Meeting Up With Friends

I sleep in this morning until 9. It feels good but it's not a completely restful night. The bed and the pillow is too firm. It's only one more night. By the time we get motivated it's after 10. We go by the Benaki Museum to verify its hours. It's open until midnight but I don't my friends will be able to stay up for it. From there we head to the national gardens. As we are walking towards the gardens we see a bunch of solders marching. We try to catch up and see but they get behind a gate before we can see whats happening. As we walk through the gardens towards the lake in the center we pass a pool of turtles.

It's really full of turtles and it's amusing watching them climb over each other.

Overall it's not very impressive. Half the fountains are turned off. It doesn't look very well kept up but I guess when your country is basically bankrupt gardens aren't a high priority.

We see this impressive building. 

It's an exhibition hall that is completely empty.
I get the text that they have landed. We should have about 40 minutes. We wander the gardens some more but work our way in the direction of the apartment.

We get the text they are close. I let him know we are 5-10 walk out from the gardens. We pop out on the main street that goes by the parliament building. It's the way our taxi took us. I say to Aparna I half expect to see them go by. As we get two blocks from the apartment someone calls "April". There they are in a taxi. We say hi and we'll see them after they circle the block.
They freshen up and we head out towards the National Archeology Musuem. We have to pass the university district so I figure we can find a cheap place to get a quick bite.

We don't pass anything that looks interesting. We find our way to the back of the museum and there are no restaurants there. We walk around front and find a restaurant in the front.

Nothing looks great so I go with an omelette. 

The National Archeology Museum. 

There is a small Egyptian section but that will be another trip.

Various Greek and Roman artifacts.

These are from Akrotiri. It's exciting as we plan to visit there when we go to Santorini.
Our friends are starting to wear down. We only have one key so we walk them back to the apartment. I'm afraid they will pass out and not wake up.

We walk by a burning building on the way back. It smells like burning rubber. Notice the lady texting from the balcony. 

We give them until 6 and head out shopping. Aparna finally finds a new bathing suit bottom.

We get back and surprisingly they are up. We decide to take a cab to Lycabettus Hill. This guy runs the meter and it's just under 4 euros.

It's too early for sunset but we decide to grab some drinks at the bar there. Our conversation takes us to sunset.

After our funicular experience I convince everyone to walk down. It's not that bad. We wander the neighborhood looking for a place to eat and end up at meat meat meat.

Grilled mushrooms. These were really good. 

Souvlaki for me. Man they like their French fries here. 

Eggplant pita for Aparna. 

My friends made it to 11 pm. We head back and crash. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Acropolis in the morning and we fly to Santorini in the afternoon.