December 27

For the last few days everything in Athens has been pretty much closed. Just last night the stores started opening again. This is the wrong place to go if you quit smoking that is for sure. I quit over several months ago but I am surrounded by smokers who look like they sit back and enjoy every puff. Yesterday I went to an island and had a good meal besides that I walked around the island a bit. Today I am going to get to some of the places in town I have been meaning to get to but couldnt because They were closed. I did see a movie last night a Wong Kar Wai film.. My Blueberry Night s.. There was an intermission in the middle of the movie so all the smokers could go and puff and eaters order more.

END of the day: When I got outside today I decided to not go to the Acropolis today because it was raining pretty hard so i decided to call it a nauseam day. I went to three different museums and I would say they were all good. Review of Museums are as follows

Museum Of Contemporary Art: I was looking for this place for a good 45 minutes in the rain. It is closed for renovation but there is no sign on the actual bldg to say so. I asked some lady at a newsstand and she pointed it out. Then some guy that worked there came around and explained they moved. It is in a run down part of town. All the stores on the way to the Museum that never was ,,were lined with motorcycle or scooter stores .I did not let this deter me and went to the spot that housed their exhibition .I had to get back on the subway and go to a different part of town. I saw some cool interactive sculptures and some greek dude that went over land from greece to India and wrote postcards to himself the whole time. The collection was small but worth it. There were some very interesting conceptual pieces. Go there if you can.

The National Gallery- is down the road not that far and it has an extensive collection of paintings and contemporary sculpture. There are some really great works of art here and you can see how a large portion of the work is influenced by european trends. Most of the painters had studied in Paris back in the day and they took on a very european style. I think this is a shame because some of the works of art were as good as the european so called masters but never get their props because they got last names like Polupous or Mellinoupououlous.In no way am i trying to offend anyone with those names. regardless is is a decent collection

Archeology MuseumIt had a dog sleeping in the front of it and reminded me of the type of place that I had to go to for school trips when I was a kid. You know that anticipation of going on a trip how fun it seemed and then u got there and you were like Oh shit this place is boring. The funner part of the trip was the ride there and eating in a different lunch room. As an adult I can appreciate alot of the things in this museum. I could sit there and draw all day because room after room is full of archeological gems.It could have better lighting and after a while all of it starts to look the same but it gives you a really good overview of greek vases and sculpture through the ages. there is a real nice cafe in the basement. See some of my sketches of the pieces. Also I was real interested in drawing from vases from he 750 B.C. It intrigued me how these ancient people perceived each other in art forms.

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