Day 1-2: Acropolis of Athens & Acropolis Museum

 Καλημέρα (Good morning)!  

    We are finally in Athens! We landed around midnight yesterday and got to this cute little hotel right around 1 am. So, not much sight seeing yesterday, but we did have a great view of the Parthenon. This only further increased our excitement for today.

    I woke up around 7 am today, and I thought jet lag would have kicked in, however, I’m doing pretty well. For breakfast I had some cereal that almost looked like the greek version of Cocoa Puffs (I had to try it!). 

    After breakfast, the fun began! We started by walking through Athens to get to the Acropolis museum. The walk through Athens was everything I fantasized about and much more.  The first thing I noticed was the graffiti. So much graffiti clinging to almost every wall and crevice. Here In Athens, graffitiing the walls looks to be like a competition to see who can put the largest, coolest art on the walls. Below is a picture that I represents one of my favorite graffiti thus far. As you walk down this alley way, the face appears more as a face than just half a face. I really loved this art, because I know it was not simple or easy to do this. Real thought and patience was put into making this!

    Secondly, I noticed how business oriented Greece is. Walking the street, you notice it is just a gigantic flea market. People fill the streets with a variety of good, everything from rugs to old, broken flutes! I think by far this was my favorite experience. I loved watching the people look around and barter for these items. You could tell that the locals were eager to sell their items, which I'm not sure if I mentioned, but some of us would almost argue these items are considered junk. 

    After that short walk from the hotel, we finally made it to the Acropolis museum. Let me tell you it was something to see! As you're walking, the closer you see the Parthenon. When I saw this, I felt like a teenage girl meeting her boy band crush. This was something I had dreamt of experiencing my whole life and the closer we got to it, I wanted to go straight to it. However, the museum was first and it was a great way to introduce the topics and understand what we were witnessing. 

    One of my favorite topics at the museum was the topic of Apollo and Daphne. The story goes that Daphne, a variation of a nymph, was basically being harassed and sexually predated by the god Apollo. Daphne, poor girl, did everything that she possible could to escape these advances by Apollo, and eventually called out to her father to be saved and to rid her of her beauty. Her father, heard these cries and turned her into a Laurel tree. The laurel leaves were then used by Apollo for show of honor, victory and highest status. Similarly in music, the story of the god Pan and Syrinx is almost exactly the same, with the only difference of the Syrinx turning into bamboo and Pan using the bamboo to make a pan flute. 

    I think that this relates to the theme of fate. Both Daphne and the Syrinx were going to end up with these men no matter what they tried. To me, it felt like they were doomed from the beginning, and didn't have a choice. Not only were they fated, but it is also known that women in this time were expected to suck it up and do what they are told, not make a scene. So, by them ignoring the wishes of these men and probably the men around them, they were always king to end up in a bad situation. 

    After the museum we took a long walk to the Parthenon. The parthenon was beautiful, made of white marble and intricate details. I was in complete awe of this structure. It is not something you can ever truly appreciate until you are genuinely present and understand how great these sites really are. Not only was the parthenon beautiful, so was the incredible view that can be seen from top of the mountain. Maybe I'm biased and still in the honeymoon phase of the trip but I truly feel like there is no other beauty that I have witnessed than here in this moment. Here are some photos below!

  

           

    

    After the Parthenon, we finally got to experience a bit of greek food! I was very excited but very nervous. I am no doubt a picky person, but I promised myself that I would try everything that was put in front of me, because this is the point of study travel. I ended up ordering something they called the double taster, which was just beef and veal. The beef I was somewhat okay with, but the veal made me so nauseated. Reflecting on it, the veal tased a bit sweeter than I'm used to for meat. I came to later find out that veal was just another name for 'baby cow'. Therefore, I did not eat more than a couple of bites, but it was enough to get me through until the next day. Once lunch was done we were released for some exploration and then met back up of dinner at 1530. The experience for dinner was about the same as the experience for lunch. I struggled to find something that I truly enjoyed, but was able to eat something enough to get me through until breakfast. Hopefully, tomorrow is a better food day for me. I keep thinking that maybe I'm just a bit tired from the plane ride. 

That's all for today! 

Andío! (Goodbye!)