Day 1 and 2
Hey everyone,
So I’m typing this journal entry as fast as I can in a local McDonald’s by the Athenian Parliament building because our hotel doesn’t have wifi! So please excuse the typos =] It’s been nice taking a break from technology; I feel like I really am experiencing Athens without an iPhone to tell me where to go…definitely a little liberating!
So I arrived in Athens last night and our professor immediately took us out to dinner to this amazing restaurant. Greek food is amazing! Think pita and tzatziki and meats galore, ohhh it’s so good. I am definitely going to have a fun trip trying out all this awesome food! Getting to the restaurant was a walk though, but we passed by Hadrian’s Arch, which was lit up making it look even cooler. All the ancient ruins have a spotlight shining on them at night, it’s great. After dinner most of us just went home and crashed…I’m so jetlagged, I couldn’t even sleep!
Anyway, so today we did a lot of walking around and sightseeing. First we walked to Hadrian’s Arch, this massive arch structure sort of close to the Acropolis (which we are hitting up tomorrow. SO EXCITED). It was huge, and you could see the Acropolis in the background. Then we walked to the ruins of a Roman agora and saw the Tower of Winds. That was pretty cool because it had a few functions like determining the direction of the wind (if I am remembering correctly). Then we walked all the way to the National Archaelogical Museum (through a pretty shady section of town, drug deals were definitely going down haha). The museum was amazing though, it had so many sculptures from the 4th century and I could even identify some of the subjects they were depicting, which made me proud of myself! We even got to see the mask of Agamemnon, it was this golden mask that served as the mythical funeral mask of Agamemnon. It was cool seeing how Greek mythology intertwined with the arts of the ancient times. After that we grabbed some food and I headed over to the McDonald’s to type up this quick entry!
Athens is a wonderful city, there is so much to do and see and I feel like we don’t have enough time but we will have to fit in everything tonight and tomorrow! I have to run to lecture now, but hopefully I will be able to describe Athens in more detail when I have more time! Hope you all are enjoying 2012, I know I am =]
January 3, 2012 @ 4:43 pm
If you’ve survived Brooklyn, you can survive Athens! Everything sounds to beautiful and lovely. I can tell that you are loving it and basking it all in. I hope lecture is just as exciting! Take some pictures, if you can =)