gyros, ruebens, and a door knocker. — always grace, unlikely graceful.

Note to self: don't ever drive in Athens. But actually, don't do it. Stop signs are few and far between. People just stop in the middle of the street and leave their car running. It's a free for all. A general clusterfuck. A drive around Athens was our introduction to the city. Needless to say, we all needed a drink and a gyro when we finally got out of the car. Which we were told to park on the sidewalk. Literally. Martín had to back the car up the road and then park on the corner of the sidewalk. Anyway, we were all thrilled to have our feet on the ground, so we walked to Monastiraki Square where we had said much needed drink and way more food than we thought we were ordering. But we ate it all. Every last bite of gyro and fries.

After a nap and a failed attempt at watching the Olympics, we set out to find dinner. I should preface this with the fact that we had a long list of places to try and things to do in each city we were in, so we never really had to "find" dinner. Kate did a lot of researching and organizing so that we didn't have to fret about what to do. I will say her planning of trips were similar to the ones that Grandmother planned for us, but Kate included more nap time. And Olympics watching time. We ended up at Heteroclito, where we tried a number of Greek wines and shared some snacks. We sat upstairs around a small table but in oversized comfy chairs. We had fun, laughing the whole time we were there. We sauntered back to the apartment for an "early" night, since Kate insisted that we get up early to go to the Acropolis. Spoiler: it was worth it.

Another Martín-ism: always stop for the first coffee you see. Because you may not find another place. We may have had a hangry and tired camper with us. I will not say who it was. But it wasn't me or Martín.

After exploring the Acropolis, we went to the museum for a coffee and then toured the premise. I highly recommend going there, too. And early. Afterwards, we set out towards the Avissynias flea market, which has a lot of tchotchkes that you had to get through first. We happened upon a shop that led to a coffee shop, so given that we had had breakfast at 8am, we were now starving. The coffee shop/bar was actually the TAF, The Art Foundation, which had exhibits and artisans' shops around the bar. As we waited for our sandwiches, we checked out the artisans and even found some trinkets to bring home with us. It was a super cool space, reminding me of San Francisco. After our ruebens, we found the antique part of the flea market - one of the best any of us had seen! I will say Kate got haggled into buying a door knocker - a brass, shovel door knocker to be exact - so if you see it, be sure to compliment it.

After a low-key afternoon of packing and napping, we headed out for our last night of the trip. We started at 360 Cocktail Bar, where we had a stupidly cool view of the Acropolis lit up at night. Then, we headed to dinner and had a very good burger and smoked salmon salad. Being that it was carnival, the city was popping at 11pm when we left dinner. We walked back to the apartment, stopping in a bar nearby for one last drink. When we walked in, we felt like we were transported back to the 1920s, straight into a Gatsby party. One thing that I forgot to mention earlier is that you can still smoke in bars and restaurants in Greece, which just added to the vibe. Needless to say, we had a perfect last night. We slept for about 4 hours before heading to the airport to get on our respective flights. I, for one, was very close to not getting on my flight - definitely wasn't ready for the assyrtiko, spanakopita, and gyros to end.

Below are some more photos from our whole trip - click on the last picture to see more!