Pergamos Glyfada

... god...there were so many they believed in!

Down the hill on the northwest side of the Acropolis was the Ancient Agora. The Agora served as the city's marketplace, administrative center, and the center of daily life from the 6th century BC through 500 AD. Most of the buildings were just down to the foundations but you could still get an idea of the design. The Hephaesteion is the best-preserved Classical temple in Greece from 415 BC and still has well ...

... the only nice tourist information person in all of Athens suggested we go to the mall. We took a looooong subway ride out to where it was. We walked in, got a mall map, and I'm ashamed to say I got the most excited I've been on the trip when we discovered there was a Ruby Tuesday in the food court. I'm not one to get homesick, but I think I must be just a little homesick considering that I actually jumped up and down at the thought of a salad bar ...

... He gave Mary Lou and Wedding Belle free oranges and had a long conversation with us in English. They bought broccoli and I bought oranges from him. We dropped all our produce in my refrigerator and walked to the tram station. I'm still very confused about Athenian transport. There are busses, trolleys, trams, and the metro. They're all in different places and they all have different rules. The students who braved their way to the beach last weekend reported that we need to pick up ...

... fridge, a card on the desk, and a beautiful bouquet of lilies in the living room. This is the legendary Greek philoxenia, tender and thoughtful hospitality. Thank goodness I had a day of recovery in New York in the middle of the flights, or I would not be half lucid to follow all the directions Lovely Lithe is giving me about how to buzz up visitors, how to open and close the wooden slats over every window, and how to throw the ...

... identified (I think this would be an awesome career, but then I really love jigsaw puzzles) and new stones precisely fit in with the old. Everywhere on the Akropolis you see stockpiles of old and new stones, ready to go up when the time comes. The pictures show some examples of the beauty of the stone carving that was done for these places of worship. If I ever figure out how to download videos as well, I'll post a few.

... sorts of topics but of course, the recurrent question comes up...that being something like...What's up with that George Bush?... Now I have to say that question in some similar form comes up repeatedly in almost every country I've visited. It started in Iceland where people could not understand why US citizens didn't have more of a voice in directing their leader and his actions...and it has reappeared in Hungary, Romania, Czech Rep. and now ...

... Athens and arguably the most important ancient monument in the Western world- the Acropolis, where we climbed the marble steps through the graceful Temple of Athena Nike, past the amazing monument that more than any other etipmises the glory of ancient Greece: the Pantheon. Complete in 438 BC and dedicated to the goddess Athena, this building is unsurpassed in grace and harmony. To achieve perfect form, its line were ingeniously curved to counteract ...

... for t-minus 4 1/2 hrs. So I headed back to the National Archeology Museuem which only a week before had closed early so I missed out. I tell you what for the 7 euros it cost to get in, it was totally worth it. They had tons of info and artefacts of the Mycenaean peoples, and had some info as well that correlated to the Minoans of Crete, so that was cool. They had gold plated funerary masks, tons of jewelry and small pots and sacrificial statuettes of animals ...

... class on a ferry? After some discussion we deside getting off this island is needed. The next day we head to the ferry terminal for our 2pm departure.. ya.. we can expect that to happen. We get to the ferry, our driver says, no ferry delayed one hour. O, one hour? thats not soo bad, in greek times. So we set to sleeping on the pavement.. An hour passes by, nothing. 30 min, ahhh finally, 3:30pm for our 2pm ferry, not so bad. So we get our stuff together ...

... which is going to be the norm for Sundays. The Plaka is a market below the Acropolis with many little shops and restaurants. It's pretty much just a good place to kill some extra time when we are in Athens for something. Now we are all back at the Artemis (campus), just had left-overs for dinner and are killing a little time before my roommates birthday party and then packing for our cruise that we leave on in the morning! I'll post on the cruise when we return on Friday...