Friday, February 22, 2008

Athens, Take 2

Ok, so maybe I was a bit quick to judge Athens yesterday. This city is ENORMOUS.

Our host, the gracious Olivia Cerf, described the city as being "unconquerable" due to its massive size, but I really had no idea how huge it really was until Julie and I climbed up on the Acropolis today. From the mountainside, you have a sweeping view of probably half of the city, which stretches on for miles. After taking this in and realizing the tiny little speck of Athens that I have seen, I have decided to reserve any judgement I could possibly make.

Today was also the day of the neighborhood street market where vendors from all over Athens, and maybe further, set up tables of all kinds of fruits and veggies for next-to-nothing prices. The scene could only be described as chaotic as vendors took turns verbally advertising their goods over the hum of the shoppers in the street. People young and old had come to peruse the offerings, most with wheeled baskets in tow ready to be filled with bags of oranges, lemons and olives.

Julie and I walked the length of the market once, then she sat and had a coffee while I went back into the mix to see what I could capture. I spent about 20 minutes, just milling around the stands. It was tricky because all of the vendors seemed to know each other and I would hear "greek greek greek photografia!" whenever I would put my camera to my eye. I figured they were giving each other the heads up that there was a camera pointed in their direction as a few times I had a vendor shoo me away with a flurry of greek streaming from his mouth only seconds after the word "photografia!" was shouted.

Not all was bad though, a few vendors posed for me and most went about their business without so much as even sending a glance my way. I returned from the market minutes later with a good batch of photos and a few fresh oranges to snack on; 3 oranges for .20 euro, not bad!

The oranges were DELISH, seriously some of the best I have tasted.



Here is a group of shots from the market and a few from elsewhere around the city today. More on flickr in the updated Athens set.






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