Athens

Athens

ειά σου! (Hello)

I’m writing from my hostel in Athens, less than a mile from the Acropolis, and minus the blood stains (not my own) on the sheets, I can’t complain about my accommodations.   I arrived in Athens around 3pm local time on Friday and managed to get all my luggage, exchange currency, find the train station, take the correct train to the correct stop and find the right street my hostel was on in about 2 hours.  I left Dulles Thursday night around 8:10pm eastern time after sitting on the tarmac for 3 hours while the plane’s engine was repaired (We were scheduled to leave at 5:40, but sometimes those plane engines just don’t wanna start…) arrived in Geneva, Switzerland around 10am local and fortunately made my next flight into Athens.  So despite the delay everything worked out great.  Flying over the Swiss Alps was incredible.  Mount Blanc literally seemed to pass just a few hundred yards away from the plane.  

Once I got to my hostel and dropped all my bags off, I grabbed a map and a Greek phrase sheet and headed out into the city.  Because of the Olympics here in 2004, English is on all the street signs and it’s pretty easy to find your way around.  The Acropolis is also a great landmark for navigating because you can pretty much see it from anywhere in Athens.  I spent about 3 hours walking around and actually hiked up to the Acropolis but didn’t feel like paying to get in so I just hung out on the rocks outside the gates and enjoyed the awesome city views.  I made my way back to the Monastiriki area and found an outdoor café where I enjoyed some lamb Gyros with Tzattiki sauce – very delicious.  Later that night I met up with one of the students who is going to be sailing with me and went to another outdoor café.  It was great meeting him and some of his friends he was with and I’m really excited to get to know him and all the other students in a few more days.

I made it back to my hostel a little after midnight and was pretty exhausted.  Sadly my brain ignored my body’s tiredness and instead thought it was still on east coast time.  I was finally able to get a few good hours of rest in morning, but hopefully tonight I can reboot into Greek time and get some good sleep. 

This morning (Saturday) I left a little before noon to go explore more of the city.  I stopped by one of the large squares for breakfast, walked over and hiked around in the national gardens and saw the parliament and congressional buildings ( the buildings were empty - not surprising considering Greeks current economic/political woes).  Using my Greek map as a guide I tried to make my way to one of the ancient stadiums, but ended up on a really busy highway and couldn’t find it.  Later, from the top of the acropolis I realized I was right next to it, I just couldn’t see over the trees from the street level.  The Acropolis was next and was pretty easy to get to (just looked up).  Normally I can be leery of some of the tourist spots that everyone goes to around the world but the Acropolis was pretty cool.  It really wasn’t too hard to imagine the same structures being used 2500 years ago, and despite a lot of restoration equipment and scaffolding, the antiquity remained.  It was tough to know what was authentic, what had been restored, and what had been replaced with modern rocks, but from a layperson like myself – it was neat.  The Acropolis also offers 360 panorama views of Athens, all the way to the coast – so now I can say I’ve seen all of Athens in the past 24 hours. 

I spent a few hours being touristy and taking picture of the Parthenon and the other structures that I can’t pronounce and then walked down the south side along the Apostolou Pavlou (the road of Apostle Paul) where Paul spoke at the meeting of the Areopagus and told the Athenians they were ignorant and arrogant for worshipping silly gods because it was trendy (my translation, but check out Acts 17).    I think this is the first time I’ve ever visited a location specifically mentioned in the Bible, and I definitely look forward to seeing more of the places Paul wrote about in the coming months.

Overall Athens has been an awesome city.  Not overly touristy, but very accessible and easy to get around for an American like myself.  I also don’t feel like I’m sticking out being American, mainly because everyone kind of blends into different shades of whiteness.  Minus the language differences everyone is pretty similar.  It’s even tough to spot the tourists from the locals, which is a nice feeling and makes my experience a little more authentic.  Tomorrow I’m up early to navigate the bus system and hopefully make it to the port of Volos by mid-afternoon and move into (or onboard) my new home for the next couple of months.

Go Big Red!

-BG

Look! I can add photos too! Here's me in front of some old stones, also known as the Parthenon.