Not Exactly a "Momma Mia" Experience - but still neat

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Hello!

Okay, I'm not actually in Greece now, but I did write some of this while in Greece, so hopefully that counts for something... When I finish this I will write another about the wonders of Paris and update you about what I am doing for the rest of my time here!

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Well, Greece was interesting. I had a really good time and got to see some amazing things, but there were some issues that were completely out of my control that made parts of it frustrating. I will briefly summarize those yucky bits and then move on to the good stuff. (Oh, just to clarify, Megan and her friend Kristi went out on Thursday and Maggi and I were to meet them on Friday.)

First, the hotel that we booked on the Island was apparently closed, and wasn't expecting us. I didn't know this until I arrived Friday morning and got Megan's message saying that we couldn't stay there (even though she had called me from there the day before and said everything was fine). This caused some problems with our hotel in Athens, as Megan and Kristi panicked and had Kristi's mom book a room for Friday night (but she booked it for only 2 people and for two nights, instead of just the one...) If they had just waited until I talked to them they would've avoided all that mess because it was easy enough to add another night onto the reservation that we already had for Saturday and Sunday nights. As it was we did extend our reservation and they stayed with us but got charged for one night for their excess booking. But oh well...
Second, Kristi's wallet got picked as we were leaving the metro on Saturday evening. That was a mess, but thankfully since she had already lost her wallet in London (which was a terrible messy thing also) she didn't have any of her credit cards and just lost a minor amount of cash and her license I think.

So, not terrible, but that did seem to cast a pall over the rest of the trip. I hadn't been expecting Greece to be extremely clean, and I hadn't expected the Greeks to be especially kind to us, I was expecting to be a tourist in a country with pickpockets, where I didn't speak the language. So, I wasn't terribly disappointed with the way that things worked out. But I think the other girls weren't expecting it, so they were incredibly uncomfortable with Athens and the creepy stares we got for being Americans. (Although, I will say that I got the worst of it, being the only natural blonde person I saw in Greece, and being the navigator, I always had the map out.) So, I think I had a better time than they did, because I had expected Greece to be the way it was, and nothing more.

Anyway, lets talk about the good stuff...

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On Thursdays I, thankfully, got out of class early, and made it back on time to meet Maggi. Since we were flying out of Stanton (if you ever go to London and want to travel from it, always use Heathrow, it is the only airport on the Tube line, and that is so much more convenient - even if the airport sucks), we had to take an express there. I thought that it was a train, but as I read the ticket as we ran to Elephant & Castle, I realized it was actually a coach bus, so we had to book it double time, because we had not added in the time it would take us to walk the 7 blocks from the tube/train station to the coach station. (Luckily, having been there when we went to Scotland, we at least knew where it was). Thankfully, we made it with one minute to spare and had the coach basically to ourselves for the ride. I was a little nervous, as the ride was supposed to be one and a half hours, but it took about two, but we got there with enough time to check in and grab a quick bite to eat. Our plane ended up leaving about 30 minutes late, so we didn't need to rush, but oh well, it was good to have a few minutes to relax before the plane.

Aegean Air was amazing, if you ever have the chance to fly it, do it. It was a cheaper ticket on a small airline, so I wasn't expecting much, but the seats were comfortable, we were greeted with a mint, offered drinks several times, and got a movie and dinner. It was delightful.

We got to the airport at about two in the morning and spent the night there. Luckily it was pretty much deserted and pretty clean, so we just read and napped.

We were supposed to meet Megan and Kristi at the Island, but as I mentioned, I found out we weren't going to stay there, so we said that we would meet them at the port when they came in. Well, after taking a 30 minute bus ride to the port and waiting for a while they called and said that they couldn't get a ferry until noon. So, Maggi and I went off to find our hotel and see if we could get things sorted out and drop off our stuff. After a little confusion, we found it (it was a super nice Best Western, not in the cleanest neighborhood-but I didn't actually see a clean neighborhood in Athens, so it was pretty decent) and got things sorted out. I really wanted to go to the Archeology Museum that was just two blocks away, and I figured that Megan and Kristi wouldn't want to, so I was hoping we could do that before they got there. Sadly, Maggi was really tired and fell asleep when we got in our hotel room. I didn't end up making it to the museum at all, since it closes at 3 (most everything in Greece does past October, which is a beast), so that was really disappointing, but oh well, there were plenty of other things to see!

