Athens

Our first day in Athens was spent doing all of the things any tourist would do. We started by walking down to Omonia Square and grabbing a pastry for breakfast. From there we kept walking towards the Acropolis hill. We saw many famous buildings up here, such as: the Parthenon, Propyaia gate, Theatre of Dionysus, and temple of Nike. Below are a few pictures.

We were in awe of all of these huge structures, but we did not know much about them, until we headed over to the new acropolis museum. Here we watched a video that outlined the history of the Parthenon (the most famous building). It started off by explaining that the Parthenon was built during the Golden Age of Athens, around 450 BC. The building was built in honor of the goddess Athina, and it was used for people to worship her there. Then over time, the building got taken over by different groups of people, and it was transformed into these things: a Byzantine church, a cathedral, a Frankish fortress, an armory, a mosque, and a few other things that I can’t remember.

In the museum, there were also models of what the Parthenon looked like in its entirety. It was a huge building with 46 columns throughout it. Then inside those columns, there was a 40-foot tall statue of Athina. That would have been amazing to see, but sadly, most of the building is gone. In the museum, however, they have done a great job of displaying pieces of the Parthenon that they have found.

After we finished at the museum, we explored the area around the Acropolis and then went down to the temple of Olympian Zeus. Below are a few pictures from there.

All of the places we explored were crowded and filled with tons of high school students (I’m guessing they were on a field trip). We thought that since we are here during the off-season, we wouldn’t run into the crowds, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. So after fighting through crowds all day, we were exhausted (also we aren’t quite adjusted from the 6 hour time change).

We went back and took a much needed nap, and after that, we got up and went out for dinner. We wandered down to the square and sat down at a table. A menu was quickly brought to us, and we ordered some typical Greek food. Brad got a kebab and I got a gyro. The food was delicious and so was the half-kilogram of wine that we got with it (for some reason they sell wine in kilograms instead of liters, I’m not sure why). Once we had finished our food, they brought us free Greek yogurt with honey for dessert. It was also delicious, although I was so stuffed from the gyro that it was a struggle to fit that in my belly! We sat there and enjoyed the street music for a bit, and then headed back to get some sleep.

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On the second day in Athens, we got up and headed to Omonia Square. We grabbed a pastry and then we were off to the HOHO (hop on hop off) bus. We boarded the bus and here is a picture of Brad having a blast on the bus!

The bus gives you headphones, so you can plug them in and learn information about the part of the city that they're going through. Some of the information was the same as what we had learned in the museum yesterday, so after riding the bus around once, and realizing we had already gone to many of the stops, we decided to change lines and ride out to the port city, Piraeus.

Piraeus is about 7 km from Athens, so it was a quick trip out there, but while we were down at the port we got to see the famous Piraeus Lion. We also observed the hustle and bustle of the everyday life at the port, and then we headed back in to Athens on a bus full of people coming in from a cruise ship. The bus took us back up to the Parthenon, and from there we walked down the hill to the Roman Agora.

Right after we got through the gates at the Roman Agora, the sky turned very dark. Then, a man came running by us and said in about ten minutes, there would be a big storm. We adhered to his warning, and started making our way back to the hotel as fast as we could. But somewhere amongst the chaos of everyone trying to take cover, the rain started to come. It was very heavy and there was a lot of wind, so to get out of it, we hid under an overhang of a building.

We had no idea how long it would rain for, but we knew we didn’t want to stand under that overhang all day, so after about 15 minutes when the rain was lighter, we took off again. We finally made it back to the hotel, where we took a nap while we were waiting out the storm. By the time the storm had cleared, it was time for dinner. We went out and got some pizza, and then came back and went to bed.

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The third day in Athens started with the typical pastry for breakfast. From there, Brad and I headed over to hike up Mount Lycabettus (the tallest point in Athens). It was a quick, steep hike, which revealed the most spectacular views of the city.

Here are some pictures from up there.

There was a little café up here, so we took in the beautiful views over a cup of coffee. It truly was an amazing site with the city buildings, the Parthenon and other ancient buildings, and the ocean all in view!

On completion of our cappuccinos, we hiked back down and then ended up getting back on the HOHO bus, that we were on yesterday. The bus has three different lines that take you to different parts of the city, and since we had already done the touristy loop and the Piraeus loop, we decided to check out the beach loop. Out here, we got to be away from the crowds and simply enjoy the afternoon walking along the waters edge.

