Touring Athens Day 2

We woke up, got ready, and went downstairs for breakfast. The room was pretty nice. It had two levels. The main level had tables with place settings set up and it looked like conference rooms were up stairs. The main food table was filled with random snack items; cookies, little cinnamon rolls, and mini croissants. There was also traditional Greek food- cheese, meat, and a tomato, onion, and cucumber salad. At first glance, I assumed the salad was fruit- watermelon, pineapple, but then I looked closer..yuck! For breakfast?! There were eggs and bacon and although their bacon is cooked a little differently so it tastes more like warmed up ham, I made sure to balance out the pieces of Nutella smothered toast I had, by eating some of each.

We checked out of the hotel and walked up the street (where the lady at the front desk directed us) and found Arcopolis, the area where the Parthenon is. Fortunately, most of the historical sites were located within Acropolis, so they were all within walking distance. The Parthenon was on top of a huge hill, but the walk up wasn't bad because there are historical sites along the way that we stopped at. We saw Dionysis Theater, the first stone theater and home to Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes. We kept walking and came to a much larger theater, the theater of Herod Atticus, which was built in 161 AD! It was hard to even process how old everything was.

Finally, we made it to the top. Seeing the Parthenon was unreal! There I was standing in front of an iconic structure that I have only seen in pictures. Although they are so different, I got the same feeling when I saw the Parthenon as I did when I saw the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Like it really set in that I am so far from home, living it up in another country. The Parthenon has scaffolding on one side because it was badly damaged during a war in 1687. It had been turned into an ammunition store, so when it was hit by canons, gun powder ignited and ended up blowing up 28 columns. Right near the Parthenon is the Ercechtheion, which was a temple. It has the famous, "Porch of the Maidens" where six figures of Greek women are used as columns.

Parthenon Selfie

View from the top of Acropolis, where the Parthenon is

 After taking plenty of pictures at the top of Acropolis, we headed down to visit more sites before they closed. We made it to the Ancient Roman Agora, which was a small section of land that contained a large tower and columns. It was built after a donation from Julius Caesar and Augustus- don't be fooled by all my Greek knowledge, I have been Googling the sites we went to. Yes, I probably should have done it before we visited them so that I had some idea of their significance, but now that I have actually seen them, it makes reading about them more interesting. I can't believe the things I touched were so old! Everything I saw reminded me of my little brother Caysen since he likes Greek mythology. I hope he is able to come out and visit!

After the Roman Agora, we went to the Ancient Agora, which was a lot bigger. It was the main center of town during the 6th or 7th century BC. Inside the Ancient Agora was a museum, statues, an ancient church,  and a structure that looked like a smaller version of the Parthenon.

Rusty got in trouble about .1 seconds after this...I don't know how they were onto us so quick,
but as soon as he stepped up there, a couple women came shouting haha

Just a cute apartment building

After we finished, we set out to find Ermou Street, which Costas' girlfriend recommended. She said it was the main street for shopping. We found it fairly quickly and even better, the first thing we saw after making it to the main part of the city, was McDonald's! Rusty b-lined there without even looking back to see if I was following haha. A Greek woman took our order and she was not very happy that at first I told her I didn't want a soda and then I changed my mind and said I did want a soda. She told me I should have told her at the beginning. You could imagine her anger when after we finished ordering, Rusty said he wanted his burger plain. She told us it was too late haha! But she must have felt bad because then she said angrily, "So just meat and cheese?" Apparently they don't teach their employees how to change or add something to an order like they do in America, but I must admit the food was good!

We even ran into missionaries at McDonald's! We were so excited, we bought them lunch. There is only one mission in Greece and 50 missionaries total. They were both from England. One had been out for seven months and one had only been out five days! We left them to eat their lunch and walked over to Ermou Street. There were lots of shops, including two H&M's. One of them was huge and super nice inside. We shopped around for a while, but didn't end up buying anything.

Why can't all H&M stores look like this?

It began to rain while we were shopping, but luckily most of the street had awnings. There were guys walking up and down the street selling umbrellas, but we were to cheap to buy one. We walked to the bottom of the road, where all the taxi's sit, waiting for their next customers. We had some time before we needed to get to the bus station, so we stopped and took some pictures of the view. We killed a little bit more time by eating a dessert at a place nearby and then we took a taxi to the bus station. The bus ended up being delayed a little bit, but luckily only about 15 minutes. After about a two and a half hour ride, we finally made it home. What a great weekend in Athens!