my phone walked over 12 miles during the day. Carli’s parents had been to Athens before, and told us we had to eat at the Plaka, and go the top of the hill with the white church on it for sunset. We thought that we ate at the Plaka, but it turns out that it wasn’t actually it. We did make it to the Hill with the white church though! They had mentioned something about a cable car, but I couldn’t for the life of me see or find it on the outside of the mountain. So with all our walking around the mountain, we ended up just hiking up the whole thing. It gave us a spectacular panoramic view of the city. There happened to be a wedding in the church while we were up there, so there were a lot of people up there for that. Carli was very excited about that, and turned to me and said, “It’s a big fat Greek wedding!!” The wedding group threw rice everywhere as they exited the church. We were up there until dark, and made our way down the mountain and to the metro station. It was a long and exhausting day and we were happy to be back at the hotel to sleep for a few hours before flying back to Bulgaria.
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| Saturday morning flight back to Sofia. |
We found a cheap flight from Sofia to Athens a few months
back and jumped on it. We had exactly 24 hours on the ground in Athens so we
hit the ground running. Once past passport control, we made our way to the
Metro station and rode into town. We came out of the metro at Syntagma square
where the Greek parliament building is. Since we left Sofia so early, and had
been traveling all day the day before, we were already exhausted, and very hungry.
There is a café right on the square, and were surprised at how cheap it was. We
got a Greek salad, a Greek sandwich with a side of olives and bread, with water
all for 12 euros. It was just what we needed to start the day. 
My favorite part of the day was at the ancient Olympic stadium. Since it was already September, the bulk of the summer tourism was done with and I guess the tourists that were in town didn’t care to see it because there were only like 10 people in the whole place. There was an audio tour that talked about the history, and usage of the stadium which was cool. We had to get running and podium pictures of course. Carli was nice enough to let me share the 1st place podium with her.
Through the entrance tunnel in the back left of the stadium, is a museum that I didn’t know was there until we walked into it. They had a big room with a display of every Olympic torch from the modern Olympics. They even had a Rio torch already. The brass cauldron in the middle of the room is the source of the Olympic torch’s flame. I was expecting a flame to be burning, but I suppose that’d get expensive. So sadly, there is no eternal Olympic flame that is burning in Athens.
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