Athens!

It is Monday and I just got back from Athens last night around 3 a.m. I would like to start of this blog by saying even though I had a great time in Athens, I wish I could have been home for the last few weeks. I have just been informed via email that my grandmother has passed away. I am trying not to be sad, it was her time to go and I am happy that she is not suffering or in pain. I am sitting in the school library crying at my computer and I think the Greek kids up here are wondering what is going on with me. What a strange American… crying in the library at her computer.
I love you so much mom and I’m sorry that I couldn’t have been there for you. I’ll try my best to call because Adrianne and Rita both said they felt much better after talking to you. I feel so isolated from home sometimes. The internet is great but sometimes emails and facebook just doesn’t cut it.

So on that sad note I am now going to try and explain my fun and happy weekend in Athens. I hope it will make me feel a little better to think about that.

So as I may have mentioned once or twice before, Greek people don’t exactly do things in a timely manner. It gets rather annoying after a while. We met outside our apartment on Friday morning to get on our charter bus to Athens at 8:15 a.m. The bus didn’t show up until 9 a.m. and we didn’t leave Thessaloniki until 9:15 a.m. We just stood outside for 45 minutes. It was just a lovely way to start the trip. The bus ride straight through from Thess to Athens is approximately 6 hours. And with breaks in between, it’s a little longer. So we got into Athens around 6 p.m. Our hotel was very nice! It was right on the water! So after that long day on the bus, me and some other girls decided to go walk around by the water and check out some things near our hotel and get some dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant which was AMAZING!
At 10:00 we met with the rest of the group (by the way, this was a school-sponsored field trip that ALL the Americans went on and there are about 80 of us). We all took the tram downtown to go out for the evening. My two roommates were not feeling well so by the time we got down there they just wanted to get some ice cream and go back to the hotel and sleep! I haven’t been feeling too great either- but mine is 100% allergies so I’m just sneezing a lot and really itchy in my throat/eyes/nose/all the fun stuff! I got some pills here but they’re not very strong.

*The Sea, outside our hotel

So my roomies went home and I went to a bar with some other girls. We just had one drink and sat around talking for a while. It was a nice night. We decided to take a cab home because the tram didn’t come back for another hour and it was already almost 2 a.m. and we needed to be up by 9. We were warned that the cab drivers may try to scam us into paying more for a ride then necessary and that we should not pay over 20 Euros (like $25 US). Yeah… the cab driver tried to charge us 48 Euro (closer to $60 US). So that was my first experience with lovely Athenians who try to take advantage of tourists. Needless to say, we were NOT happy. We didn’t pay him 48, we paid him 40 which was still WAY MORE than we should have but we were scared and didn’t know what to do. But it’s OK. I’ve learned my lesson-ALWAYS negotiate the price BEFORE getting in the cab.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. I wasn’t expecting much, maybe some coffee and bread, a little yogurt. We had a full out buffet style! I told you our hotel was super nice. I filled up on food and we headed out around 10 a.m. to do all the fun tourist stuff we could!

First, we went up to the Acropolis. We had two groups and we each had a tour guide. Our groups were very large, unfortunately. I prefer small groups so that I can always hear the tour guide. I just tried to stay at the front of the lines with our guide so I could always hear what she was saying.

It was pretty amazing to see all of this in person. When you first walk up through the gates, you see the Parthenon from the back. The front is actually on the other side because they built the entrance to face east, sunrise. I can only think about what the ancient people went through to build these amazing temples over 2000 years ago. It really is absolutely amazing to think about these accomplishments when we so easily think that ancient civilizations were not very advanced. It took them 20 years to do it, but they did it. They had architects drawing up plans for this bad boy after Athens got some money after finally defeating the Persians. They felt pretty rich at the time, and it shows.

*Me in front of the Parthenon

The other building that remains up at the Acropolis is the Erechtheion-another temple where the Goddess Athena planted an olive tree. The myth goes like this: the Goddess Athena and the Go d Poseidon were fighting over the city of Athens (before it was named Athens) and they each offered a gift to the citizens to have them choose which God they would dedicate the city to and worship. Poseidon offered water and Athena offered an olive tree. The Greeks liked the olive tree and what it symbolized and choose Athena. Hence the name Athens “Αθήνα” in Greek and all of the monuments dedicated to her.

After the Acropolis, we went to see the Ancient Agora. This is where the ancient city of Athens had its marketplace and many other important things. Democracy was born here-citizens would gather to decide on state affairs. Aristotle, Socrates, and many of the great ancient Greek philosophers walked around here and tried to gather followers! It was pretty cool to be walking around where ancient history happened. I visited to Agora of ancient Pella which was the topic of my last blog-Pella was the “Athens” of the north, if that is an easier way for everyone to make the connection.

*View of the Temple from the Agora

After that, we had lunch in Plaka, one of the oldest neighborhoods of Athens. We ate gyros at a supposedly famous gyro place in Athens. In the restaurant, there were photos of famous Greek people eating there but I didn’t know any of them but the gyros were certainly amazing!! (FYI for anyone that doesn’t know: a gyro is a Greek sandwich on pita bread with tzatziki (cucumber yogurt dressing), tomatoes, onions, French fries, and spiced meat. Traditionally, it is lamb meat, however I have learned that most day-to-day gyro places use beef nowadays.)
After lunch, I walked around the town with some girls and one of the professors. It was BEAUTIFUL outside all day!! It was sunny and in the upper 60’s low 70’s all day. I was happy that I brought my sunscreen because a few people got sunburns. I however know why too much about sun and therefore covered myself in sunblock and I am fine. Anyone who has hung out with me In the summer knows that I rarely go anywhere without massive amounts of it smeared on me :)

Walking around Athens, we saw the Temple of the Olympian Zeus which used to have over 100 columns spread out over one area, but now there are only 16 columns left. It was still quite amazing. I wonder what it would have looked like before the Romans stole all of the columns. We also saw Hadrian’s Arch. It was built by the Greeks to honor him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian is all about Hadrian if you would like a history lesson.

