My first day and a half in Athens was full of adventuring and exploring. We arrived in the city at around 4:00 pm on Sunday, February 4, and after checking in to the hotel, we set off to eat dinner at a local
souvlaki (typically pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer) restaurant in downtown Athens. I got a souvlaki skewer of pork, Anelia got grilled eggplant in tomato sauce with feta cheese, and we both got a plate of kalamari to share (props to Anelia the vegetarian for sharing squid with me). Everything was extremely good and extremely satisfying. I was very happy with our first meal choice!
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| Our first meal in Athens |
As Keti told us, one of the ways restaurants decorate is by framing old flyers and posters and hanging them on the walls. They also have dry spices hanging around the restaurants.
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| Spices on the walls as decoration |
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| Old posters as decoration |
After dinner, Anelia and I found a little crepe place on the way back to the hotel. Of course we had to stop! The waiter must've seen us struggling, because the first thing he said when he came over was "I'll get you English menus". The restaurant was actually out of my top three crepe choices ("It's Sunday evening, after all"), so Anelia and I ended up getting the same one. I don't remember exactly what it was called, but it had fresh fruit, honey, and vanilla.
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| Crepes in downtown Athens |
After dessert, we went back to the hotel because we were pretty tired. The next day (Monday, February 5) was full of walking tours and free time in the city. We started with an orientation tour at the
Athens Centre, an educational organization sponsoring academic and cultural activities in Greece since 1969. This is the headquarters for the Penn State Athens program, and works with Penn State and Bucknell Universities to arrange housing, field trips, and cultural activities. I will have a separate post about the facilities themselves.
At the Athens Centre, we were greeted by Yannis Zervos, the co-director and founder of the Centre, spoke to us for about an hour and a half, touching on pretty much all of the major events of modern Greece, as well as what "Greece" meant and what it means to be "Greek". We also met with Rosemary Donnelly, the other co-director of the Centre, who told us about how classes would work. After that, Keti took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood we'd be living in and showed us where all of the good restaurants and markets were before setting us free for about four hours before the group dinner that night.
Anelia and I decided to stop at a tavern near Monastiraki Square in Athens. We had stuffed grape leaves, feta cheese from Larissa, a lamb gyro and bread with Greek olive tapenade. It was every bit as good as they day before.
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| Food from Monastiraki |
After that we walked around the Athens flea market for a bit, which was really interesting. It was full of Greek trinkets, souvenirs, and fruit markets, but also had shoe shops with Adidas and Doc Martens and normal clothing stores. We didn't buy aything but definitely took notes for when we would be back in the future.
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| Fruit vendor in Monastiraki Square |
After we bopped around the flea market for a while, we decided to head up to the Parthenon. A little side note since the two are often confused: the Parthenon is the famous ruin in the center of Athens, and the Acropolis is the slab of limestone rock it's sitting on. That journey was a hike and a half. It felt like we were walking up a 90 degree angle. But, the view at the top was definitely worth it.
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| View from the Acropolis rocks |
Unfortunately, we couldn't actually go into the site because the last entry each day is 4:30, and we got there at 4:25. But, we were able to go to to some rocks next to it that provided a really good place for viewing. They were pretty smooth from centuries of people using them for this purpose, though.
Another thing about Athens—there are stray cats EVERYWHERE. I don't really see this as an issue, because they're so cute. According to Keti, the government feeds, vaccinates, and neuters/spays them, so they're well-fed and happy. On our way up to the Parthenon we saw a group of 11 or 12 of them sitting in one big group.
Athens was such a beautiful place to explore. Marble is very abundant over here, so all of the sidewalks are made of marble as well as the tables, floors, and even steps. The only potential downside is that this city is all hills—it puts San Francisco to shame. But I suppose I'll just come back absolutely shredded.
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| Big hill in Pangrati, Athens |
Exploring Athens was fun, and I am extremely grateful to call this place my home for the next three months. I can't wait to spend my weekends discovering new hidden gems in the neighborhoods near me, the major archaeological sites, and everywhere in between.
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