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Published: February 27th 2008
The hostel
Lauren and Jay relaxing after a long morning of traveling.Five days into spring break and I could not be happier! I am showered, had dinner, and even did some wash in the tub and now I am sitting down in the residence in Rome with some tea to recount the first half of my holiday to you. I woke up bright and early on Friday morning to meet Jay, Lauren and Andrea to catch a cab to the airport for our flight. Traveling went smoothly and we landed in Athens in the late afternoon. This is the first time I've ever traveled for spring break, and let me tell you, this was perfection. The weather was the low to mid 60s every day we were there. The sun was bright and warm, and the landscape was breathtaking. Athens was such a big city but felt so intimate and friendly. The people were so kind and generous. The food (while a little on the heavy side) was delicious and a wonderful, much needed break from pasta.
The first day there we just checked into our hostel (which was incredible with a really personable staff), walked around a few neighborhoods and got dinner. We tried tzatziki, which is Greek yogurt mixed
The hostel
Andrea checking out our view. with cucumber and garlic. It was so good on pita as an appetizer. We all got something different and tried a variety of kebobs, gyros, and seasoned chicken.
Saturday was our museum day. We saw the Byzantine Christian Museum, the Cycladic Art Museum, and a modern art museum. All were wonderful, but we caught the Cycladic Museum between exhibits, so only two of the four floors were open when we went. Otherwise, everything was great. We did a bit of poking through shops and a lot of sitting in the sun for the rest of the day until dinner. When we got back to our hostel after dinner, one of the owners invited us to the bar they had there and after buying us all a shot, spent the evening playing cards with us. We all loved him and the games he taught us!
Sunday we met up with our friend Caroline and went through the Acropolis and the rest of the archaeological sites that went with it. The Acropolis is one of the highest points in Athens and it's basically a huge flat rock that the Greeks built on. We saw the Parthenon and the Temple of
The Acropolis
It is beautiful lit up at night, but its hard to get decent pictures... Athena. Right next to it was the hill that was the birthplace of democracy and it had the best view. You could sit on the rocks and look out over all of modern Athens. It was quite a view, quite a sight. We also traveled through the Roman Agora (which is the Greek version of the Forum), and saw a temple to Apollo. Lots of walking during the day, followed by napping and dinner in the evening. Oh, for lunch we had grabbed some sandwiches and ate near a church. A priest was walking by and stopped to talk to us for a few moments in fairly decent English. He explained the roots that established the word Philadelphia and talked about the religion of the Greek Orthodox Church. He was quite a character and we all enjoyed talking with him.
Monday was a chance to catch the last archaeological sight we missed, the Kerameik (the sacred burial grounds). That was followed up by the National Archaeological Museum, which was HUGE and had awesome collections. I especially liked the bronze statues and the pottery collection.
Finally, today Jay and Lauren caught up on some gift shopping and Andrea and
The national gardens
Soaking up some sun in the National Gardens and testing out a delicious pastry. I sat in a square in front of a church. I even managed to get a little bit of color from being outside! Overall, the trip was wonderful and I have decided that Athens is one of my favorite cities.
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