Greece, Day Two : Kavala
The second day consisted of a day in Kavala. In previous rotations, this also included a trip to the island of Thassos, but they cut that out because it proved to be rather long and cut out a good portion of the day. See, it took you an hour to get to Thassos, you spent two hours on the island exploring what you could in that two hour time frame, and then you headed back to Kavala which took another hour so WHAM! Four hours out of your day.
I would have liked to visit Thasos, but I was eager to use my limited time to explore Kavala. And check out the souvenir shops. :)
We bussed down to Kavala the old fashioned way. By Bus. This was one of the views off the bus that I had and I just started snapping pictures. It is a very large city, and the roads are not very big and everything is really close together. Very different from the typical American City. I really thought it was cool though.
They had some of the walls plastered in flyers (in Greek of course) that were kind of cool, including a communist one now that I look closer at it, so I asked one of my battle buddies (who actually severely out ranked myself) to take a picture. I kept handing off the camera quite a bit. "here, take my picture! Here, take my picture! Here, take my picture!"
They all knew it would someday land on my blog. I'm known for being the Task Force Blogger. So they didn't really mind. They were all pretty cool about it.
Of course, being in Greece, it wouldn't be proper to go to a Restaurant and not chow down on an authentic Greek Gyro. I've had Gyros before, in Seattle, which was good, but not the same. For one, every Gyro I had before didn't put Fries in it. They seem to always put Fries in the Gyros here. Its an interesting concept.
Everyone was chomping on the Gyros.
Next up, we hit the museum of Kavala. I got a nifty little souvenir ticket of the place (and ended up getting two more identical to it when I went to Philippi the next day and Amphipolis the day after.) I couldn't resist getting my mug with the Greek Pottery. Being a potter of sorts, sort of, (well, how many people do you know that can successfully throw a pot with their friggin' feet?) I have an appreciation for the Potters of old. Besides, I studied this stuff in art school, I couldn't resist being their to witness it in its original habitat of Greece (well, now in a museum, but STILL!)
Of course, being a couple thousand years old, a lot of the statues were of course, missing their heads and hands. Still, very very cool.
That didn't stop me from acting like a complete dork at times.
Yes, that video camera is in my hands. I took lots of video.
Heading back, this is Kavala at its best, most pictures you will see of Kavala will include its Acropolis. Which is that castle type thing in the background over my head. Which was to be our next destination. But first. . .
Greek Boats! Take my picture!
Look! Communists! So they are here, somebody mentioned the Communists to me before.
This is the Aquaduct, which used to span like 3 Kilometers or something and was how they got water to the city. This is the only portion that is left. I don't remember exactly how old it is, it was built sometime in the last millinia from what I understand. But don't quote me on that.
While we were heading up to the Acropolis, we acquired a friend. He had actually been hanging out with one of the groups a good portion of that morning. I hear later he got a hold of one of the infamous greek Cats too. I missed it.
It was quite a walk down these narrow roads and passageways to get up to the Acropolis (you can see how high it is) that wound around every which way in that portion of the city. The streets are small and the buildings are really close together, which didn't leave a lot of room for movement with the occasional car. And it was quite a hike.
Most Greek towns close shop for a couple hours around 1330 for religious reasons (most people here are Greek Orthodox) so we took this opportunity to see the Acropolis. Of course, I got my picture taken and then we spent the next hour and a half just crawling all over this thing.
And I took lots of pictures. Or handed off my camera and had somebody else take pictures.
This is a view of the city of Kavala from the Acropolis. You can see how tight the buildings are together.
And I look about 12 in this picture. (no, not complaining mind you, just an observation, I look like a little kid)
A veiw of the Acropolis from the inside, the SouthEastern portion of it at least.
This is me on the roof of that one building, the roof was made entirely out of rock. Very sturdy, and very cool! (I said Very Cool a lot, you should see the video of me narrating. I think I said Very cool every time I turned to shut it off for that clip. Gar! Find a new word!)
Just me in the northwestern more part of the Acropolis, you can see the castley effects of the Acropolis, and theres the Aegean Sea behind me (which you can barely see)
Another shot of me with Kavala in the background. But this time, you can see that I'm indeed in the Acropolis.
That door just begged for me to climb up on it and hang for a moment.
Moving down the street, I thought the buildings and the road were cool, we were headed for the monument of Muhamed Ali (i probably misspelled that, and no, its not the Boxer, I just know its spelled differently then normal)
That would be the statue there, and this is taken by yours truly. For some reason, when I snap the shot myself, I rarely smile.
I discovered an elusive Zebra Elephant! You know, now that i think about it, I think i've seen one of these little bouncy toys before that was that of a Zebra Elephant and I thought it was as funny then as I do now. But I couldn't resist, I hopped on and had somebody take my picture of me playing on a toy that I outgrew about 17 years ago.
EEK! PUPPY!!! Its. . .so. . .darn. . .CUTE!!!
Somebody asked me why I didn't smuggle it back to Bondsteel with me. Er, two reasons. One, pets aren't allowed on Bondsteel (and that's something that I'm supposed to enforce in my position) and Two, the owners are both standing right there.
I just no that I'm suffering from lack of animal contact anxiety. I've always had some kind of pet or critter stinking up my room in the past and I've gone without an animal for nearly four years now. That's a long time.
Must get pet when I get home.
Oh well, if I keep going on Vetcaps, I should have that cured, or at least pacified.
Um, anyway, back to Greece.
I crawled up on a rock at the base of that statue (and the church that accompanies it) and felt another kodak moment coming on.
Somebody else ended up jumping in the water. We all just kind of dawdled along this rock bed for a while and enjoyed ourselves.
I ended up getting a few more pictures taken.
Iraklitsa, which is where I was the day before, is behind me. Of course, you can't make it out, but its there in that land mass, I promise.
Of course, we turn a bit more and there is the sprawling outer parts of Kavala, complete with grafiti on rock.
By this time, the shops were starting to open back up, or at least one in particular who knew we were coming. We came along and gave her lots of business. I went shopping and got a bunch of souvenirs (that I now need to send home.)
Strange, I took no pictures of these souvenir shops. Maybe I took some video?
After walking around a good portion of the rest of the day shopping and doing whatever else, we grabbed some grub at an Italian Restaurant called La Roccos where I ordered a Pizza. I love Hawaiin pizza. But I think back and I think I should have gotten something a bit more traditional Italian. Like Lasagna or something.
We got back to the hotel at around 2100 that evening where we retired to our room and I talked with my roommate and started going through my stuff and showing her what I got (er, I got quite a bit). I was beat, but we had a good time talking until pretty late that evening.
That wraps up Tuesday.
SideNote: from the comments I got from my previous Greece Post, some people seem to think I'm still in Greece. As much as I wish I was, this is a recap of the events that happened last week, not this week. Sadly, I'm back in Kosovo working once again. But its all good. Bulgaria is up for July!Labels: Europe, Greece
-Risawn:
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