Athens

  Athens, Attica, Greece
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

ACT organized a trip for everyone to Athens last weekend! It was a lot of fun. Well, it was fun once we got there. It was a 6 hour bus ride and i felt like i was in middle school the way they were talking to us. They seriously treat us like children sometimes and i want to just remind them that we are all living in another country on our own, i think we can handle a bus ride, thanks. ANYWHO, we got there on friday night after wasting the day on a bus. We had dinner at the hotel and then took the tram into the city. We got off at Syntagma which is like the main center in the city. We met up with Danika and tried meeting up with some other ACT people but they were too hard to find. Instead she took us to this adorable little irish pub called James Joyce and we met a bartender that was half Greek but from Australia.

me and Athens

The next day was our touristy day. We got up and did a bus tour of the city. We stopped at the olympic stadium which was the first modern day olympic stadium. Then we drove past the temple of Zeus, and some other important structures as we made our way to the Acropolis! The Acropolis was so cool! We walked up and there was the parthenon, just standing there in front of us. The only turn off was the scaffolding that covered and entire side of it, but besides that it was amazing to see up close and personal. We stayed up there for quite some time and my friends and i occupied ourselves with a photo-shoot at the acropolis. After that, we walked down to the old Ancient Agora that had a lot of old statues and structures from a long time ago.

being statues at the ancient agora

After walking around there, we went to lunch at a great tavern that had great gyros. Then we had the rest of the day to shop and do what ever. Megan, Kathryn and I decided to be american and go to the Hard Rock Cafe! It was SOOO good. After that we went back to James Joyce because we had such a good time there the night before and it was PACKED. There was a man from london playing his first gig there and he was GREAT. He played songs my the monkees, queen, aaba, and a whole bunch of other sing-a-longs that i was proud to know all of them :) Then we met up with some of Danikas friends in the Athens program at a club down the street.
Sunday we were supposed to go see the changing of the guards outside of the parliament but there was a marathon and all the roads were closed so we didnt make it in time. A couple girls from my group actually ran in it too! They did the 10K. We were all very proud of them. Since we missed that, the group split up. Some of us went to the archeological museum and the rest of us went back to the market to do some more shopping.

hahaha

My friends and I went to starbucks because we were still feeling american. This starbucks was so cool though! It had an entire bookstore in the bottom of the building it was in. We sat there looking at american newspapers and magazines for about an hour because they were too expensive to buy. Then we met up with the rest of the group for lunch before the long bus ride home.
Overall it was a pretty great trip! Athens is such a cool city but it was nice to be back home in Thessaloniki!