Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Thursday, May 29th (Athens Day 1)

Thursday morning we all woke up early to catch a morning flight from Corfu to Athens. We stayed in the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Athens, and it was incredibly nice. It was more luxurious than anyone thought, and it was a nice way to end the trip.



We even had a bidet!




By the time we settled into the hotel, it was about 2pm. We had nothing planned as a group for that day, so we had the rest of the afternoon and evening free. We caught a bus into the center of Athens and explored all over.


Got a picture with the guard at the Parliament building.




After getting some food and some walking around, we went to the Greek National Archaeological Museum. This place was absolutely amazing. We walked around for at least three hours and I don't think we even saw all of it. There were artifacts all the way from 3000 BC and included things such as pottery, vases, gold burial items, and ancient weapons.







The most impressive part of the museum, however, was its collection of sculptures. Everything you see in books and on TV was there, and it was really cool to see all the famous sculptures firsthand.










After our visit to the museum, we stopped at Goody's for dinner. This is a burger and fries fast food restaurant we had heard was delicious, so we had to try it out. Turns out, whoever told us it was good was right!


On our way back to the bus stop, we had a little cultural moment. We witnessed a neo-Nazi rally that was just a little bit down the street from the city square. They were all middle aged, large men dressed in all black and carrying huge Greek flags, while pro-Greek music played loudly in the background. It was very nationalistic and kind of frightening, and I like to call it Star Wars Imperial music. We asked a cop nearby what was going on, and he said it was a Golden Dawn rally. Once we learned this, we scurried away because we are Americans and on our way back to the bus, we saw groups of police with riot shields all over the city square. It was tense at the moment, but it was a cool political and cultural experience to have.

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