pay my respects to grace and virtue

greece was incredible! our plane was late arriving on friday, but people were friendly on the metro and with a little help we made it to our hostel before dinnertime. as we set out in search of a restaurant, we saw a wall with some columns peeking out of the top up on a hill. someone wondered if there were some kind of ruins, but we were too tired and hungry to investigate. my friends ate the traditional mousaka while i had roasted red and green peppers stuffed with seasoned rice. we also shared a greek salad, which was delicious. we topped it off with baklava, which is way better in greece than anything you can find in america. then we went back to our apartment-style hostel and watched a little greek tv. we found a sherlock holmes movie in english with greek subtitles, so we actually understood what was going on!

the next day we woke up at 7 (6 spanish time) and walked over the the main office to eat before setting off to explore the ruins. at breakfast we met several other hostel residents including an exchange student from brazil living in paris, two from illinois living in salamanca, and a guy from san luis obispo. there was also a guy from canada who, like us, was only staying two days. when i mentioned that was a long trip, he clarified that he was actually on a larger trip around europe, but that still made the whole room laugh. after our toast with marmalade and nutella, we set out for the acropolis, only to discover alex's batteries were out of charge. we picked up some postcards while we waited for her to run back to the room, only to discover her other batteries only lasted about 3 pictures. (rechargeable batteries eventually die out after several years...) anyway, we wound around the acropolis looking and tons of partial columns and two ancient theaters, one restored and one still in ruins. they were really neat. it's amazing to try to imagine how the greeks built all of these things! then again, they probably had some strong men... being that it was valentine's day and we were a group of 5 girls, 4 of us single, we very much enjoyed all of the good-looking greek men, of which there were quite a few...

we finally made it to the top and climbed through some more columns to make it to the parthenon! unfortunately it was under restoration, so there was a lot of machinery blocking the view, but we still enjoyed the site. hundreds of pictures later, the five of us set off to go down the hill, walking around another, smaller, temple on the way down. then, since i was in the lead, we off-trailed a little bit and ended up on a pleasant hike down the hill complete with lots of trees and several strange piles of caterpillars on the path. not sure why they were there...

we found ourselves at the entrance to the greek agora - the marketplace if i remember my hata correctly. we explored the old church, climbed some trees, wandered around ruins labeled as the former locations of a prison, several temples, bathhouses, and other important buildings in the center of the city. it was so beautiful because not only are the ruins pretty, but it was all in the midst of trees and clovers sprouting up everywhere. it was refreshing to see so much green! after a quick walk through the agora museum, we found some lunch nearby. i had baked eggplant with feta cheese and a tomato and cucumber salad. the street vendors kept coming up to our little outdoor table offering things like flowers, flashlights, umbrellas, balloons, and sunglass. we also had a little boy (6 or 7 maybe) come up and start playing a tiny guitar-like instrument. later we were serenaded by what appeared to be the greek version of a mariachi band. catherine was elated!

we wandered through more of europe's narrow streets and found ourselves in plaka, the cute shopping districts my dad's friend had suggested. it was fun looking in the stores and finding souvenirs. we eventually wandered back to our hotel to drop things off before attempting to head to the seaside. this was an adventure...

we got on the metro only to end up going the wrong way, then back to where we started. everyone was staring at us like we were clueless americans, and it turned out we were. the metro was under construction. so we went out side and after some trouble got on a very crowded bus. we were worried about finding the right stop, but fortunately the nice woman next to us (pressing against my back as jessica and catherine smushed into my front) let us know when we were there. we took the metro the rest of the was to the mediterranean sea, only to discover that it was too late to catch a boat to one of the charming islands. we instead got directions to a beach and attempted to walk there. using landmarks and street signs, written in greek of course, with our map that was not in greek, we eventually found our way to this so-called beach. thank goodness i took physics in high school, only for the purpose of learning the names of some of those letters, which allowed us to try to match the symbols to the names we had on our map. the words "it's all greek to me" were definitely uttered more than once. the "beach" was actually a port with no sign of a coastline. when we asked the barista in starbucks, she assured us we were where we were trying to go, but there we no beaches around there. so we got some coffee to warm up and made our way back to the metro station in time to watch the sun set over a collection of very large cruise ships. finding our way back was much easier and we made it to the hostel with a few minutes to rest before heading out for dinner.

we ate at a place that was more italian than greek, but the food was still good. they also had someone playing the piano, and all of the tunes were familiar musical songs like edelweiss (sound of music) and maria (west side story). after dinner we decided to go for a walk and ended up at the parliament building at 11, just in time to see the changing of the guards! it was quite impressive in a ridiculous kind of way. their outfits (like all european guards i have seen) looked more fitted for clowns than government officials, complete with giant pompoms on the elf-like pointed tap shoes. they performed an interesting march - like synchronized swimming without water, slowing lifting their legs in unison before sweeping their feet on the ground and stopping their pompomed-tap shoes. finally they took their positions and a few of the tourists standing around ran up to take pictures with them. after seeing that they didn't get shot, we decided to do the same. satisfied with a very complete day, we headed back to our hotel for about 3 hours of sleep before heading back to the airport. it was an insane 48 hours, but totally worth it. i would love to go back when i have more time! gotta get to one of those islands someday...

now it's four more days of a school (and one spanish midterm) before we set off for our bing trip to extremadura, the region of spain nearest portugal. there are rumors that we are going to a pig farm to learn about the ham culture. should be interesting...

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