Whoops... Athens!!

Ok, alright... it's been a while.. and yes, I know... BUT hey... let me explain. Ok.... well, I've been busy.. short story. You can read the next blog, which I may or may not write directly after this, for an explanation. This post is all about Athens!

First, check out the pics I posted! Link to the left under "Links" or something like that and it's called something along the lines "Study Abroad Album." If you haven't figured this out by now... then welcome to the blog... or just... wow.

So the parents came over for a week+ and took some time to tour Germany and then joined me on my trip to Athens. From what I hear, they had a very busy weekend driving through a lot of Germany. They saw a lot of beautiful stuff and very little time, but they had some very funny stories that I will let them tell, so if you're interested, talk to them. They have some very funny stories, so it will be entertaining.

On to Athens. The ruins are great and you'll see that from my photos. I had a lot of fun with the folks and they seemed to really appreciate the ruins also... and dad REALLY seemed to appreciate the small, tiny, microscopic ruins spread through out the city... which I'll admit bugged me a bit cause I wanted to see the big stuff, that is what amazes me! You can see in the pics that we had a pretty good time. Unfortunately, the city was no so impressive. I have used the term, along with everyone who I have talked to about the city, disappointing.

The ruins of Athens are so amazing and of course the history is also impressive. I think is common for people to see the city of Athens as this great place, home of what we consider the olympics, all of the Gods and Goddess' who were so important to the culture; but to go there and see how dirty and scary the city is, it is really is a disappointment. The place to be is on the islands. Unfortunately rain and poor weather kept us from going to the island, but everyone says that you have to go to or stay on the islands if you go, and I also recommend that. Stay on the islands and just come inland to see the beautiful ruins and then get back out of there.

Other than the ruins, I also enjoyed Plaka, which is a historic part of the city. It was very a live and full of shops. It was fun to walk through and see all of the goods you could buy. It was set up really weird though, like all of the clothing was together, then all of the jewelry was together, same with bags, beads, glassware, anything. I'm not sure if this was on purpose or if this is just how it turned out.. but it was just kind of different.

But I do still recommend going to Athens, the history is still there and that part of the city is beautiful. Just beware of the hotels and their locations... you can either get a nice hotel is a scary area or a crap hotel in a pretty good area, so just be careful and do extensive research and check various sites for recommendations! I can't warn you enough! But it's time to write my next blog and then get some work done... so keep reading! :)