Athens, Greece

Greece seemed to last a lot longer than Italy probably because in Italy we traveled whereas in Greece we stayed in the same apartment for the entire eight days. One of my favorite parts of Greece was 2:00-5:00 pm. In Athens that was the city wide nap time, so when we got there everything was closed and silent. Also the streets were lined with mandarin trees which smelled amazing. Italy had trash all over the street and smelled awful a lot of the time. In Greece it smelled almost like someone had sprayed the city with perfume.

I only had two things I wanted to do in Greece: see the Parthenon and take a Segway tour. The Parthenon was first. We took a mythology tour of the Acropolis and saw a lot of things. The most memorable parts were when we saw the Theatre of Dionysus, the Parthenon, and the Hill of Ares.

The Theatre of Dionysus is a big amphitheatre where they would perform and sing to praise the god Dionysus who was the patron of theatre and drama.

The Parthenon is an enormous temple dedicated to

Athena, Athens’ patron goddess.

The Hill of Ares is a hill right next to the Acropolis where Ares, god of war, was tried for the murder of one of Poseidon’s sons. There are varying legends about who Ares killed. Some say that it was a triton that Poseidon had sired. Other versions say that Ares killed a mortal son of Poseidon named Halaropheus after said person accosted one of Ares’ daughters, but since that was a myth made up thousands of years ago I don’t think it really matters who was killed.

A couple days later we went on a Segway tour of the national garden. The national garden is an enormous garden that was commissioned a long time ago by the ruler of Greece because his wife loved exotic plants and animals. They had palm trees, lions, and all sorts of other species imported from all over the world. Unfortunately, since the species weren’t adapted to Mediterranean conditions they quickly died off. There are still lots of palm trees. We saw one variety from Washington DC and one from China. There was also a big turtle pond with about 20 tiny turtles in it. We left the national gardens after a while to explore some of the surrounding places. We saw the parliament building and the Olympic stadium.

We also got some food in Greece that was heavenly. The first place we went was called the Kalamakai Bar. They had a lot of meat, so I liked it. The first time we went there I got pork chops. The second time I got sausages stuffed with cream cheese. My favorite food we got was called a gyro. A gyro is lamb meat, lettuce, tomato, fries, and tzatziki sauce wrapped in pita bread. For more information about gyros go to
this link http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/luke-bryan-ft-jimmy-fallon-i-dont-know-how-to-pronounce-gyro-official-music-video/3484701. Our last restaurant was my favorite, not for the food, but the service. Since we were the only ones there it seemed that Greeks didn’t eat until later in the day. Since we were the only ones the server could help us out. We had no idea what the stuff on the menu was, so we told him what flavors we liked and didn’t like. From there he surprised us. There were also wines from Crete where he was born that had been distilled a couple of times. For those of you who don’t know the science behind alcohol distillation I will explain. Alcohol turns to steam faster than water so if you steam the alcohol away from the water you have a very alcoholic steam. Then when you turn the steam to liquid you have the same drink with a lower water percentage, therefore a higher alcohol percentage. Alcohol is made by fermenting a grain with yeast, but at around 15 percent alcohol the yeast starts to die. Therefore to have a higher alcohol percentage you need to distill. We tried two types, and since we were in Europe I was allowed to try some. The first was awful. It hurt to drink, so when I was offered a shot I declined. On the second wine he just brought me a shot. Luckily this one was sweeter and not as burny throaty.

Our last destination in Greece was the Temple of Poseidon. It is a temple dedicated to the god of the sea.

 It wasn’t quite as impressive as the Parthenon but still cool. It is built on the coast so the sea was glittering all around it which provided an amazing backdrop.

We had planned for Greece to be our last stop, but it was a lot cheaper to fly from Barcelona, Spain to Boston, so our next stop was Barcelona.