Saturday, June 2, 2012

Pigeons, I don't eat your food so why do you try to steal mine?!

So first off, I wrote the last post at 2 AM Athens time after we went out for drinks.  This morning when I woke up, I realized that I left out four very important parts about my experience yesterday.  I am going to wrap up yesterday and then go on to today's adventures.  First, yesterday when we were at the Acropolis, you could see a bunch of different important historical places from the top of the mountain.  One of these places was Areopagus, or the hill that all criminals were led to be tried for their crimes against the city.  This is where the council of Athens would decide whether they should die, be exiled, or set free.  One of the most famous criminals to be tried on this hill was Paul the Apostle.  It really struck me that I was looking at the place that someone from the Bible had once stood to proclaim what he knew about Jesus and God.  I grew up hearing those stories but never thought I would be in the places where they took place...that was really cool! Oh by the way, did everyone know that Christians were responsible for a lot of the destruction of the Parthenon, Agora, and other statues/monuments?  That really bugged me.  That would be like my hometown church hunting down a Buddhist temple and tearing it down because we don't agree with what they teach.  Obviously I don't think they would do that but what gave them the right to turn those pieces of history into their own chuches? I don't agree with that one bit.  The second thing that I forgot about yesterday was the street performer that was right around the block from our hotel who was using a puppet to play a tiny piano.  While this may not be that important, she was playing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.  Kristen, Kara, Jenny, and Allyson: I almost asked one my friends to sing the boy part so I could do the girl part, but then I kind of realized that we might be the only ones that do that.  I miss you.  Thirdly, yesterday was not really my day.  While yes I loved every bit of the experiences from yesterday, I had a few Morgan Moments.  After we got back to the hotel, I was walking up the stairs to our room and COMPLETELY bit it.  I don't know if one can fall gracefully, but that was literally the farthest thing from what I did.  I not only fell, but slammed into the wall first then slammed to the ground in a big sprawled out mess.  The best part?  Right as it happened the elevators doors open and out comes Sadie who saw the entire thing.  Definitely not my finest moment; that is the SECOND time in a week that I have fallen walking up stairs.  And that's not the first time I have fell here either.  I almost bit it a couple times at the Acropolis because a lot of the floor is slick marble and my sandals were just not doing it for me.  Yay for being graceful.  Now finally, the last thing of all and the "highlight of my day" I guess you could say was when I blew everyone else's power out on our floor when I was straightening my hair.  Apparently I didn't have my converter set right and it fried the power here.  My bad.  The converter even started smoking and sparking.  I was soooo embarrassed...I broke the hotel.  Luckily they got the power back on, but they waited to do our room last.  I think they were punishing me.  So Brittany, I may owe you a new converter when I get back home.  I can't help it that I am really just a hazard to myself and everyone else.

Now it's time for what we did today! We went to the National Archaeology Museum first thing.  We had to take our bus there and Irina showed us the bad part of town as we were driving.  It didn't look all that bad, but she said that they have had over a million illegal immigrants escape to Greece and that since it is hard for even the Grecians to find a job, most of the immigrants end up on the streets and pick-pocketing is really bad in this particular area.  We also got to drive/walk through the really nice shopping area in town.  It never ceases to amaze me just how big Athens is.  We also got to see the part of town that has been the center of controversy recently due to the political riots, but since elections are beginning soon there were no rioters there that we saw.  At the museum we saw a lot of different artifacts from the different periods in Greece's history.  I don't think I ever realized just how old Greece's history is; some of the groups such as the Mycaneans are 10,000 years old!  That's hard to imagine considering America is only a couple hundred years old.  We saw a lot of cool things but something that really resonated with me was the grave toppers that were from Ancient Grecian tombs.  They included carvings of the deceased either shaking hands with family members as a symbol that they would meet them again some day in the afterlife, or the deceased mothers being handed their babies if they had died during childbirth.  Some even showed the dead with their favorite pets.  That was sad.  Some of the grave toppers looked like giant vases, those were pretty cool as well because they signified that a young female had died young and unmarried.  They were more elegant and were HUGE.  After the museum, we went down to the Monastraki Square and had lucnch.  I had a gyro, which was really good.  I like to think of it as Greece's fast food, because it was greasy and cheap but sooooo delicious.  We had to fight some pigeons in the process of eating lunch.  They were not scared of people at all and I literally had to kick one to stop it from attacking me while I ate.  After lunch we went to the Agora.  This was basically a trading area that was the center for community practices within Athens.  In the Agora, you could find what we would basically consider a mall today.  It was a long building that had many different stores or shops contained within in it with a columned, covered pavilion in front.  I want to shop there.  It was actually almost completely destroyed when they uncovered it in the 1950s, but the American Archaeological Society rebuilt it to look just like what it would have back in the 5th century.  Irini said that in front of this building (The Stoa of Attalus) there would be a food market, but the stoas themselves contained shops with finer things such as jewelry and pottery.  The building is now a museum; this is where we found the "Voldemort" head statue....no joke.  The Grecians must have known that 7,000 some odd years later a woman named JK Rowling would right books with an evil character who was bald, pale, and was missing a nose.  They were so beyond their time haha!  We then went up to the Temple of Hifestus (I am not sure if that is how you really spell that but you get the idea).  It is the most complete monument still containing all the original elements of itself from the 5th century.  While it looks old and you can tell where explosions, bullets, earthquakes and the Christians (who again turned it into one of their churches) have altered its state, it is in amazing condition for being built 15 years before the Parthenon (which has had to be rebuilt 3 possibly 4 times)!  The temple also had an amazing view of the Acropolis and Athens from the front.  I am including some pictures of all these elements of my day.  Afterwards, we went to where the Athenians used to have to go (still in the Agora) to attend democratic meetings and see important leaders speak.  Irina had Nick read from the Funeral Oration of Pericles (not for sure if that is the EXACT title of the book) to give us a sense of what it was like to have to pay attention to somebody speaking when you have an amazing view of the Acropolis and the city behind you.  It was hard.  Now we are back at the hotel, I am about to take a longggggg siesta, and then we are going out to eat sans Barnes tonight.  He has to go schmooze with the big boys who run our program so we are on our own tonight.  Then drinks after!  Sorry these posts keep getting longer, but if you are reading this then you already know how much I like to talk anyways!

Oh one more thing, calimera (meaning good morning in Greek) and calimari (meaning fried squid) are two TOTALLY different things and are not interchangeable.  The things you learn.






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