Athens, Greece

We got up early in Rome on Monday morning and made it to Athens with little problems. From the Athens airport, which is surprisingly small, we took a 30-minute metro ride to our stop called Monastiraki. When we exited the metro station, it was instant beauty. We entered into a beautiful, lively square, and the Acropolis was in plain sight on top of the hill. Our hostel was about 2 blocks away from the square, and about 99 times better than our Rome hostel. We immediately took showers since I had only taken (literally) a 2 minute shower during the three days we were in Rome because the water in the hostel was FREEZING. It was really nice to feel clean again. After our showers, we walked around the square for a bit. The first thing I noticed was the large number of stray dogs on the streets. The majority of them were sleeping, I'm assuming because it was so hot outside. Anyways, eventually our noses led us to a wonderful Greek restaurant that served gyros (surprise surprise)! I obviously ordered a lamb gyro (and couldn't believe I was the only one who did!). It was realllly good, but also different than what I'm used to because it wasn't shaved meat like we have in the US, but instead consisted of several long pieces of lamb in the shape of a hotdog... Nevertheless, still amazing gyros. After dinner we walked around the streets and got pulled into the touristy stores, which took up a good 3 hours of our time. It was really awesome though because going store to store actually allowed us to see a lot of the city. It's pretty neat because Greek ruins sites were randomly mixed into the city. The sites are fenced off, and the original ground is about 5 yards beneath the streets. After wandering in and out of stores, we stopped at a restaurant that specialized in crepes (I got one filled with chocolate and fresh strawberries... yum!). We ate our crepes outside sitting below the lit-up Parthenon, that is until the mime (who was actually talking quite a bit...) that was sitting near us started getting creepy. At this point we decided it would be best to head back to our hostel so we could get some much needed sleep (traveling wears you out!).

The next morning we woke up, got our free breakfast, and went to the reception desk to ask what was the best route to take to get to the Acropolis, which was actually super close to our hostel and really easy to get to. Much to our surprise, she told us it was "Museum Day" and that we wouldn't have to pay for any museums we went to that day. THANK GOD for Museum Day, which apparently only happens once a year... how lucky are we? We left the hostel and spent some time walking through the Athens Flea Market, got hit on by creepy salesmen, and eventually made it to the Acropolis entrance. The whole park took about 3, maybe 4 hours to walk (uphill) through, ending at the top of the hill with the Parthenon. The Parthenon has work getting done on it, but it was still really awesome to see. From the Parthenon, you can basically see all of Athens, which is soooo unbelievably beautiful. We sat on the top of the hill for about an hour and soaked it all in (I was also able to steal my dad a rock for his super non-loser-ish rock collection at this point). In the Acropolis we also saw a couple of old theatres (one which is still being used today), temples, old churches, etc. It blows my mind that any of it is still standing after all this time. After sitting at the Parthenon for a while, we headed down the hill to grab something to eat and to see the Temple of Zeus, which is almost completely destroyed compared to what it used to be. There used to be a gigantic statue of Zeus in the temple but it is no longer there; similarly, the majority of the columns from the temple are also missing. The statue of Zeus is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, so that would have been really cool to see. We entered the temple (without charge) and immediately starting singing "I Can Go The Distance" from Hercules... it only seemed appropriate. From the Temple of Zeus, we hiked to the Parliament building, where there were thankfully no protests going on. Not a very impressive building compared to all the Greek ruins... it was very plain looking. After getting almost attacked by about 12 million birds in front of Parliament, we (frantically, in my case) headed for the market in Athens to buy something for dinner. The market is split in two sections: the meat market and the vegetable market. We thankfully only caught the end of the meat market. The first thing I saw was a whole pig, completely skinned with its eyeballs still on its head... that was enough for me. We headed for the vegetable market, where you can buy fruit as well. We bought tomatoes, basil (what we THOUGHT was basil... it actually was mint... oops), garlic, and strawberries at the market. We stopped at a "grocery store" nearby and bought pasta and olive oil (I call it a "grocery store" because that's all that was sold there besides cereal). Anyways, we made pasta with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and NOT BASIL in the hostel kitchen, which was quite an experience since none of us have cooked or even been in a kitchen in the past four months. Nevertheless, it didn't turn out to be too horrible.

