Water, water, everywhere!

Monday
Breakfast with Mee, our roommate who is leaving for Istanbul today
Athensbybike bike rental not open, even at 10:30
Piraeus walkabout. This is the biggest port in the Mediterranean!
no bicycles in Piraeus. everyone was shocked by the idea that we wanted to bike around the port city!
Lots of ferries
At one of the harbors, we found a series of exercise machines with detailed instructions. They were mostly being utilized by excited old ladies. The "surf simulator" was pretty cool -- as was the giant metal elliptical. In English, signs detailed how they improved "pneumonic function and flexibility" and also explained how to use the machines.
Beautiful little harbors with fishing boats and leisure yachts.

It was funny to see how the buildings were practically toppling into the water because they were so built up to the water. We came across a beautiful little sandy beach with swimming pools, tennis courts and squash courts. We talked about water polo, team sports, competition...
Lunch at the slowest place on earth. Probably because we ended up eating around 12:45 -- way too early by Greek standards. The first place we visited wasn't even open until 1pm. Exhausting attempt to order our greek salad and fisherman's spaghetti. We practically had to walk out of the restaurant before they brought us the bill. Waitresses had to walk across the street to get the food from the kitchen. Rachel and I suspect we get better service from male waiters. The food was good though, and we were sitting right next to the water with a gorgeous view of the sea.
After lunch, we walked over to one of the huge stadiums in the city -- no signs to explain, but it looked like a giant grey and orange dome that was perhaps built for the Olympics. Conveniently, the metro stopped right next door so we hopped on. Unfortunately though, once we got to Monastiriki, the metro backtracked and starting heading back to Piraeus! So we quickly jumped off at Thissio and walked back to the hostel. The streets have very poor gutter systems, so water was flooding down the Acropolis. Droves of umbrella salesmen approached us, but on principle, Rachel and I decided we would not purchase one from them. We were going to get wet anyway on the 20 minute walk (rain was torrential at this point) and we had raincoats already.
Back at the hostel, we dried off, enjoyed hot tea and stretched and planned for Delphi tomorrow.
At 5:30 we trekked over to Kolonaki for yoga, but I think we may have gone to the mailing address and not the actual studio... it's hard to tell because the website was mostly in Greek, but bottom line, we couldn't find it. We have yet to find a good functional online map of Athens! And google maps is surprisingly unhelpful.
Oh well though, we laughed it off, did some yoga on our own in the room (which we now have all to ourselves) and napped from 6:30 to 8:45! Then went to Strofi taverna for dinner -- a historic establishment where visitors often dine after a performance at the Odeon.

We had very hospitable service, delicious food (an amuse bouche of breadcrumbs -- had to be soaked in water first -- with tomato and cheese, beets with yogurt-dill sauce, tomatoes stuffed with rice, pinenuts and raisins, and sea bream fish). House wine was the best we've had in Greece. oddly, they served a shot of vodka to us as we ordered (definitely didn't drink it -- made no sense to us) and limoncello afterwards. Finished up dinner at 11:30 and went right back to bed hahah! So exhausted but such a relaxing evening.