You came all the way to Greece, looking for English...

Hello from Athens, Greece!

The school year has finally finished and I am officially on summer break! I've been waiting patiently for this time of year to come around and it is finally here. I randomly decided to come to Greece because I had about a week to spare before I needed to leave for my initial trip. I figured... why stick around in Abu Dhabi... why not add more pins to my travel map? I hadn't done any research before coming and I booked my hotel room about 5 hours before I needed to board my flight. My procrastination is getting out of control. Please pray for me!

I arrived in Athens on Saturday. Luckily for me, Greece is pretty efficient with public transportation; there was a bus that took me from the airport all the way to my hotel. My hotel was quite a way from the city center so I quickly checked in and decided to hit the streets. Of course my first stop was for food and beer. I had a real Greek gyro. The thought of it brings up happy feelings! I can now officially say that I've eaten a gyro because anything that I had before doesn't qualify.

After I finished eating, I went to the Acropolis Museum. I'm glad that I started with a history lesson because I don't remember learning much about Greek history aside from Greek Gods and Goddesses.

Athens is full of many monumental statues, towers, and artifacts that were built thousands of years ago. There is a long historical story to be told about Athens, however what stuck from the museum was the effects of the Persian war. Good thing I'm not a history person because the history of Athens is quite confusing to me. I am hoping to speak to someone who is from Greece to explain what exactly happened here. Even while I was at the museum, I was reading the small descriptions of each artifact and who sculpted what but it wasn't sinking in. I need a real life narrator to help me to understand. In a nutshell, the movie 300 must have come from real life events because that movie reminds me of the war between Persia and Athens. If the movie is based on the wars, please forgive my lack of knowledge; my one day experience surely can't account for thousands of years of Athens' history.

Thousands of years ago, people used to build monuments and statues for important people. These statues were built of marble and were of great size. During the wars, the men were burning and destroying these monuments as they were trying to overtake Athens. Athens could not be defeated. For quite sometime, they were a very prestigious army. After the battles, they rebuilt a few statues and monuments however, after a few battles, they decided not to rebuild and to leave them as a significant remembrance of who they were. Interestingly, that is exactly what they did. Many of the monuments are holding on by threads. When I went to Acropolis, they were barking at people for even attempting to touch the columns. They say that when you touch it, the marble changes to a dark color and it doesn't shine as much. They are doing a wonderful job of preserving what they have left.

 At the Tower of Zeus, one of the columns fell down and they left it there! At another monument, it looks like piles of marbles with maybe one or two columns still standing. It is obvious that they have pieced together some artifacts and monuments however many of them are still standing.
It's an interesting thing to see such a pride in history. Many people travel from all over the world to see Athens and the Greek Islands. Athens is not much of a relaxing area however it is rich in history. I'm very happy that I made this trip.

Stereotypically, Greek people look very "Greek"; dark hair, tall, hairy, etc. The men are beautiful though! During my history adventure, I met Miss Rashida. She is from London. She was a solo traveler as well and both of us connected at the Tower of Zeus. She had a hammam bath and massage scheduled for the day so I tagged along with her. Shockingly, Mr. Arios was the MALE masseuse who had the luxury of rubbing her down for the day! She shared her experience and explained how during her massage, he started to massage her lips while saying, "this is extra special and only for you." LOL! Now... I've had plenty of massages and I have yet to have my lips massaged! Toward the end of the massage he was asking her where her hotel was located! I told her he wanted to give her the complete package! Not to brag, but during my massage experiences in Morocco, I had the luxury of having large and heavy handed women scrub me down while singing Moroccan spiritual hymns. Next time, I think I'll go for the Greek God instead... yes... next time.

We ended the night over dinner with Rashida's friend Aisha. We sat around talking about our jobs and our experiences in London and in the states. Rashida is a lawyer, Aisha is similar to a social worker and of course I am the teacher. I talked about the interesting experiences that I've had from working with international kids, which turned into a conversation about abused and neglected kids, which turned into a conversation about people throwing themselves in front of trains because they can't handle their kids! No... just kidding, but they were saying how there are many purposeful deaths by train in London and both of them had witnessed at least one person committing suicide personally. My theory behind why so many people are sad and depressed in London is because there is not enough sun light during the year! They experience too many gloomy and cloudy days! Well Rashida had her sunny day in the hammam room in Greece so I'm sure she'll be just fine for the remainder of the year!

Because I did not plan anything to do before I arrived, on the second day, I decided to buy a ticket for the hop-on hop off bus. These buses take you on touristy tours around the city. The buses were leaving from the city center but my hotel was a little far from there. I got on a local city bus with hopes that it would take me to the center to buy my ticket. I started asking every and anyone, " which bus should I take... will this bus take me?" Every time I asked someone, I would get these blank stares because none of the people that I asked spoke English. After many failures, I got off the bus and jumped in a taxi. When I got to the center to buy the ticket, there was a guy that asked me how my day was. His accent sounded European. I started to explain to him how difficult it was getting to the center and how I kept asking people for help and no one spoke English. He sarcastically responded, "huh... you came all the way to Greece looking for English..." I guess I did sound silly!

Athens was great and now I am on my way to the islands. Santorini, Greece...

I'll be in touch soon!
Besos besos.

The mosquitoes in Greece are so disrespectful... I got bit in my FACE... twice!

Yummy morning treat!

Some columns have been pieced back together.

This is the untouched monument... looks like piles of marble.