More like life and less like a vacation

I think that after being here for over a month, it is starting to feel more like life here rather than just a vacation. We’re starting to forget to take our camera everywhere. We are eating “real” meals rather than just whatever is handy. I got a cold (just in time for the race… yay). That sort of thing. I really like being in Europe. I could definitely handle living here. That is, of course, until theHammer stops doing the laundry for us and then I would love to be back at home with our washer and dryer lol. We have been in Athens for 8 days and every day has been packed full of new things to see and do. I was worried a bit that a month in Athens might get boring, but I doubt there is any chance of that happening now. So, that is a good thing.

I seem to have missed a couple of blogging days again… I blame the fact that we didn’t take a camera along so I don’t have an excuse to be on the computer (downloading pics) to make me do the blog. That and the fact that I have now got a cold. Hopefully I feel better when I wake up tomorrow for the race. 

So… Thursday we found a reliable Internet connection that we are allowed to use. That was a big deal… I was getting tired of sitting on the floor, scrunched up near the door trying to find a signal lol. We stayed around home for most of the morning relaxing, then headed back up that same big hill as the day before so I could do some hill training. Unfortunately, it was already noon and much less shady than I remembered so it wasn’t as productive as I would have hoped. But… there was a playground near the bottom of the path and the kids had fun playing there for a couple of hours. Then we headed back to the apartment for lunch. In the afternoon, we went to the Benaki Museum and realized it was basically a summary of all the other museums we had been to already, so a pretty good one to visit if you are in town for just a few days. It is also free on Thursdays . We had searched out a small Carrefour grocery store that was close by and bought a few groceries. Then we walked home, down a snazzy European fashion shopping street. By now it was early evening, so the shops were back open and the streets were full of people. Very “re nao” as they say in Mandarin. 

Yesterday we took a long long train ride and walk out to Playmobil Fun Park. It is actually out of Athens, in the suburbs. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except we got a bit lost. Really, we should have been able to figure out it was just down the street from here.

It was a bit of a warehouse district and we were just hoping it was actually going to be open lol.

As soon as the kids saw the characters outside, though, they were very happy.

  

 

Inside, there were several areas of the different Playmobil themes. The kids could run around playing wherever they wanted and they had a blast. I think WEM should definitely get one of these.

 

Although we just had a cappucino and hotdogs with chips, we found it funny that they had a booze cupboard at the Fun Park, too. I guess those red and green bottles in Playmobil sets *are* wine bottles lol.

After we made the long trek back, we stopped to pick up my race package at the Zappeio Megaro.

Yup, the Parthenon is still there. Hopefully going to take a closer look next week.

The Panathenian … start and finish of my race tomorrow. Hopefully Tylenol Cold Daytime is not on their banned list of substances lol. Scratch that. I forgot to bring daytime stuff… I wonder how I would run while on nighttime cold medication… hmmm… lol.