Here are pictures from out at the beach.

We started to get hungry, so we headed to one of the nearby restaurants. Here, Brad and I shared an appetizer sampler and some sangria, while we waited for the bus to come back to pick us up. The bus only comes out to this spot twice a day, once when we were dropped off and the other time when we would be picked up, so we had to make sure we didn’t miss our ride back in to town.

We finished at the restaurant with plenty of time, and then when the bus came back, we hopped on and headed back in to Athens. We had spent all afternoon out at the beach, so as the bus was heading back in, we got to see the sunset over the ocean. It was one of the many amazing sunsets we got to enjoy while over here in Greece! We really are so lucky!

The bus dropped us back off at the Parthenon, and we walked down the hill and back to the area we had eaten at the first night. We both got gyros tonight and then for dessert we had Greek yogurt with honey. I never really have eaten much Greek yogurt before, but I’m really starting to like it!

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow, so we need to be rested up for our last day in Athens.

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Our final day in Athens started out with a pastry. (This has become quite the routine if you haven’t noticed.) Then with our pastries in hand, we walked down to the bus station, where we got on a bus that was heading out of the city. We rode the bus for a little over an hour, and then got off in a small town.

Now you may be wondering why we took a bus to the middle of nowhere. I mean there are plenty of things to do in Athens, why not just see the sights there. Well, we came out here because it is where the drop zone is located. And by drop zone, I mean the place you land after you jump out of plane. Yes, that’s right, we are skydiving today!

Brad and I went skydiving a year ago in Utah and absolutely loved it! We always talk about wanting to jump again, so I decided that there could be no better place to jump than here: overlooking the mountains of northern Greece, the city of Athens, and the ocean. Truly, it was a wonderful sight as we were free falling, but hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself!

We got out to the drop zone and got all checked in. We met our instructors that we would be paired with, and since we had already been skydiving before, we only had to briefly review the safety. Once they were confident we knew what we were doing, we put on the harness and loaded up in the plane.

We flew around for about 15 minutes, until we reached a height of 14,000 feet. The door then flew open, and people started jumping out. My instructor and I were last to jump, so we were the people seated closest to the pilot. We scooted our way towards the door, and then I dangled my legs out the door while the instructor got ready to jump. I leaned back and away we went! Free falling for a whole minute!

We fell 9000 feet and then the parachute was opened. Now at this point, the instructor gave me control, and I could pull down on the handles to make us do circles up in the sky. We floated around for a while, and then as the ground was approaching, we got ready to land. I pulled my legs up for landing, but we had slowed down enough to simply be able to land on our feet.

Brad and I both made it safely down, and here are some pictures of Brad from the skydive. (We bought pictures of me skydiving in Utah, so we got pictures of Brad doing it here, so that’s why all of the pictures are of him!)

Skydiving definitely gets your adrenaline going and we love doing it, so we’ll have to see where we decide to jump next!

After our jump, we had planned to take the bus back to Athens, but we couldn’t figure out what time it would be at the stop. We tried to call the bus company, but they wouldn’t answer, so we thought we might be stranded. Thankfully, a nice lady named Elizabeth overheard our conversation and said she was heading back and offered us a ride. We took her up on that and enjoyed chatting with her the whole way in.

She lived in northern Athens, still a ways from where we were staying, so she dropped us off at the train station near her house. The train station was right next to the Olympic stadium, so we got to admire that for a bit as we waited on a train. Finally, one came and we rode in to the stop at Omonia Square. We got off and then headed to our hotel, happy to have made it back without too much hassle.

For dinner, we went out with my friend, Chris Zimmer, who is over in Athens teaching English on the Fulbright scholarship. He brought a few friends, Kathryn and Chris, that are also teachers through the program, and the five of us enjoyed the evening discussing our lives abroad. We compared stories about our teaching experiences and simply had a great time catching up!

The time seemed to fly by since we were wrapped up in conversation, and before we knew it, it was 10:30 pm. Brad and I have to get up at 3:30 am to get to the airport and catch an early flight, so we decided it was time for us to head back and go to bed. We said our goodbyes, took the picture below, and then were on our way back to the hotel to get some sleep.