People who are looking to see lots of tourist pictures from the Acropolis and other sights will just have to wait a few days, until our guests begin to arrive. In the meantime, Kim and I really do enjoy going to local open-air markets. We missed the one in our neighborhood yesterday, so we hopped the tram and went to a neighborhood north of us where Saturday is market day.

The Yahoo forecast called for clear skies and a high temperature of 60, but it wasn't the case (looking at it now, they changed today's high to 53). We left the house in sunshine but we weren't there very long before it turned overcast and we even felt a few drops. We decided not to make a day of it.

It's easy to spend a ton of time in the market. Of course if you just want to get in, get your stuff and get out, you can do that. But how do you know if you got a good deal? You have to go to at least 3 or 4 different people selling tomatoes before you know what a good price is, and have to see for yourself the differences in quality.

People are used to seeing pick-your-own tomatoes, lettuce, etc. for sale, but Americans might be surprised to see pick-your-own eggs for sale. They're priced by size and you can buy one or 10 (or more). Most people don't buy eggs a dozen at a time. As you can see, the smalls are 10 cents, so a dozen smalls would be 1.20 Euro, or about $1.52 a dozen - twice that for extra large.

Most of the vendors in the market speak English, so as soon as one of us opens our mouths they are quick to respond in English (sometimes even before we speak). Once or twice it doesn't work out that way, but we get things figured out. Kim is especially good about that. She is far more brave than I ever am when it comes to trying to communicate.

One of the differences I note between here and Italy is the bags in stores. In Italy, it was not unusual to be charged $0.05 for each plastic bag you used when you checked out. It was common for people to bring bags with them to the grocery store, both to save money and to be environmentally conscious. We've been to at least 4 different grocery stores (4 I can remember) and none of them charges for bags, nor do I see many people bringing cloth bags. I admit I have seen one or two.

OK, another item: gasoline. It may just be my perception, but in Italy it seemed all the gas stations sold gas at the same price. I just may not be very observant, but any variation I saw was maybe a cent or two per liter. Here I see 14 cents per liter differences. Gas here runs about $3.92 to $4.11 per gallon (assuming my dollars to Euros and liters to gallons conversion is correct).

Today's news story. Like the rest of the world, Greece's economy is struggling. The EU puts a limit on national debt, and Greece exceeds it. They're not alone right now, but they've been that way since before the economic crisis, and the EU continues to grumble about it. The PM is off to Brussels to try to mollify the Union.