We arrived in Athens, Greece on Wednesday and the four of us made it to our hotel called the Athens Gate.  This place is pretty spectacular plopped right down in the middle of Athens with ancient history all around us.  The Acropolis sits up high above us and looks remarkable.  Our hotel is across the street from the ruins of the Temple of Zeus.

Changing into some cooler clothes to match the 91 degree temperature here in Athens, we soon set off to explore the area around our hotel and to find some dinner.  A little searching and we were able to find a bakery with tasty offerings which we purchased for later.  Continuing our explorations, we found a restaurant recommended to us by the van driver who picked us up at the airport.  Now for the menu.  Fried calamari was available however I pictured it as perhaps arriving at our table as several sections of long tentacles that had been fried, and so I figured I’d try a safer bet, and ordered what was billed as “small shrimps fried.”  I mean how can small shrimps fried be bad?

As the waiter brought our respective orders, I was brought a plate full of three inch long creatures that had obviously been deep fried. There were probably 50 of them. They were the oddest looking “small shrimps” that I had ever seen but hey, we’re in Greece, keep and open mind and let’s see how it is.  Oh, and did I mention that everyone of these creatures had a pair of eyeballs looking back at me?  I think that makes it about 100 eyeballs staring at me as I began munching them down.  I ate around 10-15 of them and I have to be frank, they didn’t taste very good.  I turned to the Norwegian in our midst and asked him to try them and see what he thought.  He sampled one and agreed they didn’t taste like shrimp to him either.  When the waiter came by, I asked him to verify that this was a plate of “small shrimps fried.”  “No”, he said….”those are cooked smelt.”  Oh Lovely!  He soon replaced my cooked smelt with another plate full of apparently “small shrimps fried.”  As I observed these new creatures on my plate, I could see that yes, indeed, these were shrimp, about 50 of them.  These shrimp were cooked, deep fried in fact, with all of their clothes still on including their heads and yes of course their two eyeballs.  I think that makes another 100 eyeballs looking back at me.  Nevertheless, I started munching on em anyway.  However, after chowing down another 10-15 of these, the glow and exhilaration of eating our first meal here in Greece began to wane as the eyeballs on my plate kept staring at me.  In fact, I think I saw one wink at me.  It was at that point that I decided to call a truce in my stare down with my own meal and call a cease fire.  By the way, Doug and Barb ordered the calamari, gave me a sample and it looked and tasted great!

When everyone was finished with their meal, we stopped at a gelato place for some extra nourishment.  One scoop each of peach, pineapple, pistachio and chocolate sure took that eyeball taste of out my mouth.  Making it back to the hotel, we headed to bed for some rest and a tour of Athens tomorrow.