Athens and More Broken Buses

The entire study abroad program went to Athens on April 4th and returned on the 6th. We misses classes on Friday, luckily ;) It was an extremely long bus ride. About 8 hours including the time we took to stop and eat. However, I was lucky enough to be able to sleep almost the entire time. When we arrived we settled in and had some time for ourselves. We walked around by the water and made plans for the night. Some of us had dinner at a restaurant called Il Fungo. I had gnocchi and it was absolutely delicious. That night we went to the center of town and were introduced to the area and how to use the tram. A group of us went to an ice bar. Yes, that's right. A bar made entirely out of ice. We basically walked into a huge freezer that you'd find at a butcher shop. It was so awesome though, even the cups were made out of ice. However, you could only stay in there for about 20 minutes because they needed to keep people moving through there and also it was really cold. That concluded our first night in Athens. The second day we went to the olympic stadium which was the first olympic stadium of the modern olympics. After that we went to the long awaited Acropolis. It was an absolutely amazing experience. The temple was much larger than I had anticipated. The city of Athens is named after the Greek goddess Athena. She offered an olive tree to the city of Athens while Poseidon offered water. They were competing to be the protector of the city and the people chose Athena's olive tree. After that we ate with the group and then had some free time to go shopping or do as we please. Sunday, we watched the guard change which was really cool. Their outfits are quite interesting. They wear skirts that have 400 pleats and shoes that have puff balls on the toes. Each shoe weighs 6 pounds and their procession includes them standing on one leg while the other is outstretched. It looks very difficult. Then we had some options for us to choose from. I decided to walk through the royal gardens and then climb the highest hill in Athens. It was amazing but quite a hike. After that we ate lunch together again and then were ready to head back when we found out one of the buses wasn't working. And I was so lucky that it was my bus that wasn't working. So the first bus left and we waited for our mechanic to show up. Some of us went off and saw the Temple of Olympian God Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. We got some coffee and then headed back to the bus. Luckily by that time it was ready to go and started our long trip home. We ended up getting home around 3 a.m. It was a long but very fun trip. Thanks for reading :)