Athens

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Today Dad and I (Julia) went to the Acropolis in Athens. Erica, unfortunately, was sick during the night so she and mom stayed behind at the boat. Dad and I took a shuttle bus from the boat to a drop off point, then walked about 25 minutes to the metro. It was hot.
On the metro Dad looked out the window and said, “Wow, look at that.” I glanced casually out the window and only saw a junkyard filled with garbage. “What?” I asked. Dad replied. “Slums.” I looked harder, and before the junkyard ended I caught glimpses of tents and makeshift houses. I silently kicked myself for not looking close enough to see the people living in poverty, but just seeing the garbage and the dirt that they call home. On the ride back on the metro I saw naked children running through the garbage piles, and adults rebuilding their junkyard homes. I didn’t expect to see that in Athens.

After a long but beautiful trek up the side of the Acropolis, along with thousands of other tourists just like us, we reached the top, which is actually the result of a volcanic plug. It was the single most busy tourist site we had visited yet. As we began to catch glimpses of the Parthenon through the crowds, our hearts dropped. The Parthenon was covered in scaffolding on every side. They were disassembling, refinishing, and reassembling each column of the Parthenon, a restoration process that has been going on since 2000. It is still a magnificent building, and we were still able to use our imaginations as we walked around the other buildings on the top of the Acropolis. It was still amazing to see a huge temple still standing from around 500 BC.

Afterwards we walked around the Colonnade, and then the Ancient Agora Temple. It was all very old, and it was very hot. After all that we rejoined the rest of our family and sat by the pool to cool off. I love cruises.

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