First days in Athens

Cam and I are getting our tan (or actually sunburn) on in Athens. It's about 60-70 degrees F here, fairly humid, and the streets are lined with orange trees that are all covered either in fruit or flowers. For some reason, this does not translate to either fresh oranges at breakfast or actual orange juice: everybody drinks Tang, which is pretty horrible. There are really good (apparently local) strawberries for 2 euros per kilo, and Greek food in general is pretty amazing, if kind of greasy. We enjoyed the 2-euro gyros at Monastiraki on our first day, as well as walking around the Acropolis and along part of the ancient wall circuit. In the afternoon, we went up Lykavittos, a big point hill kind of by our hotel. It has a great view of Attica, so we stayed up there to talk about the local geography and some modern history of Greece.

 Brett Losen looking out at the Piraeus on top of Lykavittos.

 A distant view of the Acropolis. The big temple is the Parthenon.

On the next day (Easter Sunday for non-Orthodox people), we went up to the Acropolis and walked around the Parthenon. Pretty sick.

Like many Greek temples, the Parthenon is designed to be approached from the back and walked around to  get to the front. 

The front of the Parthenon. It got blown up by the Venetians in 1687.

It hasn't been all fun and games: we've had a few quizzes since we've been here and we were supposed to have an assignment yesterday, but the museum decided to close early. But it's a pretty sweet environment and it's really nice to be learning outside for a change. 

Aντίο!

Laurel