Wednesday 5/28/14 Athens, Greece

Γειά σου από την Αθήνα!

(Hello from Athens!)

Today we had our first breakfast in our last city, Athens! We ate at the hotel and the breakfast was unfortunately the worst of all. After breakfast we went to the Olympic Park from the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. We watched a video about the main stadium and then we went on the field and around the track. We were then going to go to the basketball arena, but the professional team was having practice so we could not get in. After the Olympic park, we stopped very quickly at the handball stadium from the Games which has been deserted for the last decade since the Olympics. It was sad to see something that wasn’t planned well and maintained that is now ruined.

We then took the bus to the Archeological museum. We had lunch at a great outdoor restaurant and then went to the museum. After the museum we went back to the hotel to finally get ready to go to the beach! 

We had to take the tram ride there, and Professor Ryan told us it would only take 15-20 minutes. However, the trip took an hour at least. When we finally hit a stop at the beach I wanted to jump off and go right into the water, but we were told to get off at the last stop and the boys did not want to get off. The beach looked great and the sun was out with a lot of people there swimming and eating and having a great time. But the bad thing about being 1 of 2 girls on a trip with 7 guys means that the girls never get listened to and we have to follow whatever the boys say, even when they are wrong. So we stayed on the tram until the last stop and got off at the worst beach any of us had ever been to. We expected a beautiful Greek beach, and what we saw was a beach that had gravel for sand, was right next to the highway and the tram, had garbage everywhere, had barely any people on it, and the water was full of huge boulders and garbage. This did not make any of us happy especially since it was already 5:00 pm and we pretty much missed the sun and a good beach day. So we were all mad, especially me, after I said we should’ve gotten off at the good stop and instead we stayed on the tram for 20 more minutes and were at this awful beach. But we tried to make the most of it and we laid our towels down on the gravel dirt sand and I even went swimming because all I wanted to do this trip was swim in Greece so I went in the boulder and garbage filled water. But right when I went in of course Kyle, Alex, and Chan called and said there was a better beach 5 minutes away so we should go there. So the rest of us packed up our stuff and went to the new beach, which was better. I jumped right in again, especially since it was around 6:00 now and kept getting later and the sun kept getting weaker. The water had rocks in it but it was much better than the other beach. This beach actually had people on it! We were then there for a couple of hours hanging out on the beach in Greece. 

We went to dinner at this restaurant on the water that was absolutely amazing. We went right during sunset and saw our first sunset of the trip, which happened to be a beautiful Greek one. We ate dinner outside on this beautiful cliff at a lounge table overlooking the sea. We had an awesome dinner with great food and just an amazing time. The night turned out very well after the first beach incident. We then went back to the hotel and went to the roof and met Professor Ryan and looked out across Athens lit up at night. We all hung out and ended the night under the starry sky of Athens, Greece.

See you later Europe, I’ll miss you very much!!

Jess <3