We docked this morning at 2 AM in Piraeus, although I didn’t even feel it (I sleep SO SOUNDLY in the cave which is my cabin!). After a quick breakfast, I went to the diplomatic briefing which is a lecture from an ambassador from the US embassy in Greece. They talked a lot about internship opportunities, which was a little irrelevant for me, but whatever! I felt like the time could have been used more efficiently – like actually off the ship! Haha Anyway, I left ship around 10:15 AM, walked 25 minutes to the ferry launching site, and booked a trip to one of the Greek islands with Erin, Amanda, and Haley. We chose an island called Paros, which is a rather large island but not as populated with tourists as other islands such as Mykonos or Santorini. After making our travel plans, we came back to the ship for a quick lunch. After that, we walked about 30 minutes to get to the metro and took it to the center of Athens – about a 30ish minute ride (not bad at all!). We ended up right in the middle of the shopping area and we sat down to get a refreshment. I had an amazing iced coffee. As we were leaving the café, I saw greek coffee being made in a little copper-looking cup over an open flame! So cool!
We then walked to the Acropolis and first went to the New Acropolis Museum. It was really interesting because I don’t think it was here when I visited in 2006! It is really interesting because the entire museum is built over the remains of an old civilization, so most of the floors in the museum are glass so that you can look down and see the ruins beneath your feet! Also, there is a huge controversy going on right now with the Elgin marbles, which are the marble sculptures and freezes that once decorated the Parthenon. I remember studying the isse in my Art History classes at Penn State, so it is interesting to see how the conflict is playing out. From what I gather, Lord Elgin of Great Britain “stole” marbles from the Parthenon during a war and took them back to Britain. They were (and currently are) housed in the British museum. Greece has been trying to get these precious pieces of art back for years now, but the Brittish government refuses to give them back because they are now such a huge draw to London. It’s a sticky situation because if Elgin hadn’t of looted the marbles, they probably would not be in existence today. It’s a dilemma then, to try and figure out who this art “belongs” to. Interesting, right?
Anyway, after the museum, we visited the Parthenon which was AMAZING, of course. So old and impressive, there are hardly words to describe the beautiful structure. It was VERY hot, though. By the time we climbed down the hill again, we were pretty famished. We went to a awesome restaurant that night. It was a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a friend of Haley’s. We arrived at 7 pm and there was no one there..which made me a tiny bit skeptical. We sat down and instead of handing us menus, the waiter (who happened to be the owner as well) asked if we would like to accompany him to the kitchen so he could show us what they had made that day! (!!!!) You can just imagine how excited I was!! Of course it was amazing and I took an embarrassing amount of pictures. We ended up ordering one of everything – about 8 dishes. The food was amazing – the best Greek food I’ve had ever! We had chilled white wine and enjoyed every bite of that food. It was delicious and so inexpensive, too! As we were leaving the restaurant, we met two Greek men, Mario (who was Albanian, technically, although he lives in Athens now) and Alexander. We ended up having another drink at the restaurant with them and then they took us to a nearby lounge. It was pretty empty, though, because there were no Greeks there! Mario and Alex informed us that everybody in Athens heads to the islands for the summer.
We jumped the metro back to Piraeus at the end of the night. I then took advantage of some free wireless in the port terminal to skype home. It was nice to chat with Mom and Dad and Laura too! : ) Miss you guys.
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