We got to Piraeus, Greece Sunday morning. I walked around the city in the morning waiting for my tour to begin in the afternoon. Around noon a large group of us boarded busses to head into see the sights of Athens and the Acropolis. After seeing the structures in Rome and Egypt it was really cool to see how they all compare. Athens is the largest city in Greece and dates back to 3,000 years. Our first stop was the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch which was actually built by a Roman emperor in 131AD. We later saw the ruins of the Parthenon and Temple of Athena. The Acropolis was cool to see but our tour guide was a little disappointing and the majority of the site was under construction, so in every picture there were scaffoldings surrounding the different structures.
My favorite part was seeing the difference between the stadiums where the ancient Olympics and Olympics in 2004 took place. We got to see Panathenaic Stadium which is the only stadium in the world made of marble. It was used for archery and the marathon in ’04 as well as other events in the ancient Olympics.
When we finished our tour I got to call home and catch up with my parents and Nick and Ted at the lake. After the phone call I called it an early night as I had had a very tiring day out in the 100 degree sun for hours.
Monday I woke up early like a kid on Christmas morning. I was finally going waterskiing! Another girl from the ship and I took an hour long ferry to the island of Poros to spend the day there. Once we got to Poros we took the bus to the ski school. It was a really different from every other place I’ve skied in the past considering it was part of the Aegean Sea and the water was very salty. The place was much more low key than the ski camp I worked at in North Carolina but still had a lot of different activities available. They had three different slalom courses throughout the area and I found the smoothest water and got skiing. I ran the course a few times and the coach helped me kick a few old habits.
After a long afternoon we headed back to Piraeus for the evening. I was trying to get to Mykonos Island to meet up with my roommate and other friends but the ferries were sold out for the rest of the week so I found someone else to go back to Poros with me on Tuesday. I skied a little better the second day and enjoyed the beach for the rest of the afternoon. One of the instructors at ski school was from Melbourne, Australia and lived in Indianapolis last year working for an Australian racing team. I told him I went to IU and for the rest of the afternoon he was telling me stories and showing me pictures of him in Indy and Bloomington with him and his friends at the Kirkwood bars and tailgates. Quite a small world. Tuesday night we headed back and went out to see the night scene in Athens. It was pretty cool as we found a bar on the beach playing live music all night.
Thursday I woke up and headed to the beach for a few hours. The day turned out to be about 110 so we headed back early so we didn’t melt. I found some free internet, did some research for my classes and caught up with a few friends at home.
Tomorrow we are sea for the day as I expect to be cooped up in the library working on my 7 papers I have due in the next 12 days. We get to Croatia on Friday and we’ll be there for a long weekend. No set plans but we are all expecting lots of relaxation before we have to cram for our finals exams and papers.
Hope everyone had a great week, for those I got to talk to online or on the phone it was great catching up with you. Im very excited for my last country in Europe but getting very eager to see everyone back at the lake and Bloomington.
-ANM
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