Lem, WTF are you doing in Athens???

So, the craziest thing happened this morning. I went into the common area of the hostel to see if the book exchange had something interesting, and who's there but Lem, my roomate back in Santa Clara? Seriously. I knew he was traveling, but our schedules didn't coincide, so I thought. He was on his way through Athens, up to Croatia with a group of people that he met that included none other than the guys I played drinking games with back in Barcelona. What a trip! It would have been fun to join them, but I had plans already laid out for some Greek islands. Lem was freshly tanned from hanging out at the island of Ios for a while. He used up all the sun, 'cause it's cloudy in Greece now.





















Anyway, out to the old stuff. We checked out the ruins of the ancient agora. Socrates taught there.
There is a ton of reconstruction happening in Athens right now. The plus side: free admission! Here are some pieces of old columns they are calaloguing.
















The area below the hill of the Acropolis has some interesting stuff, like an old spring with ruins of a spring house.
Here is me in the cave of the god Pan. This cave is where they used to worship him. It's strange that they allow you to just explore here. It seems like something they would rope off. And there were no people there. I guess it is hard to get to.















Most of the people around seemed stuck in a geography problem. They couldn't find the parthenon. It's up the hill, past the construction. Here is it.




































Temple of Athena (I think)












Theater of Dionysus.



















The parthenon itself somehow didn't inspire me as I thought it would. Maybe it's the scaffolding.

I bought a camera today. It's the exact one I want, waterproof up to 10 meters and everything! I didn't think I'd find one at a reasonable price because they were really expensive in Italy. Greece is much cheaper. I can even eat things other than cheese and crackers.

Tomorrow, to Naxos! It's one of the islands in the Cyclades that seems to have the right number of secluded beaches, people, accomodations, and sun.