Going Greek - Dining in and around the Plaka

Before I start this post, I'd like to apologize for the recent pace of the posts. DB~ and I moved on Monday into our new home, so naturally we were busy in the runup to that plus the actual move day. However, we thought that on Tuesday we would be fine once Verizon hooked up our FIOS. And then the whole company decided to strike....

So I'm coming into work early to do this post before my day starts.

Back to your originally scheduled post:

While in Athens, the hotel that we stayed at was on the edge of a neighborhood called the Plaka. The Plaka is an interesting mix of jewelery shops, shoe stores, souvenir places, bars, and restaurants. It essentially runs between two subway stops, Monastariki and Syntagma. Syntagma (Constitution in Greek) Square is where all the rioting happened in early July. It's disturbing to read about the first leg of your honeymoon on CNN.com with the phrase "tear gas still hangs in the air over Athens".

But they got that all out of their system by the time we got there, although there were still some protestors camping out in the Square. Plus while going to breakfast one morning, a whole Greek SWAT van rolled up and the guys got out with the riot shields and gear. It seems like that is normal procedure though for the Square.

Anyway, back to the Plaka. Like most of Athens that we visited, the side streets in the Plaka were narrow and only fit for pedestrians or scooters. A few of the streets were made entirely of cobblestone. There was always action in the Plaka district; it's pretty much a self-contained little neighborhood.

A common practice, which we did not anticipate, are the waiters standing outside the restaurants gesturing and leading you into their places. You have approximately 8.6 seconds to look at the menu before one of them descends upon you. You can politely wave them off, but then it's on to the next one and the cycle repeats. It reminded me a lot of Jamaica and how every shop owner would try and get you to come in off the street.

Our first night, we selected a random taverna to eat dinner. For an appetizer, we got a plate of hot, softened feta with olive oil and both black and red pepper flakes mixed in. The red pepper flakes gave it the heat and the black got your attention. It was quite tasty.



DB~ had Moussaka, as she went for the kill shot right off the bat. It smelled fantastic when it was brought out and she felt it was one of the best she's ever had.

I had a Pork Souvlaki dinner platter. The souvlaki is the Greek kebab, although kebabs (more Middle Eastern) are uber-prevalant in Greece as well. Typically, a souvlaki is skewered meat that is taken off the skewer and put into a pita with lettuce, tomato, and tzatziki sauce (cucumber with yogurt). Mine was on a plate with little wedges of pita on the side. I wasn't sure how to construct it with the tiny wedges, so I sort of ate everything individually. I'm sure the waiters just rolled their eyes at me.

For lunch on Wednesday, we got gyros (pronounced "heros") from a corner stand that was reputed by a Greek person we know back in Pittsburgh to be the best ever. The great thing is that if you get them to go, they are 2 euros rather than 4 if you sit down. Same gyro, just that they don't have to serve you, I guess. So we ate our gyros, lamb for me and chicken for the Squiggle, in the Monastariki Square and observed Athens life.

Here's a few observations from our short time in Athens:
1. Pakistanis/Indians are 2nd class citizens in Athens. The street vendors and beggars were primarily from these countries (maybe a Sri Lankan tossed in there too). When you would eat outside, the little kids would try and pull on your heart strings by playing instruments or selling you flowers, even at 11 pm.

2. Europe has not gotten the memo that smoking will kill you. Coming from a city and country that is trying to make it as difficult as possible to smoke, it was jarring to see all these Euros (young and old) firing up a heater before dinner, waiting for dinner, after dinner, after visiting the Acropolis, waiting for a subway, etc.

3. Euro dudes wear capri pants. American guys wear them here too, but it is a rare occasion and they are usually on their way to buy tickets to see Celene Dion or Cher.

4. Surprisingly, Euro women did get the memo to shave their armpits. This was welcome, as I didn't want to constantly see a woman and it look like she had Buckwheat in a headlock.

5. Scooters are the primary and accepted method of transportation for guys in Greece. Again, something a little effeminate about them here is OK over there. It's almost a necessity with the narrow streets and lack of good parking areas. Smart cars were very popular, too.

6. Lot of graffiti. Lots. And not just because of the recent riots against the austerity plan.

Our last night in Athens, we wandered through the Plaka looking for a nice romantic off-the-beaten-path place. We found it at a place on Adrianou that I do not remember right now and do not have access to DB~'s camera to find the picture. It had the interesting feature of having tables up the inclined alleyway next to it. Some of the tables were at the angle of the alleyway and some, like ours, were on platforms to keep it level.

That night we had some fantastic dolamathedes, which are grape leaves stuffed with rice and drenched in olive oil until they are soft to the touch and can cut with a fork. Another nice touch in Greece is that feta cheese is, literally, everywhere. They can't give you enough of it. When you ordered a salad, they gave you a block of it doused with oregano. Here's a picture of the grape leaves and the typical Greek salad.



For dinner that night, DB~ had a deconstructed chicken kebab dish and I had lamb kleftiko. This is definitely something I'll be reverse-engineering back here, as it was chunks of lamb slow roasted in foil with some tomato sauce, potatoes, and other vegetables and seasoning. It was a very simple dish, but had a lot of flavor.



Our time in Athens drew to a close on a Wednesday night. It would take just a short 45 minute flight for us to go to perhaps the most picture-esque place that either of us have been to...the island of Santorini.

Going Greek - Ancient Athens via Modern Athens

There are certain places you go and admire them for their beauty or skill or craftsmanship. An impressive skyscraper perhaps, or a beautiful sports venue, or a work of art. There are places you go that you are struck by their awesome scope and power, like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. And then there are places that humble you.

