Sunday funday!

Everyone started the day fairly early in order to get to the Flea Market in Plaka. I bought some presents for my UD roomies :) It was such a cool place to be! The market seemed to go on for ever; it winded in, out and around little narrow streets of Plaka. They had everything from clothing, books, shot glasses, to antiques and furniture. It was extremely crowded and noisy. Greeks are not the easiest people to walk in a crowd with, let's just leave it at that...

Next, Sami and I stopped by this shop in Plaka that is family owned and is famous for their handmade, leather sandals. The father, Melissinos, who is now a very old Greek man, opened for business in the 20s. He is known as "the Poet Sandal Maker," because he also is a fairly famous poet in Athens. His shop has been featured in tons of newspapers and magazines all around Greece. His son and grandson, who write poetry as well, now run most of the business.

 The shop was overwhlemed with shelves and shelves of sandals. Sandals hanging from the ceiling, on the wall, everywhere! And the smell of leather filled your nose and lungs the minute you walked in. Sami bought a pair of sandals. I took a copy of the Poet Sandal Maker's son's latest book of poetry (it was free).

Afterwards, some of us visited the archaeological site of Olympieion. It was the most fantastic site I have been to thus far. The site has a free entrance fee on Sundays, which was great, and you literally just go in and walk around you. You can practically touch the ruins. The Temple of Olympieion, or what's left of it at least, is so amazing; it was like seeing a dinosaur.

Another thing that you'll notice in my pictures is that the sky here in Greece is always so clear and blue! Rarely a cloud in the sky.

While at the site, there was a stray dog sleeping in the tall grasses near one of the columns. I sort of called him over and he came over to let me pet him. From that point on, he did not stop following us. He followed us all around the site, out of the site, all the way home (across three major roads, mind you). Meanwhile, he scared us half to death because at times he would run into the road to chase cars. He clearly was young and not very experienced. We named him Achilles because he was "fearless" and apparently willing to die for his country.