July 19 - Day 10

We both slept well and woke up around 6 am. Got ourselves dressed and up to the Lido Deck. Same drill as other mornings. Coffee and for me, bran! I’m doing better eating a bran muffin and bran cereal every morning. Today, many people will get off the boat and many new ones get on. 

We got what we needed for the day and with our Gemini itinerary in hand, we headed out. It was about a 45 minute walk to the Metro station and it was already hot! We stopped to buy tickets at a kiosk along the way. It gave us one ticket and told us to use another machine to get a refund for the other, as it had already charged us for two and could apparently only print one. We walked the rest of the way to the Metro station and didn’t see any other ticket machines. Inside the station, we tried to get help from the station attendant. He didn’t speak much English and basically said he couldn’t help us. There were ticket machines there and with Matt’s patient help, I realized there was a code and a PIN to get a refund on the piece of paper the machine had given us. We got the refund and used it to buy the second ticket we needed. 

It took us about 45 minutes to get to the Acropolis museum but we got there in time for our 9:00-10:00 entry slot. The museum is full of history and artifacts with so much to read. My interest in history wanes easily. I’m just not very interested and museums are very hard for me. Just the gospel truth. Matt is much more interested and knows so much more than I do. We spent about an hour there and then headed over to the Parthenon. By now, it is really hot. We entered the area and started our hike up the hill. The Parthenon is just incredible. Everyone needs to see it at least once. We wandered around the area and took lots of pictures and headed back down before we melted. 

We headed down the hill into the quiet, picturesque walkways of Anafiotika. Very narrow and tiny winding streets. Really unique. This eventually took us to the Plaka area which is a very busy market street. We found a cafe and had lunch. We tried a Cretan salad and some chicken gyros. I had a wonderful iced coffee. Cretan salad is an interesting combination of olives, tomatoes and feta cheese on a very hard crust of bread soaked in olive oil. Glad I tried it and don’t need to do it again. I prefer the traditional Greek salad. The chicken gyros weren’t the best either but they were ok. You can’t win them all with food and we are trying to experience foods we can’t experience at home.

After lunch, we walked back to the Metro and headed back. We had a very hot walk back to the boat. Yikes. Relaxed a little, showered and headed down for dinner. Shared our table with a couple of older couples, one from Canada and one from Australia. It was a nice dinner.

After dinner, we went to the Welcome Aboard Show, which we missed when we boarded the ship. After the show, we walked the Promenade a couple of times and then listened to the classic guitarist play a few songs in the Ocean Bar lounge. 

Great day. I’m enjoying all of them. I think it has something to do with this guy I’m with. Tomorrow is a sea day so it will be low key. I’m going to try and relax. Maybe do some reading.