Sunrise and sunset in one day, delicious food and incredible ruins...Greece is incredible!

Woo Greece!  I woke up for sunrise and it was really cool, as usual.  The sun feels like it’s getting brighter as we continue.  Once it gets over the horizon you cannot look anywhere near it anymore, while in the beginning it wasn’t quite that hard to look at it.  After sunrise ended I went back to my room, took a shower, ate breakfast and went back to sleep.  I set my alarm in order to meet up with friends at 10am to go explore, however, when I woke up and ran around the boat trying to find them, I realized that we were supposed to meet at 9, so I missed them.  I decided to explore a little on my own, but I felt a little uncomfortable, so I ended up going back to the ship after 45 minutes.

 

When I got back to the ship, though there were some people I knew getting off and I sort of jumped onto their exploring party.  We wandered around the city and found that there was really nothing in Piraeus…we got some delicious gyros at a restaurant and headed back for our trip to Athens.  Acropolis was incredible!  I felt completely in awe as we walked towards the temple of Athena and as we looked over the edge and saw the theater of Dionysus and the temple of Zeus…it was all amazing.  The rocks there were a little slippery though, so I did end up taking a fall.  Nothing bad, but I did skin my knee a bit.  When we left Acropolis we had a short bus tour of Athens, but they let those of us who wanted to stay in Athens and find our own way back get off.  The group I had been hanging out with earlier in the day and I all got off in order to explore on our own.

 

We started off by finding our way to the Tower of the Winds.  Which is an octagonal structure which was built as a water clock and weather vane.  It took us a long time to find, and we had a few people tag on with us for a bit, but it was really neat to look at it.  We then headed to the Ancient Agora which was once a market place and there was a huge building which had been recently redone and made to look how it probably looked back in the day.  We didn’t spend much time at this building because just across the Agora was the Hephaisteion which is the best-preserved building in the area.

 

When we were done ooing and awing we left to see the Kerameikos which is an ancient cemetery with a really good museum of tombstones.  After taking in this area we headed to our next destination very slowly.  Rachel and Melissa (friends from college) had told me about this hill called Lykavittos that I should watch the sunset, so we decided to head there.  We got there early, so we sat around enjoying the sights of Athens from above.  You could see everything from up there.  The city was beautiful and oddly shiny.  The hill is higher than Acropolis too, so we had a beautiful view of it from above.  The four of us sat and watched the sunset over Athens and talked about what super powers we would want, what kind of animal we would want to be and things along those lines.  We headed down the hill in an awkward way in search of dinner and asked our taxi driver where we should eat.  He told us this one place, but we couldn’t find it, so we ate at another restaurant.  One thing I have learned while traveling is that the best thing to do at a restaurant is to ask the waiter what the best food is, so we did this…it was lamb and veal.  I had some veal and everyone else at the table had lamb.  It was incredible.  The atmosphere was gorgeous and seemed very friendly.  We were right along a busy pedestrian street and it was great to just watch the interactions between people.  After dinner we stood out on the square and looked up at the Acropolis and got some ice cream and shared a pastry.  When we got back to the boat we just hung out in a friend’s room and talked before heading to bed.

 

The next day we got up early and went on a SAS trip to Delphi.  The bus ride was really long, but it was nice to sleep for at least part of the drive.  Delphi was everything I thought it would be.  I saw the temple of Apollo and the stairs down to where the woman at the oracle sat and the theater and the “belly button of the earth.”  It was really incredible.  The view from the hill was beautiful and while I knew a lot about the mythology I was with someone who knew a lot about the political history and the act and architecture, so while we were running up this mountain we were sharing what things meant.  The museum there was also pretty cool.  After walking around in there we had to shuffle back into the bus and off to lunch.  Lunch was also amazing.  I can’t remember what all it was, but you will just have to trust me.  Then we got back in the bus and went to a monastery on the side of a mountain.  It was really cool and we had a really great tour guide who told us about almost every mosaic.  Then we headed back to the ship and ate dinner and hung out and eventually went out to take advantage of free internet on a street corner in Piraeus.

 

Yesterday was a relaxing day.  We got up and tried to go find a place our tour guide had told us about that had beeches and shopping and restaurants.  When our taxi driver got us there we discovered there were only restaurants, so he brought us to a nearby beach and told us where to go for shops.  We swam, we laid on the beach, we relaxed and eventually got up for lunch.  We walked for a really long time finding everything to be closed and ultimately waved a taxi down to take us back to a place near the port.  After a few minutes of riding in the cab he says “what were you doing all the way out there, anyway”  to which we responded that we had been at the beach and that we had been walking for a while.  He seemed really surprised that we had walked that far.  We ate at a place next to the place we had eaten the really good gyros a few days earlier.  This time I asked what was good and the waiter said “everything.”  So, I looked over at the case of a few plates next to me and I said “how much is that?...I want that.”  It was chicken wrapped in bacon on kebob.  It was really good.  Really tired by this point, we headed back to the ship to shower and rest before dinner.

 

Our tour guide had told us about this amazing restaurant where they served only ancient Greek food in ancient Greek style.  So, all of the food had been written about by some ancient Greek philosopher, or poet or politician and they served it here.  There were no forks because at the time forks hadn’t been invented, so there were only spoons and knives.  We started searching for this place by walking around Piraeus (that’s where we thought it was and all we had was the name in English).  We had been told that any taxi driver would know it…turns out none of them do…eventually we got an address from the internet and found someone who knew the address and it was in Athens.  So, we hopped on the metro and went to Athens.  We were told three different times what the stop we were supposed to take was and eventually found someone who knew where it was.  It was down this alley and all the other restaurants were closed (now it was about 9pm).  It was the only lit sign on the entire road.  In order to get in, you walk down these stairs into a building, then walk up stairs on the other side of the building and it immediately opens up into a gorgeous courtyard.  The five of us got a seat and asked the waitress what we should get…here’s what we god…ready to drool?

Cheese with sauce from berries, Stuffed slices of pork filled with plums in dark juice and fresh mashed peas, “Creokakkabos”: Pork Pancetta with sweet and sour sauce from honey, thyme, vinegar and mashed chickpeas, and Goat leg prime beef cutlet with assorted mashed beans and leeks.  And for desert, Meloria (apple pieces and pomegranate seeds with yogurt and Greek honey), Oven baked fruits with honey, and Ames (milk-pie).  Everyone else also had different wines for the different courses.  The atmosphere was absolutely beautiful.  There was music playing in the background and there were so few people there that it seemed like we were alone. 

 

Very stuffed and content, we headed back to the ship and just hung out talking for a while before going to sleep early because today we had to wake up early.  We got up bright and early and headed to Athens again to go see the Acropolis museum.  It was huge and awesome.  I don’t know what else I can say about it.  We ate lunch at a small restaurant that gave us free watermelon at the end and then we went to the archeological museum.  By the time we got there we were all getting tired and this museum just wasn’t laid out very well, so we didn’t spend too much time there (which was good since we were behind schedule).  We headed back to the ship slowly and said goodbye to Greece land for now (as we all keep saying…we’re all convinced we’ll come back to these amazing places).  My body ached so bad that instead of going to take a shower, I needed to lie down for an hour or so before dinner then shower.

 

Tomorrow classes resume for another day.  I have an exam in religious studies (I’m really not worried about it since it’s an open book take home essay).  The day after tomorrow we’ll be in Istanbul though!  For 5 days!  That’s the longest in one port we’ve had so far.  I’m so excited.  Have a good night!