Some Interesting Observations

 I have been surprised to see Graffiti everywhere.  No place is sacred.  They must have a lot of bored teenagers and no one seems to want to clean it up. 

Our branch president's wife said that you can take a bike tour in downtown Athens and see some really cool graffiti.  

There are garbage pick up stations on every street.  You take your bagged garbage down and put it in either regular or recycle bins.  Some garbage dumpsters are overflowing.  Some have bags lying all around them.  I don't think the garbage man stops to pick them up and so they sit.  And stink.  The city also prunes the many trees that line the streets so that they don't get into the electric wires above the street.  They just have piles of pruning everywhere.  Otherwise, it is very clean.  

We were walking down our street and an older lady was sweeping in front of their apartment building.  I said hello to her.  She tried talking to us in Greek.  I of course understood nothing which is such a pity but finally thought to have Kim show her his name badge which had Church of Jesus Christ in Greek.  She was immediately unfriendly and left.  We are learning that it is not a pleasant experience if you belong to any church but the Greek Orthodox church.  You are ostracized from family, friends, work, etc. when you join our church.  The members have made many sacrifices to belong and stay active.  

The streets are filled with lime, fig, olive and pomegranate trees.  One Elder said he picked an orange and it was very sour like a lemon. 

We live in the Agia Paraskevi area northeast of Athens. We live on Alexandrou Papanastaseoiou street.   It is one apartment building after another all in blocks with gates, trees, and graffiti.  They all look pretty much a like and are sprinkled with businesses here and there.  We found a bakery this morning and Kim is ready to go back when we get paper cash which is the preferred way to pay for things. 

At every gate, is a lock.  In our apartment you need to unlock the gate, go into the complex, lock the gate back up.  Unlock the front entrance to the apartments, go in and lock it back up, then go up the stairs and unlock the door, go in and lock it back up.  Everything has multiple locks.  I hope we are never in a fire because it takes forever to go through all the locks.  

We have tried putting our clocks and water pick, etc. on the adapters and found that it wasn't a good idea.  We will be looking for new ones when we get brave enough to shop.  

We have enjoyed seeing everyone come out in the evenings just like in the movies where they eat at small outdoor cafes and kids run in the streets or play soccer at the local playground.  School will start in one more week.  I passed a pizza place and out in the open they had this huge pizza and were cutting off pie wedges to sell.  I have never seen such a big pizza about the size of a round table.  

We laugh a lot with the Reidheads and are so grateful that they are here learning with us.  Sister Reidhead explained their drive to the post office today and said it was nail biting.  I was so impressed that Elder Reidhead was driving after just arriving here until I learned it was the missionaries that drove them.  They are fearless and said that everyone has put dings in their cars.  

So....we traded traffic sounds like sirens, beeping cars, grinding cranes and stop/ start sounds for a very quiet neighborhood and only the cicadas making their presence known.  

This is how they finish off wiring in the house,  Wire stubs are everywhere.  

Looking down from our balcony in the back.  Trees are everywhere a building isn't.

This is our back balcony from a different angle. 

This is looking across our apartment in the back.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see cactus on the roof.  There are lots of plants on people's balcony.  They were out watering in the evening when we were walking.