Amazing Athens

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After waking up early to make it to my red-eye flight, I arrived at the Rome Ciampino airport to depart for Athens. I arrived in Athens a bit early, and made my way to the metro which departed from the airport. After having a bit of a hard time figuring out which line I needed, I was able to figure out which platform my train departed from and it was waiting on the platform when I finally arrived. I took the metro, which took about an hour, into Monastiraki which was a square near the hostel I was staying at. I walked to the hostel, which was a bit hard to find since my directions were in English and all of the street signs were in Greek. Once I arrived at the hostel, I dumped my bag off and went to meet Rebecca, Matt and some of the other North Central students who were part of the D-term study abroad trip to Italy and Greece. I met up with them, and we walked by the Panatheic Stadium, which was the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896. This is also the location where the Olympic torch is passed on every two years to the host country after it is run around Greece. We then went to the National Gardens, which were beautiful to walk around and explore. We did some shopping and had a nice lunch near the shopping center. After finishing lunch, we found a spa that had fish pedicures that part of the group was interested in getting. I didn’t participate, but some of the people participated. They put their feet into a fish tank, and the fish were to eat the dead skin off of their feet. They said it felt great, but I was skeptical. After finishing there, we walked around some more and stopped for a small snack before heading to dinner. We had dinner at a very authentic Greek restaurant, and they treated us to free drinks and a round of ouzo at the end. Ouzo is the liquor Greece is most famous for; it tastes a bit like black licorice. After a fun day of spending time together, it was time to say goodbye since they had a very early flight home the next day. I headed back to the hostel to get some much needed rest.

The next morning, I joined a walking tour that departed from the hostel. We hit most of the major archaeological sites on the way up to the Acropolis, without going into them since the entry required a ticket and not all of the participants of the walk would have wanted to get tickets. It was amazing to see how old everything was, and how relatively well much of it was preserved. We went part of the way up the Acropolis, stopping near where the tickets are sold. One of the very exciting parts of this portion was climbing a rock where St. Paul gave the first Christian sermon in Greece. In addition to the rock having great historical value, it offered great views of the city as well. Towards the end of the walking tour, which ended up taking about four hours, we hit the newer part of the city and saw many of the government buildings which were very beautiful. After finishing the tour, I made my way to the new Parthenon museum, to make the most of my day. Being an EU student (with my Glasgow uni card), I was able to get free admission, so I figured I would do as much as I could of the museum before it closed and then hit the rest the next day. The museum was incredible. When they began building it a few years ago, they discovered the ruins of an Athenian village. In order to preserve the ruins and build the museum, they build the museum on top of it, mostly using glass floors so that you could view the ruins below you. The museum mentioned that they are still in the process of analyzing the archeological ruins, and at some point they hope to open them to the public. The museum was very well-organized, and featured numerous remains from the Parthenon which were beautiful. They also had recreations of some statues that showed how they would have been painted, which was very eye-opening, because it is so easy to think that they would have always been white or ivory colored. Instead, they featured bright colors that were simply stunning. When the museum closed, I headed back towards the hostel and got dinner before retiring back to the room.



The next morning, I got my ticket for the archeological ruins, which was again free with my Glasgow card. I hit the major sites on the way to the Acropolis, such as Hadreon’s library and the Roman and ancient agoras. I then made my way to the Acropolis, taking in the beautiful Parthenon and the multipl temples to Athena. It was simply stunning being on the top of the hill and being able to look out at the city which is much larger than it feels from on the ground. I then made my way down via the other side which led me to the Theatre of Dionysus which is the birthplace of modern theatre. I was very excited about this stop, and it was actually not preserved as well as I was expecting. Nonetheless, it was very cool to see. I then made my way to the Parthenon museum to finish up. When I got to the third floor, it was set up in a very appropriate manner. They had a huge room in the shape of a rectangle where they displayed many of the statues and carvings that adorned the side of the Parthenon in the order and general position that they once would have appeared on the Parthenon itself. There were also huge windows that looked out on the real building, which was very helpful. The combination of the ruins of the Parthenon as well as the museum really helped to give me an idea of what it would have looked like in its glory, which would have been amazing to see. I finished up early that day, and purchased a few souvenirs before getting back to the hostel, packing and getting to bed early before my final early flight. The next morning, I headed back to Glasgow after to flights and a huge layover (and one flight being delayed), where I was confronted by the task of packing everything up into three suitcases so that I would be ready when Mom, Dad, Mya and Tya arrive the next day.

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