Day 2

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Day 2: A day in Athens: National Archaeological Museum, Agora and the Acropolis

I kept waking up at odds times of the night; for some reason my body didn’t want to sleep anymore. So by 7am I decided to get up, shower and get ready for the day. By 8am my roommate and I headed down for breakfast with our bags packed for the day. At 9am our whole group met up and we headed for the Athens National Archaeological Museum (metro and museum fare paid by our prof). There was to be a strike on the Metro at Acropolis Station starting at 12 noon, so our prof made sure that we left the museum by 11:30, got on to the Metro and were out of there and at Syntagma Station by noon. There we made our way for lunch; a group of 9 of us went to this great restaurant, after many servers tried to entice us to eat at their place. We all had half orders of kabobs which included: 2 beef kabobs, roasted tomatoes, red onions, all under a pita. There’s something amazing about the tomatoes in Greece! There’s question they’re the most delicious tomatoes I have ever had!

After that we headed to Agora, our prof bought our admission, which is required to enter Agora and Acropolis, he led a tour in and around Agora. He pointed out a shoemaker’s home, which could be the home where Socrates liked to teach classes, and its remains. Staff were all around the place, blowing whistles whenever a tourist forgot and walked/touched/leaned on the ruins. We took a frozen drink break at the bottom of the Acropolis then headed for the long journey up. Surprisingly the stair climb up to the Acropolis wasn’t as bad as one of my classmates had said. It was a fairly easy walk up, but there was little shade. Luckily I had applied sunscreen just after lunch and brought the bottle with me. At the Acropolis, my prof held another lecture to explain certain remains, then we were free for the rest of the day.

About half the group, including myself, decided to do some shopping back where we had had lunch, but unfortunately most of the stalls were closed due to the expected demonstration at Acropoli Station. So instead we searched out food, some of our group decided to eat at a place like where we had had lunch, but a few of us were hankering for a different scene, so we split up. Five of us went to a nicer street and found a place, where a girl in our group had taken her lunch that day, I had the roasted and stuffed tomatoes and green peppers. The stuffed tomato was delicious!! It was filled with rice, veggies and spices. And it was all infused with the delicious Greek tomato taste. Yummy! After paying our bill, we asked our waiter how to get back to our hotel, and luckily it was an easy walk. It took about half an hour, but we made it, hot and sweaty. But that wasn’t anything new, we had walked in the sweltering 35 degree weather all day, covered in sunscreen and the dust that got picked up from the road as we walked. Exhausted, we all decided to takes showers and turn in for the night. We have an early morning tomorrow and we’re leaving Athens for a 2 night stay in Nauplio. I’ve got to pack up all my crap, which seems to have doubled in size already for some reason!!

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