European Cruise Day 3: Athens, Greece
Disclaimer: These are all unedited and uncensored. They are raw emotion, intellect and information. I hope you enjoy my experiences.
*Miranda and Alyssa are my sisters and Thomas is my soon to be brother in law.*
I woke to having ported in Athens. It’s 7a. I had a bad dream while asleep. These dreams are intense. I miss Britt a lot. So so much. I watched her video as soon as I awoke this morning. I’m so glad I have it, though it almost brought me to tears. The port smells kinda stinky. Like a fishing harbor for sure - with a lot of dead fish. And it smells industrial. Much different than at sea. I ate a quick breakfast and headed to the meeting spot. Now we’re on the bus beginning our tour of Athens and the Acropolis. They say watch your belongs because there are a lot of pick pocketers at Acropolis. We pass by a statue of a lion that is the symbol of Athens, or Piraeus, as it is known in Greece. It was placed there in 500BC! Holy shit. The original was stolen so it’s a replica. Greece has 3000 islands, but only 300 are inhabited. There was a man washing windows of the cars passing at lights. Wild. There are a lot of strikes and chaos here right now. Miranda is with a friend who lives here she’s knows from college so we won’t see her today.
There are tangerine trees everywhere. They are bitter so they only make marmalade with them. There are also eucalyptus trees everywhere. Got a cold? Athens has you taken care of! There is ton of graffiti on buildings here. It seems worse than Denver but perhaps just a the same as NYC. It has the same style as USA, but some is in Greek and some is seemingly in English. I still can’t read it. I take it back. There is more graffiti here than I have ever seen.
The idea of philosophy is looming to me here. You see statues of ancient philosophers and it begs the question of the human condition. It’s magnificent. “I wonder where Socrates died” says my mom. I don’t know the answer. I’m walking up the same path that these ancient philosophers followed to visit the Acropolis.
We just visited the modern Olympic stadium. It was built at the end of the 19th century, it’s made of marble. Dad and I got pictures in the king’s chairs. The only two chairs with backs. The rest are bleacher style. There are pillar like statues with just the head of Zeus but on the pillar is, or course, a cock and balls. As we pass by the parliament I giggled because our guide described the guards as wearing mini skirts. Hahaha. She just described the skirts as sexy. I love that. On Sundays they wear bleach white skirts and only tan the rest of the days. I love the way the language looks! The classical academy is absolutely stunning. University of Athens. The public library. This architecture blows my mind.
The olive tree is the symbol of prosperity and peace. The goddess Athena brought it to Athens as an offering of food, prosperity and peace. There are a lot of stray dogs in the area. One right outside the Acropolis. I want to pet him. Dad says they might have diseases.
A few interesting tidbits:
Acro - top
Polis - city
Democracy - the power of people
Idiocies - people who didn’t want to participate in the democracy. A little weird.
Agora (ancient meaning) - the political, spiritual, and commercial center of the city.
Marathon battle was the first battle of the Persians vs the Greek as the persians attempted to move their kingdom into Europe. Once 30 yrs old, every Greek resident would serve at least one day a year on parliament. The trials were held in the open air so everyone can see. I like that idea of open communication a lot.
Most of the buildings were destroyed in the 15th century during the mideval times when the Turks came, took over and used the Acropolis as a fortress. There is a Roman entrance lower than the original Greek entrance.
The building dedicated to the god of fire is still standing after 2500 years. That’s some construction!
Athena was the goddess of wisdom. She was a virgin. Parthen was the word for virgin. The Parthenon was a structure dedicated to her. There is a single olive tree that was planted modernly because they found petrified roots of the tree. Myth is that Athena planted that tree as a gift to the city. All the buildings are built from marble from the mountain near Acropolis called Penteli. Only white marble comes from there. The god of music is apollo.
Nike meaning victory but it’s pronounced “neeky”. We suck!
They choose not to build tall buildings in Athens because they want to preserve the Acropolis as the tallest point in the city. Also, they want to see the blue sky. I love that they preserve the wonders of life. They seem to have it right.
The adventure continues as we leave the bus tour and head out on our own…
We’re off to a museum of the Acropolis before grabbing lunch at an authentic Greek restaurant. I love hearing the language as we pass by the locals. We’re about to go eat at the museum restaurant. I can feel that tension between mom and Alyssa mounting.
