A conversational travel vlog transcript by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a day in Athens, Greece. They meet friends (Jordan and Julianne), eat local food, visit the Parthenon/Acropolis area and the marble Panathenaic Stadium (mentioning its 50,000 capacity and role in the 1896 Olympics), explore the Plaka neighborhood, and have dinner at a local restaurant — mixed with travel tips (Rick Steves audio) and personal reactions.
We're back.
Nate, put on your clothes. Jordan and Julianne are here. Can I go get them?
Nope.
Please? They're just standing there waiting on us. We're coming. We're coming for you. Just wait. Nate was in the shower when Jordan and Julianne showed up, so I'm going to get him.
No, you're not.
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. You're so slow. Who needs a shirt or shoes?
Hello.
Welcome.
I don't even know how to say hello.
We made incredible.
We did.
I don't know any words.
We're going a long way for lunch today.
I'm gonna video the whole journey.
And we're here. Look how delicious we spent the morning.
Catching up with Jordan and Julianne. You probably remember them from our New Zealand vlogs.
If you haven't watched them link a video here, you should now come back to our favorite spot, the only lunch spot that we've eaten at since we've been here, which is right across the street from our place. Jordan ordered everything.
That looks so good.
It's like I'm in Pittsburgh. Little do you know, when you go to Pittsburgh, they put French fries on everything.
It's so good. They do.
What'd you get?
A Greek salad, because I'm in Greece. Fancy, baby. I don't know what the spice stuff is, but it is divine.
It tastes like honey mustard, doesn't it? It's so good. Yes. Jordan, did you order all the meat that in the window? I ordered half a kilo. I'm hungry.
Why do we fancy.
What is it? It's just roasted pork. It's been roasted for a long time on a spit. Got some tomato sauce on it. Oregano. In New Zealand, we didn't do a lot of eating. It wasn't a big part. Food is a super important time. Time of my hour. Every hour. Time of your hour.
This trip, I plan on just eating all the time. You get a lot of this. We didn't ask for dessert, but he brought it anyway. I think it's yogurt and graham cracker and honey. I'm making a mess. Yeah.
Tastes like Greek yogurt.
You're gonna really like it.
It's really nice.
Looks like cheesecake.
It kind of tastes like cheesecake.
Y.
Come on, let's get out of here. Once again, lunch was delicious. We are now going to do the one touristy thing that every tourist has to do when they come to Greece. Where? Athens. Going to the Parthenon. Fun fact. Nashville, Tennessee. All of our hometown is the only place in the world with a real replica life size of the Parthenon. So we're excited to see it. We've all been to the Parthenon before on school field trips.
Going to the real one.
Hello. I need to explain something. I don't like to press into you, but I need to explain something. If you're a little bit hungry, have a happy hour. Can I explain what I have? We're going to the Parthenon right now. We just after the Parthenon, if you like.
This is the Rick Steves map. So it looks like we have to start here. So the Parthenon's up there.
I can't believe we're here.
The overgrown river of a raised stage and a stage wall for the backdrop. Rick Steves, the RA.
The sky is like so blue it almost looks fake today. There's a bit of construction going on right now.
But I think it's essential to get them right because, well, think of it. Their work has astounded countless generations of artists and visitors. For 2500 years.
We've been walking around the Parthenon and around the Acropolis neighborhood listening to Rick Steves free audio guide until our phone decided it didn't want to work anymore.
We normally don't do, like blatant travel tips, but Rick Steves audio guides, while he's like, really corny, he's also extremely informative. And they're free. He doesn't have them for like every city in Europe and like all the big attractions, but he does have them for some highly recommend Rick Steve's audio.
Guides, but download them with wi fi before you get here so it'll work the whole time. We're gonna go back and listen to it.
Panathenic. Panathonic. I think the end is Naic. Panaic. Panathenaic.
Panathenaic.
I think you nailed it.
We're heading to the Panathenaic stadium, which is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. And it was built like, a really.
Long time ago for the Olympics. Wait for it. Wait for it.
Its capacity is 50,000 people and it was built.
In the 6th century BC. What? After being refurbished, it hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the first Modern Olympics in 1896.
Joanne, is there a reason why you're wearing leaves on your head?
Because we're Olympians here at Olympic Stadium. Apparently only the Olympians were allowed to wear the olive leaf crowns Slash the Greek goddesses.
I think Julianne did a better job on hers than yours.
I had bobby pins.
I cheated.
Dane, it's €5 to go inside. Jordan and I made the executive decision that we can see 95% of it from right here. I love what you do with the leaves.
I don't even want to hear it.
Nate.
Fashion statement.
Now we have something very important to get to Wi Fi for.
Jordan. My brother and his wife find out what the gender of their baby is today. So we're gonna go get some Wi Fi and find out that that's the stage of life that we're currently in. All of our friends are having children and lots of babies. We're rebelling. I can see the camera.
I know.
Well, congratulations that you've delayed my coaching career. Congratulations, Corey and Kelsey. Now we're going to walk around the Plaka neighborhood, which is some, like, old Greek neighborhood that told us our Airbnb host told us about Taxi. Let's merge to the left, and then we're gonna find some dinner and not get run over. Oh, it's wet.
Further to the right.
So I'm not actually sure that we found the, like, historical Plaka neighborhood, but everybody's starting to get cold and hungry, so we're heading back to the Airbnb to regroup.
So we went back to our Airbnb to do some research and found this super awesome restaurant that we're really excited about. There's a bunch of locals in here. We're getting some bread.
Thank you. And we're sitting under wine barrels.
I think we found a gym in the middle of the city. There's, like, stairs that go down, so it's kind of hidden. And nobody's standing outside, like, begging us to come to their restaurant, because we've learned that you don't go to those places. If they're begging you to come, it means they're not coming.
So here we have some grilled halloumi cheese. And the reason we ordered it is because Kara saw it on the menu and literally panicked. Like, if we didn't get it, she was gonna implode. Oh, you gotta wait till you get focused. All right. How is it?
You love it.
Yeah. Did she talk it up too much? No, it's good, honey. Grilled cheese.
I don't think this is the correct way to eat whole fish, but I was tired of picking around the bones.
Bye. Bye.
Bye.
Hey, Kitty.
Jordan. How was it? Oh, it was fantastic. They. I felt like they genuinely wanted us to come eat at their restaurant, which. That's a big deal in a very touristy area, like, this?
This isn't a Muslim place.
Good thing Nate wore his Nike shoes today.
Because there's the.
Temple of Athena. Something to do with Nike. I don't know. I think she's the lifeguard of the Parthenon. She blows her whistle at everybody when they're doing bad things. She's getting rid of his flag. No freedom here.
They're sweet.
It's literally climbing like a ladder.
I'm sorry?
Walking in front of you.
You just went down the water like a human.
That wasn't like a human.
That was impressive. I know. Where's your flower? No, it's a flower.
Flower.
This looks like a wing.
Yeah. I thought it was a death bird.