*Temple of the Olympian Zeus

*Hadrian's Arch

After that, we went shopping for a little bit. We went back to the hotel for a nap around 6 p.m. It was a very tiring day. Later that evening, I went for sushi with my hotel roomies, Ali and Kate. They really weren’t feeling well and my allergies were so bad I could hardly breathe at all at this point. We wanted some wasabi to clear out the nasal passages (which worked tremendously). Then we went back to the hotel to get some sleep. They went over their Greek flash-cards for Greek language class and I read Kate's copy of the Little Prince. Sometimes I forget how much I love that book.

On Sunday morning we had another amazing buffet breakfast and set out to watch the changing of the guards at the Parliament. Every hour on the hour, the guards change in front of the Parliament. This is more symbolic than anything else, really. But on Sundays they wear their traditional dress (uniforms worn while gaining freedom from the Turks) and at 11 a.m. on Sunday there is a procession of soldiers in traditional uniform and a marching band playing the Greek national anthem. I couldn’t quite see very well because there were so many people, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Then, after the hoopla of everyone marching, the guards pretty much just stand absolutely still for an hour until they change to new guards again. To a get a better idea in your head-most people think of the Queen’s guards in England-you know the guys in red coats with the big black feather dusters on their heads? Yeah, these guys are kind of like that. You can take photos with them and do whatever but they are not allowed to move or speak and you are NOT allowed to touch them. I got a picture with them later. During this part of the trip, we encountered another wonderful Athenian jerk. My roommate Ali got pick-pocketed.

*Me standing by a guard in traditional dress

She did everything right-she had a purse that zippered shut so that it would be difficult for anyone to get into it and was paying attention to her bag at all times especially if someone bumped into it. But, apparently doing everything right isn’t enough. Somebody unzipped her bag and pulled out her wallet. Luckily, her passport and credit card where NOT taken. They just got 50 Euro in cash and her debit card and driver’s license. Most of these people want nothing to do with credit/debit cards and just want cash, so we assumed they grabbed the money and dumped the wallet but we couldn’t find it. So she had to cancel her card just in case, and her boyfriend is actually visiting her for spring break next week and will bring her her new bank card. So it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, but it still sucks. Such is life.

After all that unpleasantness, I went to the National Archeological Museum with 3 other girls and a tour guide. So few people ended up wanting to go to this museum that we basically had our own little private tour. It was very nice! Our tour guide was so cute. He was an older Greek man and it was apparently his 50h birthday so the whole time at the museum his phone kept ringing off the hook because so many people were trying to wish him a happy bday! He was really funny and made all sorts of silly jokes and was having a good time with just a handful of American girls to give a tour to.

*Statue of Athena-replica of the original one in the Parthenon that was over 7 feet tall (it has mysteriously disappeared through the years-people tried to take it and it is most likely on the bottom of an ocean somewhere)

Lastly on our itinerary, was lunch in Plaka again (but a different restaurant, of course) and then to take off around 4:30 in the afternoon to get back to Thessaloniki.

I would like to remind everyone of how Greeks work: they don’t, basically. Everything is laid back, nothing is timely, etc. This will become important to note in a minute.

We had finished eating at about 3 p.m. and we wanted to leave a littler earlier than scheduled, especially since so many students had midterm exams to take Monday. We sat around until 3:30 and everybody was getting restless and the professors were not telling us why we weren’t going to the buses. Eventually, it came out that one of the buses (we had to take 2 since we have so many students, and they are separated according to which building you live in) wouldn’t start. And of course, it was my bus. Yay.

I would ALSO like to point out that last week on a school-sponsored trip, the students were stranded for 3 hours due to a broken down bus from the SAME company. We thought there is NO WAY it’s going to be more than an hour, I mean come on, we’re it downtown ATHENS and the bus company has an office here, there are tour buses everywhere, etc.

We didn’t leave until 8:00 that night. It’s apparently out of the question to just send us a new bus and the mechanic didn’t come until 7:00 you know, 3 hours after we informed the company about our problem.

I didn’t mind it so much. For one, I wasn’t on the trip last weekend when this
happened. Also, we were broken down right next to a playground and we had fun running around like idiots and playing on the equipment. Also, we were in Athens as opposed to the middle of no-where (which happened to the kids last trip) so I got to walk around a little more and look at stuff. It is still pretty annoying that it could possibly take that long just to fix a simple problem.

*Ali playing on the playground

So anyways, I got home about 3 a.m. and went straight to sleep. Athens was amazing and I definitely recommend it for a tourist destination. It made me feel better about my program in Thessaloniki though. I WOULD NOT like to live in Athens! In Thessaloniki, I never feel scared or worried that someone is going to try and rob me/scam me every time I leave my apartment. People here are SO NICE and helpful!! Even though it is a large city, it doesn’t really feel like it because the people really make you feel at home here. But, like I said, Athens is an amazing place to visit just on the pure fact that everything is so old and it is like walking through history.

That’s about all I can write for now. I’m starting to get exhausted and my eyes are red and sore from allergies + lack of sleep + crying. Not a good combination.
Thanks to all for helping me feel better about my time here and please send love to my mom as much as you can. I miss my parents and will hopefully be spending some time in St. Paul with them before going back to Eau Claire for job hunting when I get back from Greece.

If I don’t post again soon, wish me luck on my backpacking through Europe adventure, which is starting this Sunday. First stop, London!