This restaurant is going to be awesome! Olives from local islands, red peppers and fresh feta cheese. This food is incredible! I tried everything from octopus to Moussaka (eggplant tomato stuff) to baked feta wrapped in fillo bread and drizzled with honey and sesame seeds. Thomas and Alyssa had some strangely wonderful eggplant dish that reminded me of lasagna. Alyssa has inceptioned me! She mentioned she was feeling like she was on a boat and now I feel it too! The power of an idea, the power of suggestion.
After seeing some of the original pieces of the Acropolis, Alyssa, Thomas and I split off to see some other sites. As we were walking through some ruins we saw a man being chased by civilians. Then a couple police came rushing up. We assume he was being accused of pick pocketing. I also fell on my knee and chipped Jay’s coffee cup. Lame.
We were in search of where the first speeches were given in the time of democracy, when we stumbled on the prison of Socrates! He was considered a witch after some time but its because he’s awesome. We asked a nice lady who spoke perfect English cause she lived in England for ten years. She had a dog named Ginger and was nice enough to take us about the half mile walk to the democracy place. I don’t know all the names but I have pictures of the plaques. Then we hurried to meet our parents at the theatre where the first plays were. We took some dramatic pictures. Then we hurried off to try and get into Zeus’ temple but couldn’t get within the gate. Fortunately there are still a lot of vantage points for photos outside.
I almost got pick pocketed! My sister caught a lady trying to unzip my backpack. She saw her and said “ah ah ah”, made eye contact, and then the lady walked away. Go Alyssa! We warned everyone in the square about them as they just continued about their business. It’s amazing how they just continue about. Fortunately I have nothing but kiwis, apples and sunscreen in my bag. It’s a camelbak mostly for water. What now, bitches! :)
Ok. We just had a serious situation. We caught the metro which was actually very cool. A few shady characters that I was watching tried to rob me. She intentionally ran into me and unzipped my pack which was on the front of me to protect it. Fortunately all I had was kiwis and used tissues. Once we got the port area, we caught a taxi. Well, two because the maximum is 4 people per taxi. They took use on a crazy ride and as we tried to communicate with them he yelled at us in Greek and then finally he dropped us at a closed gate and drove off. The next 45 minutes was spent running around trying to communicate to all the people that only spoke Greek or very broken English. Finally, after getting on a public bus and finding customs, we got on a bus with others headed to the ship. Time for a long island ice tea. My god. Thank you thank you to the the bus driver that spoke some English, the bus driver that drove us, and the lady at the bus station that led us to customs. We got on the ship right as the all aboard was being called. Now, we must wait for Miranda because she was with a friend. Oh boy. Energy energy energy out to her. You can make it girl. You can make it. We came to mom’s room with strong drinks for everybody. She opened the door and Miranda was there! Oh we’re all here. Fuck fuck fuck. That was some intense anxiety.
After a dinner that ended relaxing, because of a few drinks, Alyssa, Thomas and I decided to go to the hot tub while mom, dad and Miranda went for a nice walk on the boardwalk. We sat in the tub for at least 30 minutes, then Alyssa and I floated in one of three salt water pools. It’s awesome how buoyant you are. We barely held our breath and floated effortlessly. It was really meditative with the cool air and stars above. It’s beautiful with no city lights damping them. As we approached our room, we saw the three others about to go up for some tubbing of their own. I chose to join as the other two decided to crash. I brought my book, the Celestine Prophecies, to keep me occupied. I couldn’t sit in the tub much but let my feet soak to heal from the day of running like mad to see all the sights.
After a bit, I’m here on the deck of our room, finally playing the guitar. It’s been two days. Too long! But my guitar was buzzing and needed some TLC. I still need to email Stephan and ask his advice. This guitar needs to last two more weeks. Ok, I’m back to singing. Cheers!
Songwriting is such a fun and interesting process. It’s a constant evolution of thought, emotion, and music. I absolutely love it. I’ve made a couple changes to a few songs tonight, and I’m really quite pleased with them. I mare changes to Baby, Transitions and the new unnamed one, perhaps it’s Ghost. I’m not sure. But I dig em. I gotta hit up guest services and see if there’s an open mic night. How awesome would that be? Now I’m going to blow a snot rocket into the ocean, because I have to do it alone otherwise the fam with complain about how “uncivilized” I am. Ha! Ahhhh… Much better. :)
My dad just gave me the too loud knock so I played the three songs quietly and I’m turning in the music. I think I’ll go ask about the open mic really fast, perhaps read for a bit and then crash for rest before Rhodes tomorrow. It’s going to be magical. So, no open mic. But! I went to the karaoke night and they said that I can play one of my songs there! I just gotta bring my guitar. I suppose we’ll see about the micing situation at that point. I could go all a Capella if I need to.