Megan finally called and we went to go meet them at the metro station so that they could drop their stuff off at the hotel. The Greek metro system is amazingly easy (since there are only three lines) so that was awesome, except that two of them were closed on Friday, so we had to do a lot of walking when we went out exploring that evening. We found a busy shopping street on our way to the Temple of Zeus and attempted to find some dinner. We made the mistake of walking too close to a restaurant to read the menu and got ushered in by the manager. I actually ended up having a really good meal there, although it was more expensive than I would have liked.

After that we walked down to Parliament, the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, and the National Gardens. The Gardens were lovely, and I wish was had had more time to explore them, but we did get to walk down one of the main paths. It was so nice to be able to walk around without my wool coat on, it was in the 60s, which was really nice. Maggi was really happy; I think she misses the Texas "winter."
It was getting dark, so we walked down to Zeus's Temple (or what remains of it - I didn't understand that it was only a few columns from the guidebook) and Hadrian's Arch. Everything was closed, but we got some good pictures through the fence. We then attempted to find the ancient stadium, but it was pretty dark and the map wasn't great, so we gave up and headed back to the hotel.

Our plan for Friday was to get up early and take a boat to a different island and then come back in the afternoon and go exploring again. But, I was going to be the first person to wake up, and I forgot to change the time on my phone, so I got up two hours late... I felt really terrible, but thankfully no one seemed mad. Megan said that she had done that before, and I think everyone was happy to get the extra sleep.
We went down to the port when we were all showered, but the weather was bad, so none of the ferries were running. So, it was actually good that we didn't stay at the Island, because we probably would've gotten stuck there. So, after being followed by a boat taxi guy for a bit, we finally escaped and tried to decide what to do.
I had really wanted to go to the cemetery at Keramikos so they humored me. Unfortunately it wasn't on my map, so we got a little lost and didn't get there until 3:15, and it closes at 3. But, we got some good pictures through the fence again.
After that, we decided to go market shopping which was a lot of fun. There was an interesting mix of tourist shops, crafty shops, and random stores set up in the market. It was fun.

The best thing about Athens was how scattered the archaeological sites were. I assume there is just so much stuff that they just dig wherever they find it. It was really neat, we walked along a wall that bordered the Ancient Angora, the Stoa of Attalos, and some other smaller sites. There was also two that had been found while they were digging for the metro, one was randomly opened up on the sidewalk and the other was in one of the metro stations.

Anyway, after the markets, we went to a decent restaurant. It was nice, but it was the first time we'd gotten a kind of rude acceptances when our server found out we were Americans. But, they were still polite enough. Kristi ordered a Greek salad without cucumber, expecting it to be mostly lettuce, but it actually ended up being a huge bowl of tomatoes, which she also doesn't like... it was kind of funny. Our server also gave us all shots of Ouzo for free. We had just been talking about it, so it was kind of weird to get it randomly... We all tried it, it was pretty nasty...

After that we headed back to the hotel, and that was when Kristi's wallet got stolen, which was bad.

On Sunday we got up and took the metro out to the Olympic Stadium from 2004. It was such a waste of time. There was nothing going on and the whole complex was creepy and deserted. We saw some signs, but there didn't seem to be anything around, so that was disappointing, especially as it was a 20 minute ride there...

Then - we finally made it to the Acropolis, which was super exciting! Apparently every Sunday is free admission from Nov-March, so that was sweet. The acropolis was amazing! You never realize how big everything is until you are standing underneath it. It was so beautiful up there. It seems like such a great height when you look at it from the ground, or when looking down, but the walk up was really easy. The view was amazing, you could see everything in Athens. So cool.
After that we walked back down to Zeus's Temple again and got to get inside the gates this time and look around, which was neat.

And that's pretty much where the trip ends. It got a little rainy after Zeus's Temple, so we just went back to the hotel and did homework (thank goodness for hotels with internet).

So, in summary, I had a lovely time and it was so neat to see all of these ancient places that I've seen pictures of and heard about.

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The week after Greece was just hectic, trying to get homework done, but the next weekend in Paris was awesome, so I will be sure to write about that soon!

I hope that everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. Maggi and I had Chinese food, but it was still fun. I am looking forward to some good home-style cooking when I get home, so I might have to have a mini-belated Thanksgiving dinner when I get back!

Talk to you later!

-Manon

Photos:

Ancient Sites
Strolling through Athens

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