After a long scavenger hunt yesterday in Lausanne, I finally found my passport and made the 8 pm flight to Athens. Once we landed at 11:30 (1 hour time difference), I received a very welcoming email from Professor Ryan informing me to call him to see if it was safe to come to the hotel. Apparently earlier in the evening, political protests broke out in Athens a few blocks from the hotel. Gotta love Greece.
I will have to say though that the warming welcome I received from the group at 1230 am was a great way to kick off Greece. It started with a huge bear hug from Professor Ryan, followed by everyone running up to me. It's safe to say that my presence was missed. Without me, a diving board broke, a trip to the hospital was made, and the group got kicked out of Olympia (for reasons I'm afraid I cannot share). The group went to shambles, but have no fear, I'm back and better than ever. One thing is for sure though, what happens in Lausanne stays in Lausanne.
As for today, we kicked it off with a tour of the Olympic park in Athens from the 2004 Olympics. Much to my surprise, the majority of the facility was built prior to the games for other events, but was then converted to accommodate the Olympics. For the most part, the facilities were very beautiful, but due to the economic status of Greece and the poor planning prior to the games, the park looks a lot like a ghost town. While events are still helled in the basketball arena and the main stadium, the complex is very rundown and dirty. We late learned that Athens was, and most likely will be, the last Olympics to have permanent complexes.
Following the tour, we then went to an Archaeological Museum with ancient Greek and Roman statues which was very cool.
To end the day, we walked a really nice market, which we will definitely be visiting again tomorrow, filled with anything you could possibly want. Amazing restaurants (the lamb was amazing), clothing stores, shoe stores, etc... It was very hard to restrain.
One more day left which is very sad, but the trip has been an amazing was to kick off the summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment