a different sort of athens...

internet access here is not so easy...either i dish out about $1.50 for 15 minutes on the computer, or i sit and wait for the opportunity to borrow one from one of the lovely people on study abroad that had the guts to bring one along. one has finally fallen into my hands.
becca and i left about 9 days ago and headed for greece. the flight alone was interesting enough, but i'll just get to the part where we got to baggage claim and had no bags to claim. yes. becca and i in our heels and dress clothes (being "non-revs") after they were our pjs a few hours before, would have to remain in them for an additional 28 hours or so.
apparently, delta decided that the weight of the airplane couldn't hold an additional 84 pounds of luggage and decided to hold it in atlanta. we figure that after finding becca's bag had been searched by the asa, they simply missed the plane or something. so in a haze, we wandered around athens trying to find our hotel and later some flip flops to escape the pain of walking on cobblestone in heels. but of course, every plastic flip flop turns outto be at least $30.
instead, we had to use that money to go back to the airport the next day to pick up our beloved baggage. it was a one hour trip both ways, but so worth getting out of those clothes!
becca and i spent the rest of that second day getting acquainted with our next hotel's location. we mastered the metro with no problem and haven't gotten lost yet. we surprised some of our study abroad buddies by showing up at the hotel and explored the area. those extra two days really helped us get our bearings.
on monday we all headed to the beach. the mediterranean is a bit colder than we all anticipated and quite rocky. like most european countries, they don't seem to like swimsuits over here. we had some rather akward moments as topless girls in thongs decided to occupy the sand adjacent to us. it was even worse when a perverted man busted out his camera phone, as you can imagine.
we were bombarded with men trying to sell us a wide variety of items, from bouncing, light up sea urchins to magazines about jesus in greek to bikinis those girls don't want to wear anyway. theres a lot of that around here. but aside from that and not having any towels to lay out on, the view was beautiful.
later we met up with all the study abroad group that made it to the hotel on time. thanos, our professor, lead us to the top of a mountain right next the the acropolis that had the most amazing view of the city. there are buildings sprawling out just about as far as the eye can see...we could see the mediterranean in the distance, the acropolis, and a number of other significant mountains and landmarks. the view was amazing at the top. it wasn't so great on the way down.
becca, kaite, sarah, and i all stayed back to take more pictures and admire the view. the group was only about 5 minutes ahead of us. but somehow i guess we took the wrong path. we were just chatting and watching our footing on our way down the mountain path that was lined with trees and brush. suddenly from the corner of my eye, i saw more to a male figure than i wanted to see. we all quickly passed by this man, trying to continue our conversation that was being held moments ago, but words were mostly lost into studders. i don't know why a man in a blue collared dress shirt and dress socks would be standing on the side of a mountain without any pants, but it definitly wasn't what any of us were expecting or wanted to see.
tuesday kicked off our week of intense sight seeing. we took a long bus ride to mycenae to see the ruins of one of the most ancient pre-grecain civilizations. it involved a lot of hiking and beautiful views, like most of the days, but i think my favorite part was where we stopped for lunch. we stopped in the beautiful city of nafpoli, which used to be the captial of greece. it was right by a blue sea, with some sort of castle that appeared to be floating in the middle. the streets were packed with vedors of souveniers, but what i admired most were the flowering vines of pink flowers that crawled over the walkway from one balcony to the other. there were two mountains there, the tallest with a huge mideaval fortress on top and the other with an older one. we got some delicious gelato...it was a great way to start the trip!
the next day we began our tour of classical athens, visiting the agora and, of course, the acropolis. at the acropolis, the cheif architect gave us a behind the scenes tour of the reconstruction...we got to see how they are carving the new marble to fit with the ruins. its amazing how many pieces of various buildings they have and they pretty much know how it all fits together! so that was pretty cool.
our hotel is right next to the acropolis, literally a 5 minute walk to the gates. we're in the heart of the touristy district, which has its ups and downs. we always have a fabulous view of the city and the acropolis from our hotel's roof garden. the bad part is that whenever you step outside the hotel, the restaurant people are enticing you to "come! eat here! we have best food in athens" and "pretty girls, would you like something sweet? drinks? coffee?" and so on. i hate that as much as i hate the men trying to sell those bouncy sea urchins.
so on with the trip. thursday we did some more hiking around athens. THE longest day ever. we probably walked about 6 or 7 miles and i took about 15 pages of notes (which means pretty much the whole time). it was very hot. but despite the length, it was great.j
one fun story is when we were about to cross the street at the beginning of the day, a fat lazy dog awoke from his slumber on the sidewalk. well, when a group of about 30 people walked up, he woke up and decided to cross the street with us. its funny how all the dogs here know to wait for the people to start crossing. anyway, the lights are retarded, and only a few people make it barely two steps beyond the median before the light changes red for us to cross. so they turn back and all 30 of us squeeze onto a 3 foot wide median. but the dog was unaware of this, so when he got to the other side, he realized his new pack was not with him. he barked and howled at the cars and motercycles as they whizzed by, as if he were angry with them. it was pretty funny to watch and he did this the whole time we waited. when we all finally crossed, he was satisfied, but would bark at the stragers that passed by. so this dog followed us for a solid hour and a half...he waddled through the town, up the streets, didn't give a ticket to get through the gates to the acropolis, sat with us through lecture, climbed up the rocky slopes, you name it. he was our pet for the day.
we took a break for lunch and the most exciting thing about that was becca got pooped on by a bird. well, maybe not exciting, but it was pretty darn funny. but my bad event came later when we finally ended our day and we were all walking back from the other side of town. i was exhausted and weary, walking along the road when suddenly my vision turned sideways and i was catching myself on the ground and my ankle popped. i had stepped in a massive 4 inch deep pothole in thev middle of the freaking road! it hurt painfully bad and becca was kind enough to let me hobble home with her assistance. it was swollen pretty bad until about sunday (which is today).
friday was a fabulous break from the excessive walking of the day before. it was a 3 hour bus ride to delphi, where the gods were said to have lived. apparently, theres some kind of chemical in the water there that made people high, causing them to hallucinate and stuff like that. if you smelled too much of the fumes or drank too much of the water, you would die. anyway, it was gorgeous up there, the mountains were incredibly high.
i spent a lot of the time after the excursions rewriting my notes into a final journal. its very exhausting. but anyway, the past two days have been pretty low key. we went to the national museum yesterday and then dished out a lot of money for laundry. its been rainy, of course, on our days off, which sucks. but oh well.
we're leaving tomorrow morning at 6 am for mykonos. more updates to come!