The transit strike ended up being a non-issue for us. We went to our hotel and the guy at the desk told us we'd be able to take the bus to the airport instead. We asked if there are frequent metro strikes in Athens. He said no, the last one was over 2 weeks ago.
Ruins abound.
Some in decent shape, if partially restored, like this theater in the Acropolis.
On the top of the Acropolis there are so many column heads that they just stack up all over the place.
When they dug the subway in Athens, they found lots of good stuff, like tombs. One person's eternal resting spot is currently at the Syntagma subway station.
Graffiti everywhere. A lot of it is just ugly tagging:
While some is a bit more on the artful side:
Amanda and I saw about as much of Athens as we could in 24 hours. I left with the impression that it is a pretty grimy place but it certainly has character. It wasn't too hard to get off of the tourist track and have a really great dinner in a neighborhood taverna. Perhaps we'll go back someday, when the EU has made up for Greece's crippling debt by selling all of their antiquities to the highest bidder.
A few hits on London-
Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 really wants you to take the Heathrow Express into London instead of the Underground. There were no signs whatsoever for the Underground that I could find. We ended up making our way to Terminal 3 and finding it from there.
We used Hotwire to get a hotel in London and ended up staying in the Kensington neighborhood. It seemed that people celebrate St. Patricks Day to a similar extent in the US.
Our hotel was next to a showroom for Bristol Motors, a boutique auto maker of whom I'd never heard. Their cars looked to be designed in the 80s and not updated since.
We're back in Seattle now, hanging out with our friends Shelby and Ross while we settle in and find a new residence.
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