The next day we got up early to go to the beach! However, by the time we actually found the correct tram to take to the beach it wasn't so early anymore. After about 30 minutes of tram-riding, we were finally at the beach (which is actually not sandy like your average beach, but pebbly). We all laid down, took short naps, and were ready for lunch by the time we woke up. The beach restaurant served amazing Greek chicken shishkabobs that Natalia and I devoured. After eating we played a little bit of Rummy with my newly purchased Greek playing cards before heading back out by the water. We took turns swimming in the beautifully clear water since we didn't want to leave our belongings on the beach unattended. After we were all swimmed out, we laid on the beach for a little bit more. Lots of interesting people watching to do here. There was even a popular TV show that was asking people questions and filming them on the beach. We got asked a question, but we didn't speak Greek so we were rejected. After a while it started getting cold so we decided to take the next tram back. When we were about 15 minutes into our ride, the tram stopped and everyone was ordered to get off because the strike was beginning and the trams weren't going to run for the rest of the day. How convenient... luckily there was a nearby metro station that we were able to get on before that closed down too. We got off near the Temple of Zeus because the previous day we saw that a nearby museum had an Andy Warhol exhibit. (Now my nerdy side comes out...). I looooove Andy Warhol and was looking forward to seeing him in the art museums in Madrid, but never got to. Needless to say, I was really excited that the exhibit was in Athens (and free!). I got to see all of the original Marilyn Monroe and Campbell's soup prints, along with a lot of other popular works by him and other pop artists. I really enjoyed it, but I was surprised to see that they were selling his smaller prints for 300 euro. I probably would have bought one if I wasn't a poor college kid, and if I had ANY room on my walls to put it. After the museum we headed past Parliament, where there was a small protest going on, to return to our hostel to shower and relax for a bit before going out to dinner. In the hostel we met a nice girl from Sweden who actually ended up going out to dinner with us. We returned to a restaurant that we had passed by earlier. The waiters were chatting it up with us and said that they would throw themselves off of the Acropolis if we didn't come back for dinner. The food looked good, so why not? I got another gyro and split a bottle of wine with the rest of the girls... a very delicious last meal in Athens. After dinner we went on the rooftop of our hostel, where there is a bar and an amazing view of the Parthenon at night. We sat around and talked for a while before going to bed.

The next morning we had to catch our flight back to Sevilla... so of course this had to be the day that there was a full-out transportation strike in Athens. The only available transportation to the airport was through taxi services, so we got one of those and only had to pay 15 euro each even though the taxi driver unsuccessfully tried royally ripping us off.

By the time we got back into Sevilla and at our house, it was about 5:30pm. We repacked all of our stuff into our suitcases, and while I was planning on walking down by the river one last time before leaving, I was sadly way too tired to do that. My roommate Natalia and I went to my favorite Chinese restaurant on Esperanza de Triana for our last "authentic" dinner in Spain. We crashed immediately when we got back to the house, and it's a good thing we were so tired because we had to share a twin bed! Ridiculous, I know... especially when there were two free beds and two free couches we could have been using, butttt I won't bore you with the details about that little issue. We woke up to catch our taxi to the airport at 4am. Pepi was very nice to help us carry down all of our luggage and wait for the taxi with us. It was very sad leaving Sevilla and I know I'm only going to miss it more and more! It's alright though, I know I will return someday... :)




Picture #1: Me and my gyro!
Picture #2: Greek ruins randomly thrown about the city
Picture #3: The Parthenon at night
Picture #4: Acropolis: Me in front of an ancient temple
Picture #5: Me with the Acropolis in the background and the Parthenon on the top of the hill
Picture #6: Top of the Acropolis: a temple next to the Parthenon, that was once attached to it
Picture #7: View from the top
Picture #8: Me with a view from the top. In the background you can see an old theatre, the one that is still being used today
Picture #9: The Parthenon
Picture #10: The temple of Zeus
Picture #11: Parliament building with a small protest going on
Picture #12: Parliament square
Picture #13: Me in Moniastirski square, with the Parthenon in the background
Picture #14: At the beach!
Picture #15: Natalia and I at our last dinner in Greece