March 18, 2014

Spring Break:Greece (Day 2)

Waking up when you have no set schedule for the day is glorious and is what spring break is all about. So we did just that, it was perfect. We ate breakfast at our hostel while deciding over greek yogurt and toast what our plan of action would be for the day. We only had one full day in Athens and  therefore we had to make it count. We asked our extremely friendly hosts how to get where we wanted and headed out cameras in tow, into the grecian sun.
First the Acropolis. Wow. That's all I have to say. It is something breath taking when you feast your eyes on architecture that is unfathomably old.
Kelsey the cat whisper
Katie and Pantheon.
MORE PHOTOS!

After the acropolis my friends and I went to the acropolis museum. As many of the world knows the Acropolis museum has an empty room in which the Greeks are saving for the sculptures from the Pantheon that are currently sitting in the British museum...the Brits do not feel the need to give them back to Greece. I used to think that the Brits should obviously give the statues back since they were stolen, but after visiting the Acropolis museum I really don't think Greece needs them. They have hundreds upon hundreds of sculptures and artifacts which is just a smidge overwhelming, that's my opinion. Most of the time while we were in Athens I just couldn't get over the amount of history that took place there and the fact that I was there and walking amongst the streets of Greece was unreal feeling. Lots of feels there. Mostly hunger though because Gyros happened.

Speaking of GYROS! (Pronounced "Yur-oh's") As it was nearing lunch when we finished at the museum and our stomachs knew it, I suggested to the group that we go find some gyros (yur-oh's). My friends had no clue what that was but I reassured them by describing what they were with the word "delicious". I figured that summed them up rather nicely. And since I am such a great saleswoman they were sold on that. We scoured the city until we found one, and it was 100% worth it. DELICIOUS. Amazing, so cheap and so worth it. Now I want one. Shoot, I shouldn't write these posts when I'm hungry.


Satisfied bunch of travelers we became which meant it was time to see more sites. We went to this open field which contained some old ruins, apparently the oldest ruins in Greece, it was called Olympian Park.
Next was Olympic Stadium. Cool.

Standing in a stadium that is infamous for it's olympic games was exciting, so exciting that I decided to sit in the king and queen's thrones placed around the stadium. Woo woo. I also pretended I was a medal winner in the Olympic Game when I walked across the field to the podiums. Way cool.

We figured it was a good time to head back to our hostel as we noted the dark almost black clouds that consumed the sky. But first it was posing with sculpture time.
We planned on getting snacks and chilling in our room until sunset since it was about 4 o'clock. That "chilling" bit turned into an almost 2 hour nap by all of us. When we awoke we decided upon shopping for snacks and then finding somewhere to eat dinner. Well, we didn't buy any snacks except for my friend Kelsey who purchased some Turkish Delights. As we left the shop we were very easily persuaded by a greek man to eat at his local restaurant. I had lamb and potatoes. Yeah. Yum. We were also given a free carafe of red wine which was most excellent. Dessert was free as well.  Greece just understands a poor girl's needs.
After a good couple of hours dining outside, drinking wine and chatting the evening away we headed back to our hostel to pack and sleep. We had an early travel day ahead of us. Next stop....SANTORINI!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful photos! Very much like when I was in Greece ages ago. Laughed at your 'Olympics' experience.

Anonymous said...

What did you think of Santorini? When we were there we had to go ashore from our cruise ship via a tender, docking at the bottom of the cliff, or super steep path that led to the top of the hills upon which most of the populace and towns are. So, we took a safer to us bus, than a donkey ride to the top (did same upon returning to the ship). Beautiful island. From the ship, approaching Santorini, it looked like snow upon the tops of this hills. As we neared the island, the snow was actually the white (w/ blue trim) houses. Did you buy any of the pistachio nuts they sell there? Mmmmm. PGP