Greece!!!!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry for the delay in posting; we've now entered into my first week of midterms and things have been getting steadily more hectic. Sometime soon I'm going to have to do a recap of last weekend's excursion to Venice, but for this post I'm sticking to the past few days - when nine of us flew over the Mediterranean Sea to visit the home of the gyro, the ground in which some of the most amazing architecture has been found, the birthplace of the greatest minds in history (no bias intended), and the origin of the Olympics...GREECE.

After a quick-ish plane ride Saturday morning and a brief stop at the hotel to dump our belongings, we wasted no time in running ourselves up to the Acropolis of Athens - an high, steep outcrop above the city that holds the Parthenon, the Erechtheon, the Theatre of Dionysus, and much more. Getting up there involved a bit of a climb, but we were instantly met with a gorgeous view of the city and, more importantly, a safe haven of archaeological sites that made the classics majors hyperventilate.

Theatre of Dionysus

The Classics Majors in front of the Parthenon

overlooking the Agora

That night was a lamb dinner at a nearby restaurant in the district of Plaka (very touristy - shops and lots of food) and early bedtime. The next morning 3 of our number split off to go explore another Greek island (which I hear was fantastic), while the rest of us went to mass and the National Archaeological Museum for some more ancient greek fun. Needless to say - there was another bout of hyperventilation as we walked around the statues, pottery, figurines, jewelry, and paintings that a few of us had studied only last semester in Greek Art and Architecture. We are such nerds. But we loved it :)

Later in the afternoon, all nine of us regrouped to conquer Mount Lykabettos, the highest point in the city (900 ft above sea level). We are all very proud to say that we made it to the top without too many difficulties - it was only about a 25 minute climb, but it was steep and with many, many stairs. But we made it! And at the top was a view of the entire city and beyond:

The final day - earlier this morning in fact, on Monday - we had just enough time to check out the Athenian Agora (marketplace) and shop a little more in the streets of Plaka before our flight back. Of the most interest still standing in the Agora are the Stoa (which had a whole collection of vases and statues) and the Temple of Hephaestus. There were also many other small things such as a water clock and the great drain that were hidden in what is now a woodsy area making up the Agora. All of it very cool.

Stoa of Attalos

Temple of Hephaestus

this area in the Agora used to be the state prison of Athens - it would have been here that Socrates died

And that brings me to the end of this awesome weekend!! A couple extra little points that I learned about Greece over this weekend:

1. More people speak English in Athens than in Rome. Almost everyone we met was straight-up fluent, but they seriously appreciated it if we said even "thank-you" (efkaristo) to them in their language - their eyes practically lit up with joy
2. Greeks collectively are much nicer than the Italians around here, although the shop keepers and restaurant workers were EVEN MORE aggressive than the Italian men. It was quite impressive.
3. American gyros and frozen yogurt got nothing on the real stuff in Greece.
4. Most of the metros were impressively clean - to this day I firmly believe NYC's subway system is the grossest of them all
5. American students get amazing discounts. Everywhere. We all got 1/2 off on metro and museum tickets by flashing our International Student Identity Card (who knew ISIC would come in handy?), 10% off an entire dinner, and even store keepers would say "This shirt..normally 10 euro, but for you? 4 euro." It was kind of awesome.
6. It's true. No toilet paper goes into the toilets because the plumbing in Greece can't handle it. All T.P. goes to the garbage. Very strange.

That's it for now! Again I will put up a post on Venice when I get a chance and meanwhile wish us all luck on these midterms! Ironically, my first test is for my Greek class...

Vale!