Good morning everyone. It is 0932 Athens time which means it is 0232 (EST) or 0132 (CST). Another eventful day in Athens yesterday. David and I spent the afternoon driving down to the coastal beach community and suburb of Athens Παγκράτι (Pangrati). It has lots of shops, bars and restaurants and is located right on the Mediterranean. It is as close as we have gotten to a beach. The real beaches are on the islands. Most of the beaches around Athens are not safe to swim in according to the EU. Hopefully we will get to head to the islands soon. You can do day trips very easily and cheaply.

I forgot to tell you all about our shopping experiences this past weekend. On Saturday we went to the market. It is just like a farmers market back in the states. There is one everyday in a different neighborhood. Our neighborhood, Popagou, has its on Thursday so on Saturday we went to the one right by the Embassy (3 miles from our house). It was amazing they have all kinds of fruits and veggies and everything is really cheap. This is the only cheap thing I have found in Athens everything else is outrageously expensive. You can get 1 Kilo (2.2 pounds) of tomatoes for 1 Euro. That is so much cheaper that what you get at home. We bought cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, apples and olives which are amazing. Everything is so fresh and tastes amazing. There is lots of screaming by the owners wanting you to buy there stuff because it is so fresh and tastes the best. It is a pretty cool experience.

Saturday afternoon we went to Carrefore which is a French based store that resembles a Wal-Mart. It has pretty much everything. That was a little harder shopping experience for one everything is expensive. Try 3 chicken breasts for 9.70 Euro. Now that is ridiculous. And don't even think about beef it is outrageous. So that is going to take some getting used to. Plus I cant read the labels so you have kind of guess what is what and what products clean what. It was a little frustrating but I will get used to it and as soon as our stuff gets here I will have all the cleaning supplies that I need since I stocked up a Costco before we left. On Monday I cleaned our hardwood floors and I had to spend about 45 minutes with the dictionary translating the label so I would know how to use it.

Yesterday morning we went to the property people at the Embassy to switch our some of our furniture. As you can tell in the pictures the green and gold couch although lovely would not have been my first choice. The furniture is actually very nice and of good quality it is just not exactly my taste. It is a bit more traditional that I would have liked. So we ordered a new couch, love seat and chairs. We had a twin bed in each of our guest rooms and we a swapping one for a queen bed (for all of you when you come visit) and once for office furniture.

The State Department has a book of furniture which you can look at to see what is available. And whoever picked out our choices back at State had very interesting taste. If it were me and I was having to pick out someone else furniture I would have chosen neutrals or maybe all blue, all tan, all red even but not this person of infinite wisdom they choice red with gold flowers, green with gold flowers and ivory with ivory flowers (my new couch). I swapped our our green and gold set for the ivory set.

Well I actually need to get to the gym today now. I have to get back in shape for Kristin's wedding and I only have few weeks and without a job I really have no excuse. Hope you guys are enjoying the blog and I hope you like the pictures. The link is below you do not have to log in to view the pictures. Please let me know if you cannot view them and I will try another way.

More to come..... Love from Greece!

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