The Joys of Athens

I absolutely love the hostels in Greece, well maybe just the one we’re staying at because I’m not sure if all hostels are the same. Here are a variety of reasons why! 1) The invisible glass coffee table. Our six person room that all the girls share has a living room with a glass table and we all have walked into it at least three times. This morning alone I walked into it twice. 2) Bunk Beds. The room has a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping room which has three sets of bunk beds. Last night felt like the slumber party I never had. 3) The bathroom. Our bathroom is pretty nice considering that most bathrooms here apparently don’t have normal showers. The funny thing is that our bathroom has no space for feet between the toilet and shower, that’s just awkward alone. In addition to the awkward space distribution, it also floods—we were actually given a squeegee to manage the water for when it does flood. Apparently the boys + Molly’s room does the exact same thing too. 4) The Opera lady. We have a balcony that opens onto the street and the day we moved in here, which was about three days ago, there was a lady that was practicing opera. She sang really beautifully and we all enjoyed it at first until Zakea noted that half an hour had passed and the woman kept singing. Thankfully, the opera lady has not decided to rehearse any more since then. 5) The island next to the door. Since our room has a kitchen and living room, we also have a little island with two chairs and a microwave that sit next to the door. It’s actually my favorite spot to sit in here and it would be absolutely ideal if it weren’t for the door. It is physically impossible to open the door and comfortably sit at the island without getting hit and knocked out of the chair. 6) Kiosk. We have a kiosk down the street that is run by the angriest woman in the daytime and conveniently stays open until around midnight. ****In the time it has taken me to write this last paragraph the Opera Lady has started to sing again****

All the girls so far have gotten the chance to experience my sleep talking. Apparently I talked to one of my roommates the first night here and I was told this morning that I had a little conversation with one of my other roommates who also talks in her sleep. I’ve also had to find interesting ways to protect my money since we’ve heard time and time again that we will be robbed and that we need to keep on the lookout for pickpockets.  But down worry everyone, we’ve already established a group “safe” word for when we feel like we’re about to get robbed or just get a sense of stranger danger.

James wants to get a cat. Even though he realistically can’t get a cat, I still feel the need to ask him not to for the sake of my allergies.

Another funny thing about Athens (maybe all of Greece for that matter) is that no one has any sense of personal space. Over the past three days, we’ve taken the Metra a dozen times which is a very amusing experience in the morning. This morning, on the way to the Canadian Institute where we had class we took the Metra (which is actually a subway here) and the first stop easily had 250 people waiting for the exact same train. Once the train got there, people going into and leaving the train started pushing against each other (kind of like in Finding Nemo). (We didn’t even try to get on the first one because there were so many people) The doors on these Metras don’t wait for anyone so if you want to take a train, YOU HAVE TO GET ON THE TRAIN. I saw all these elderly men who didn’t know each other hugging each other for dear life just so that they could fit on the already packed train.

Enough ranting, now onto my real adventures! We went to the Acropolis Museum which was by far my favorite part of the trip so far aside from visitng the Acropolis itself. Before I go on, I must say to everyone and anyone who ever goes to this museum: PLEASE DON’T WEAR A SKIRT. The entrance to the museum, which I think is ingenious, is a glass walkway where you can look down and see real life archaeologists at work on the site underneath the museum. So as I said before, don’t wear a skirt because that glass walkway is not a one way mirror. Overall the museum was great; I got to see some of the recovered entablatures, columns, and friezes from the Parthenon and a lot of the statues. It was just overall cool to see all of it. But probably the best part to the whole museum was the little movie that I saw on the second floor of the museum where it showed (in English thankfully) how the Parthenon had changed and been torn down over time. Having a visual aide and some context to fully understand what modifications were made to the Parthenon on and how they were made really helped bring everything to life. If anyone has the chance to go there then I definitely, absolutely, 100% recommend going to the Acropolis museum. It’s an experience that would be awful for anyone to miss out on.