For DB~ and I, the Acropolis in Athens (and the Parthenon in particular) was one of those places. The Acropolis (High City) is perched on a hill high above Athens. We were able to look out of our balcony at the Magna Grecia and see the Acropolis looming over us, keeping watch while we slept at night.

The Acropolis is the conglomeration of different buildings that made up Ancient Athens. It was built in 430 B.C. and for being 2400+ years old is looking remarkably well. The centerpiece and most well-known piece is the Parthenon, which was the meeting center of the times. Surrounding it, at least what remains today, were a few temples (the Erecthion was to Athena and a few others), the Theatre of Dionysus (the God of Wine...kind of the party god), and an amphitheatre that has been preserved and restored to the point that it still serves as a space for live theatre and crappy new-age music like Yanni.



While looking at the Parthenon, I was struck by thinking of all the world events this structure has lived through. It was around 430 years BEFORE Jesus, lived through the Bubonic Plague in Europe, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Crusades, Roman occupation of Greece, Turkish occupation of Greece, the birth of America, Industrial Revolutions, multiple World Wars, and our current entertaining state of world affairs. And yet, in some fashion, it still stands.

As an engineer, the structures that most of us build are expected to have 50 to 100 year design cycles. This one is going on its 25th design cycle. Here is Pittsburgh, there is ample debate over demolishing the Civic Arena that is all of 45+ years old. That is an eyeblink in the Parthenon's life.

To get to the Parthenon, we walked 3 blocks from our hotel to the Syntagma subway stop, which is a main hub on the recently completed Athens subway system. The system was done in the runup to the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and is a pristine system. It is clean and bright and has shiny marble-esque floors in the station.

It is extremely handy to get to many key points of the city all for a very reasonable fee for a 24-hour pass. We also took it to get to and from the airport, especially handy because all taxi drivers were on strike while were there, for only 7 euros ($10) per person for the 42 minute ride.

It was an interesting juxtaposition for me to be enjoying modern transportation while hiking up hand carved rock steps all the way to the top of a hill to see a 2400+ year old structure. I probably didn't fully grasp it while in the moment because it felt like we were on the surface of the sun (not much shade in Greece) and surrounding by pushy, sweaty citizens of Earth.

The Parthenon is one of those places that I wish everyone could see once.

Going Greek - Meeting the Poet Sandal Maker

DB~ and I were married a couple of weeks ago and were fortunate to save our Canadian Pesos up for a 9 day honeymoon to Greece. There will be a whole series of blog posts about our adventures, people we met, and food we ate over the course of the next month.

Our first two days of the trip were spent in Athens, the cradle of democracy. We are both researchers, so we did a lot of Googling for places to check out. One that caught my eye was The Poet Sandal Maker in Athens.

Pantellis Melissinos is a 3rd generation sandal maker in the heart of downtown Athens. His grandfather started the business in the 1920's and passed it on to Pantellis's father in the 50's. Pantellis's father caught a break one day when Sophia Loren wandered in to the little shop one day and was enamored by the sandals. She bought some and put the store on the map.

After that celebrities made his store a regular stop, such as Barbara Streisand, Lily Tomlin, Jackie Onassis, and John Lennon. When the store was officially passed to Pantellis in 2004, stars like Jeremy Irons and Kate Moss still show up among many others. He is known as the Poet because in addition to making hand-crafted mid-priced footwear, he is actually a poet and renowned playwright. He had a very highly reviewed play a few years back in Athens that was a modern re-invention of the Greek Gods known as Bacchus.

Let me interject for a second here and mention about my footwear. These toes have not seen the light of day for many years, pools not withstanding. They are regularly encased in Nikes or Steve Maddens or Timberline hiking boots. I have ugly feet, in my opinion. But I was so taken with all of the sandal stores over there and the idea of having sandals hand made by the Poet, that I decided to get a pair.

The Poet's store is a neighborhood called Psiri. It started a few blocks from our hotel, but at night the Psiri gets a little edgy. It's darker than the more touristy Plaka district, with more locals inhabiting the area. During the day, the Psiri is artisan shops like leather makers, tinsmiths, and markets. At night it turns into bars and restaurants.

After dinner on Tuesday night, we were trying to find a good entry point into the Psiri, but every street was dark and narrow and edgy. We said "let's try one more" and wandered onto this street where we were greeted by the Poet's shop. Dumbfounded by our good luck and surprised it was still open, we wandered in. It was a tiny, crowded store with sandals strewn in no apparent pattern all over the walls. Very dimly lit, it reminded us of the Asian food markets back in the Strip District.

Sprawled on a bench, taking a nap, was the Poet. A young man was hammering away at sandals in the backroom. After he awoke, he handed us the color list of his 30+ styles of sandals he makes and asked me to pick what I like. I asked which were the men's sandals and he said all of them were unisex. We both giggled at the idea of a man wearing the laceup gladiator sandals popular with women, as shown on the sheet.



I picked the Diogenes model that the Poet himself was actually wearing. He asked my size and got a template down from the shelf. Once it fit, he hammered the sandal onto the sole and added extra nails for support and strength. He did this right in front of us, which reminded DB~ and I of our friend Tony from Jamaica who made our fish right in front of us. Both the Poet and Tony had hands that told a story of their hardworking lives.

So now I have sandals from a famous cobbler. I wore them all around Greece for the rest of the trip. My big toes, unaccustomed to such things, got huge blisters on them, but it was worth it.