June 27th-28th-Athens!

June 27th, 2009
After we left the Acropolis, it was 5:30 and we decided to commemorate our first full day in Greece as a group by going out for dinner and drinks. After much debating about where we would go (some wanted to get some American food at Hard Rock...really?!) we ended up going to the Athens Club, a hotel with a rooftop restaurant. The view of the Parthenon and the Olympion were, as expected, spectacular. The food was pretty descent, a bit over priced, but with that view they can get away with it.

After dinner, we went up to the Plaka district and found a little hole-in-the-wall bar. Some people decided to try to save money by getting beer/alcohol early instead of paying 8+ euro for a drink at the bar. We had the whole rooftop to ourselves and the Parthenon was right behind us. Don't worry, blog buddies, I neither paid for drinks at the bar nor bough alcohol beforehand, though I did have a glass of wine before dinner, which was enough for me. Our server was hilarious and since he couldn't speak English and we really couldn't say anything other than "hello," "thank you," and "this food is delicious," there were some funny lost-in-translation moments. Eventually in the evening, bottles started being dropped and glass started going everywhere (and yes, there was some blood, though not mine), we split up and a lot of us went back to the hotel. I was in the group to go home.

June 28th, 2009
9:50 pm
I am so exhausted! Today was not so much longer than yesterday, but the whole group started dragging. More than half of the students were hungover and Prof. McCoy was very not happy. It didn't help that he got a complaint from the hotel's management because someone spilt beer and stained the carpet in their room. It is a little annoying to think that some people on the trip are not trying at all to be good guests in Greece. They are being exactly what Europeans imagine as stupid Americans. Ask me for specific examples.

This morning we went to the Acropolis Museum. It is brand new (open for 5 days when we went there) and is right across the street from the Acropolis. It houses all of the shards of pottery and votive offerings and friezes which are not housed at the British Museum. There is a lot of debate as to whether or not the BM should now send what they have back to Greece. The museum is pretty interesting, but it could have taken a significantly shorter amount of time to go through. Even Prof. McCoy was shocked at how long we spent there-so shocked that he cancelled one of the sites we were going to see that day. he imagined it would take us maybe an hour, hour and a half. We sludged out of there after three hours. I think McCoy was a little sad that we were not so Beatlemania-ish about each individual broken piece of pottery as he was. All I'm saying is that at after a certain point, a Kore statue looks like a Kore statues which looks exactly the same as another Kore statue. It would have been better if we hadn't been as tired, too, but that was our fault.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Agora. This place was really neat. It was funny because it seemed to still be a little center where people would go and hang out...like just a normal park. The Temple of Hephaestus might be my favorite site we've been to in Athens. It is the best preserved temple around and is so beautiful. It was a perfect way to end our time in Athens.