From Syntagma Square...

Since my laptop pretty much needs to be plugged in to function, I'm writing this on my iPhone...

From in front of the Greek parliament! Apparently the only place in town with free wi-fi. Pretty awesome. Apparently this joint is where the recent riots go down. The polizia have a nice habit of pepper spraying the crowds.

The trip in was pretty easy, despite the length. 20 odd hours, all told, from San Diego to Athens. Surprisingly, I slept great the first night and felt pretty awesome yesterday, but my luck did not hold last night, and I found myself staring at the ceiling of my hostel at 4 in the morning. Oh well.

Wrote this on coming in:

One gets the impression on entering Athens of descending onto a series of canyons. At first, you're on a pretty American-looking freeway, but soon these rough rock walls and graffiti covered dividers (and oh, what graffiti!) rear up on either side. The city streets wind between multi-level balconied aparment buildings. Nothing is parallel. But from the right spots, you suddenly catch a glimpse of the great rock of the acropolis, lit up in the sky like a the burning gates of heaven itself.

Anyway, this is a lame iPhone post, but Coming Up Next: the story of a delightful drunk chap named Elias I met in manistiraki square yesterday. There will be pictures!