Athens (Day 1)
Trip Start
May 13, 2008
1
14
16
Trip End
Jun 26, 2008
Athens,
Attica,
Greece
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Our first stop on the tour was Zeus's Temple and then we saw the soldiers in old-fasioned uniforms who had to wear skirts with something like 400 pleats and they have six hour shifts where they can't move at all except to walk accross the square in a methodical dance/march every thirty seconds. It is supposed to be a great honor, but it did not seem like a fun way to spend six hours to us!
We walked along the prettier parts and Athens and entered Placa. The Placa is a market that is huge and easy to get lost in, but great for finding souvenirs and a lot of great stuff. It is also built around the ancient ruins of market and a library, which was cool to see in between stores. Compared to the Egyptian ruins that were so well preserved due to lack of rain, the Greek ruins were not as impressive as we had pictured, but it was still amazing to be there and see where one of the greatest times in ancient history occurred. The Placa was close to where our hostel was so it was just a short walk to end the tour. Again this tour was not led by a local, but the girl who led it was English and had only been living in Athens for a couple of months.
After a quick lunch of gyros, we went to see the Acropolis. It did not fail to amaze as we spent 2 hours walking around it and reading about the Parthenon and the Erectheon. Jill kept talking about how it was when she was there last. She made Jenn take a picture of her in the same spot that she had 2 years ago when she was there during study abroad. What was a little disappointing was the acropolis museum was closed because they built a new one that still is not open. 2 years ago Jill loved going from Greece and the acropolis to the British Museum in London a little bit later and seeing the freize that the British currently own. Not being able to see the greek museum was a little disappointing but Jill remembered that 2 years after seeing the acropolis that she got gelato and walked through the placa so we did just that! We wandered around, almost getting lost, but were able to find what would become our favorite bakery. After sharing five delicious scoops of gelato, we went back to the hostel to go do our laundry becuase at this point in our trip we had worn almost all our clothes at least twice.
The laundry was more expensive than we would have liked, and while our clothes were drying, on our balcony, we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the Placa. We were practically dragged into the restaurant by the owner and promised great prices and free wine with our dinner. We agreed and got our wine, but it seemed like forever before our waiter took our order. As we waited for our food, Jill was becoming increasingly disatisfied with the service. She said that if salad or bread did not come in five minutes, we would just get up and leave. Luckily for Jenn who was starving and knew it would take forever to find a new restaurant, the salad and bread came. But after that we waited a long time for our main courses. When they finally came we ate them fast and were engaged in conversation by two French guys who were seated next to us. The language barrier proved difficult, but not impossible, we told them they could meet up with the party hostel and go out. We finished up and left to get ready to go out.
On the rooftop bar of our Hostel we met a guy from Chicago, Nico!!! He actually went to Northbrook and Knew the daughter of the Opthimologist Jill worked with two summers ago, Abby Berman! He even went on the same IES Barcalona study abroad program Jenn is going on Spring of 2009!
The bar closed at 12 and we left for the pub hop and on the way we saw the french guys Thomas and Ulrich. But when we got to the first bar and found out it had 5 Euro cover, Jill, Nico, and Jenn decided to just turn back. The French guys were sad, but there were plenty more girls from the hostel for them the make friends with.
We went back and went to bed so we could get up early the next morning and another plus was that we didn't spend any money on drinks!
