Friday, June 11, 2010

The Acropolis

Things I'm learning:

Parachute pants are WAY in.

Everyone here smokes.

No one says thank you.

When you go out to eat, its accepted that one person will take the entire bill, and when we ask them to split the bill it takes about half an hour to figure out.

The Acropolis was/is/will always be awesome.

The many, many stray dogs that roam around Athens were rounded up before the Athens Olympics in 2004, vaccinated, and given collars so that it didn't appear that Athens had packs of stray dogs on international tv.

My pictures are tiny! I think they work as links. Try clicking on them to see if they get bigger.



I am exhausted! I'm so sorry if what I'm saying makes no sense, but we had the fullest day today. Fran and I couldn't sleep again (yesterday morning we were up at 4.30 am and today 6 am). We got breakfast and then headed on foot to the Acropolis. It ended up being only a fifteen minute walk to the base. We walked up the southern slope of the Acropolis, passing the Theatre of Dionysus on the way. We stopped by the Odeion of Herodes Atticus so that I could give my speech about the Acropolis. Here's an awkward picture of me speaking.




Continuing on, we entered through the propylaea (meaning gateway), and before I realized it I was staring at the Parthenon. I literally had no idea that I was looking at it for a couple of minutes.








To the north of the Parthenon is the Erechtheion, which had the famous
caryatids used as columns. These aren't the original columns, those were taken and placed in the Acropolis Museum, which we visited later today, and is just below the Acropolis.







I don't have a lot of words to describe how it was to actually be on the Acropolis. For spending years and years only seeing it in pictures and powerpoints, it kind of felt like a huge accomplishment. But it was a little hard for me to actually believe that I was there, it didn't feel completely real. We made a new friend, Sarah, from New Zealand. We exchanged information and are going to find each other on Facebook!



There were great views of Athens on all sides of the Acropolis.







When we left the Acropolis, I got something in my eye and had to take out one of my contacts, so I had to walk halfway down the Acropolis and all the way back to our hotel like a Cyclops.

We took a break for lunch at around noon, and went to a little outdoor restaurant. There are tons of these places, where people will sit and mainly face the sidewalk to people watch. I ordered a DELICIOUS ham and cheese sandwich, with a huge fruit platter. For some reason it was the best fruit I've probably ever had, and I don't think it was becuase we had spent all morning treking through mountainous terrain in the sun. After lunch we did a little souvenir shopping before heading over to the Acropolis Museum.




Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos within the museum, even without flash. So I don't have any to post here :(
But it was really interesting, even though I forgot that they lower the temperatures in museums and I was freezing the entire time. I also embarrassed myself by trying to speak Spanish to a group of people from Spain. I was so excited to actually understand another language, because I've been so completely lost when Greek is spoken. Ah well.

Later we went back to our lunch spot for dinner, and stayed for about three hours. I really like that Greeks take their time with meals, and make it something fun to do. I feel like at home we go to movies or bowling or something like that, but here having a meal is enough to do for the night. We got dessert at Haagen Dazs, which was so good I'm going back tomorrow. They charged us extra to eat it there, because, as the waiter put it, he was 'serving' us.

After dinner we wanted to people watch for little, so we walked over to Monastiraki Square, which is directly next to a section of the Agora, and which also has a great view of the Acropolis that is lit up at night. Also, in a few parts of the city including the entrance to the Acroplois Museum and the Square, there are glass floors, and if you look you can see various excavations of neighborhoods of the Agora. I thought they were very cool, except for my slight fear of heights. This is the kind of thing I love! By standing above the open excavations, you can really see how architecturally advanced the ancient Greeks were. Perfectly formed walls, staircases, outer walls, and perfect right angle corners are all there, especially compared to Southwestern archaeology (which is what I worked with in my field school this past semester in Tucson).








Tomorrow we're exploring the Agora!

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