Monday was Columbus Day, which is an American holiday that Matt happened to have off of work. We decided to go the Acropolis and explore. We went down to Matt's car and the battery was dead. It was a bit of a rough start, but I was determined we were not going to stay inside all day. I feel like I do way too much of that anyway. So, we started walking to the Metro. Elijah was not happy and threw a fit with tears and everything (I guess I should say he was tired and wasn't looking forward to a walk). It is quite a walk from our apartment, it took about 25-30 minutes to get to the metro.We bought tickets, got on the metro, 7 stops later, we got off, switched metros and finally arrived at the Acropolis, about an hour after we started out.
I had forgotten that everyone had said it was super hot up there (and it was!) It was a cool day, but up there, we were all sweating in our long sleeves and pants. We were hungry by the time we got there and ran out of water pretty quickly. So, the kids and I sat on a bench to have a snack while Matt went and grabbed us water. A few minutes later a lady who worked there walked up to us and told us we couldn't eat on the grounds. Elijah was once again very upset.
It was a long walk up to the top of the Acropolis area. It was very crowded, the ground was uneven and all uphill. There were a ton of tour groups, which surprised us because it's not really tourist season. About halfway up, in a rather large group of people, Elijah tripped over a huge rock that we had not seen (because of all the people) and ripped his new pair of pants and cut his knee all the way across. I was thankful I had a first aid kit because there was no one offering assistance. We moved to the side, got him cleaned up, which by this point he was more than ready to go. We walked a bit further and then stopped to see where we were at and which way to go, when a lady who worked there told us we couldn't stop there and needed to keep moving. I might have shot her a dirty look. There were tons of tour groups just standing there and I didn't see her saying anything to them.
We finally made it to the top and were surprised by all the construction going on at the top. It was really loud and a bit frustrating.We looked around quickly and then got out of there. We walked to the bottom and then walked from the Acropolis to Syntagma square to eat at McDonald's. There were riot police everywhere, but thankfully we didn't see any riots.
After lunch we jumped into a cab to head home, we had walked far enough. When we got home I handed the cab driver the 8 Euro's and Matt said "No, it's 21.whatever" and I'm like "What? No." So he said to the cab driver, it's 21.whatever, right" and they guy says "yes." I said rather rudely "That's ridiculous, it shouldn't be that much!" I had taken cabs here before, but Matt had not. We didn't have 21 Euros on us, we had not expected to have to pay for a cab or metro and it ended up being quite a bit. So, we scrounged around and ended up with about 18 Euros and the cab driver said "It's good, it's fine" and Matt said "Are you sure?" and he's like "yes." When we got inside I told Matt again it should have only been 8 Euros and Matt said "I've never seen a meter like that, it kept ticking up!" I said I was watching the meter it read 8 Euros and he finally realized he had been watching the TIME we had been in the cab tick up and he had just given the driver a 10 Euro tip! It was very frustrating.
Usually when we go out and explore a place here it's a great day and an interesting experience. Out of everything we have seen this was by far our least favorite. I don't know if it was all the surrounding frustrations skewing our perspective. But, I think for all of us it was the construction going on.
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