To those of you living in or near a large city and thinking about going to Greece this post will be off topic. For those of us living in relatively remote locations a visit to the mall is interesting and exciting.

Our recent journey to Turkey started with the standard, ho-hum, ferry trip from Paros to Piraeus. After we settled into our hotel near the train station and couldn't buy train tickets because of a strike we took a trip on the Metro out to The Mall.

First it was very convenient from Metro Station to Metro Station. Second it was foreign to have street vendors lining the short walk into the mall. Then it was impressive. There are at least four levels of shops; high fashion and popular clothing on the middle two, computers, music, appliances and the like in the basement. Cinemas and food court in the middle as well. We didn't make it to the upper levels but it looked like they had a bowling ally. The food court included Ruby Tuesday and Starbucks from the USA; we had chinese food as a treat.

As we were on our way to the lower cost economy of Turkey we didn't buy anything but should we ever be in the market for upscale fashion--haha--we now have another place to go besides Ermou Street in central Athens.

There is a Village Cinemas in our Washington County, Oregon home town. I wonder how many in the whole world?