June 18: Kalimera Eλλάδα (Greece)!!!!

The day started off today simple enough, exhausted and needing more sleep but excited for the day ahead. I wore a simple navy tunic a tan skirt with Merrel sandals. With this outfit I figured I was ready to conquer anything that Athens sent my way. The breakfast was amazing, typical of a European breakfast with cheeses, breads, and all kinds of pastries and fruit. We had an initial group language lesson at the sister hotel learning the Greek alphabet and few new words to help us in our travels along the way. Greek is surprisingly difficult to master but with practice I am sure that it won't be that hard. We went to Hadrian's arch first completed in 131 BC. It had Corinthian architecture possibly inspired by the acanthus plant. A bud bearing plant that when portrayed in stone was beautifully represented. Professor McCoy lectured about the time periods of Greece and then we visited the Olympian Temple of Zeus. Of the 104 columns it originally had now there are only 15 standing, with one of them collapsed on the floor due to a severe storm. The limestone present in the columns provided the Romans with the necessary materials with which to build there paved roads and make cement, which is why there are so few columns left. The reconstruction and recycling of monuments however takes place even before the Romans overtook Greece. The walls of the old city of Athens as well as the remains of the old city itself, thousands of years old lie beneath Plaka and modern day Athens. We saw evidence of this at the Temple to the Olympian Zeus where the walls that surrounded the old city were exposed and part of the wall was used as a foundation for the statues that surrounded the massive temple. After several pictures and 1.5 Liters of water we were ready to move on. With the sun beating down on us I was thoroughly sweating and figured why in the world did I pack so many dresses? I felt as if I needed just a swimsuit to walk around in it was so hot outside. Arriving outside of the Parliament building we witnessed the changing of the guards known as ' evisions' whose job it was to guard the tomb of the unknown soldiers from the past throughout all of Greece's fights for freedom. George our Greek guide teared up and professor McCoy had to finish the lecture. Heartfelt yet true he discussed the mockery some envisions encounter and described the long and rough pathway to freedom that Greece has been afflicted with during a variety of rulers and political governments/city states. Class officially ended and we wandered to the heart of Athens to go to the flee markets and grab lunch. We dined at Thanasis, a Greek gyro place and shopped all the streets of all the flea markets. No one ended up buying anything, we are all simply pricing the things we want and trying to find them cheaper elsewhere. Our groups ended up eventually splitting off and I ended up with Taylor and Ana. We explored the flea markets as well as a few monuments of our own. We stumbled upon Hadrian's library completed in 132 BC and found many elaborately decorated mosques and churches a stamp of Greek culture imprinted on them with there staccato roofs and dome shaped bulb ceilings. We wandered through Plaka and eventually found our way back to the hotel, our professor told us to simply go towards the Acropolis and our hotel would be a block away. For dinner we went to Vitro a little taverna where we ordered bacon pizza and Greek pizza. The waiter offered to give us free drinks so that was a luring point. The atmosphere was inviting and we were all so excited about being here. I still couldn't believe that we were here. For our free drinks we ordered white wine and mythos beer, which Diana says is a light beer but Alpha beer tastes better. Taylor however believes that the beer here is more beer-y than American beer. But it is not ideal for beer pong. We stayed for 3 hours like real Greeks and then stopped by a quaint gelato café. We all tried several flavors, one because we had no idea what to order and two, because we wanted free ice cream! I ordered cookie crunch, it tasted similar to vanilla pudding and a combination of crumbled vanilla wafers. Afterwards we decided to chill on the rooftop gardern. I left around 12:30 because I wasn't drinking but I didn't wind up going to bed until 4. It took me awhile to figure out how to make the half-glass door shower work without flooding the water closet as it is known with an ocean of water. Perri didn't come in until around 2 from the roof and then Bronson came in a few minutes later and we had a pow-wow until around 4 just talking about how excited we were to finally be here. Our days in Greece are numbered but we are definitely living it up.