Friday, May 30th - Saturday, May 31st (Athens Day 2 & Flight Back Home)

For our last day in Greece, we didn't have any group activities planned until 4:00 pm on Friday. This gave us all a chance to sleep in and get some breakfast at the hotel. They had tons of delicious food, and my favorite part was the freshly squeezed orange juice.

We spent the rest of the early afternoon down at the pool and in the sauna, which I didn't realize was so relaxing. I think I'm going to own one when I grow up.

At 4:00pm, we took two buses to the ultimate tourist attraction - the Acropolis. The ancient ruins were simply spectacular and the pictures simply don't do them justice.

The Parthenon, the ancient temple dedicated to Athena, was undergoing selective restoration because it's falling apart. It was breathtaking nevertheless.

One of my favorite pictures of the trip.. O-H-I-O!

After the Acropolis, we went to the Acropolis Museum nearby. This has a huge quantity of sculptures and other artifacts that were discovered in the Acropolis. It also has a whole floor dedicated to depicting the Parthenon's frieze, which is the collection of marble-sculpted scenes that stretch across the entire top of the Parthenon. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside most of the museum, but here are some.

A marble column to a temple on the Acropolis, which is sculpted into the shape of a woman.

There was restoration going on with the columns. They had a cool feature where you could see the restoration in progress, which is displayed on the TV.

To finish up our time in Greece, we had a group dinner at a rooftop restaurant called Psaras. We had many types of appetizers brought out to us, followed by an entree consisting of three types of meat and potatoes. It was delicious and the perfect way to end our trip.

I got a good picture with Mrs. Joyce, the wife of the Resident Director of the trip.

Our flight from Athens to Frankfurt was at 6:30 am the next morning. We had a small scare when the buses that were to take us to the airport arrived at the hotel 45 minutes late, but luckily the airport wasn't busy and we were able to make our flight without any trouble.

 Someone was a little sleepy...

From Frankfurt we flew to Chicago, where I got this cool picture.

From Chicago we flew to Columbus and after staying the night at Ohio State, I arrived home in Cleveland Sunday afternoon. Although I had the time of my life in Greece this May, it feels amazing to be back home. USA!