5/28/14 2004 Olympic Site

Today our first full day in the warm city of Athens started off on the later side. We headed down to breakfast around 8:45-9am and then waited for our extreme knowledgable translator and archeological guide Nikki. Once she arrived in the lobby we were off to the site of the 2004 Olympics in Athens. This site was about 20-30 minutes out of the center of town and along the way Nikki and Professor Ryan pointed out some landmarks in the city. Once we arrived on site the bus drove around the site which is very condensed compared to the site in London. We were able to see most of the building where events took place but our main focus was the stadium. The stadium hosted the opening and closing ceremonies along with track and field events and soccer. Once in the stadium we met our guide who showed us a video about the history of the stadium prior to the Olympics along with the somewhat of a "legacy" post Olympic competition. After the video we were able to enter the stadium and walk around the track and get an inside view of the stadium. It was exciting to stand on the track where Olympic competition took place.


Our next stop was lunch outside the Greek museum of archeology. This museum hosts most of the most famous archeological finds of Greece from the time period of the Minoan period through the Roman period. Here I also discovered my paper topic while looking through the exhibit of The Antikythera Shipwreck. Prior to this exhibit I have never heard of the wreck that was discovered in 1900 and was announced to the world only about 30-40 years ago. I have always been interested in shipwrecks and Professor Ryan and I decided that this would be an excellent research paper topic for this course. After looking through most of the exhibits and listening to Nikki explain the major artifacts it was time to head to the beach for a little afternoon relaxation. 

The beach was very nice the water was warm and we all enjoyed ourselves. Later we ate at the restaurant next door on the point and got the opportunity to watch the sunset set. We finished off the 
night hanging out on the roof top of the hotel with everyone and looking forward to tomorrow.

Michael Gutman