Athens!

I got to Athens yesterday....I still can't believe I'm here! We all got here okay, and only a couple girls lost their luggage. We got moved into our hotel yesterday when we arrived, then went on a walk in the area surrounding out hotel to keep ourselves awake. 

We took off from the Salt Lake City airport April 30th at 8:30 am and touched down in Athens, Greece May 1st at 12:30 pm (3:00 am Salt Lake time). We had been traveling for roughly 20 hours counting the 20 minute ride to the airport in Salt Lake and the 30 minute ride from the airport to our hotel in Athens. And since I am terrible at sleeping on planes, I did all of that on only1.5 hours of sleep. Curse you personal screens on international flights!
   Our hotel is the heart of Athens, just two blocks down from Constitution Square, where a huge demonstration/strike had taken place the morning of our arrival. What is even better is that we can see the Acropolis from the roof of our hotel, it's amazing!
 
Today we went to the Acropolis - which includes the Parthenon, and the temple with the Porch of Maidens on it.

 

Allison, Me and Millie in front of the Parthenon

Porch of Maidens with Athens in the distance

Our favorite place to go for lunch or dinner was a little Gyro shop around the corner from our hotel. It serves all the Greek favorites for only 2-3 Euros each. It's SO GOOD! Sorry the picture is a little blurry, but this Gyro was to die for! I crave them all the time now.

Amazing Gyro!

We visited the Archaeology Museum, only to find out that it was about to close, so our professors gave us the rest of the day off (like 4-5 hours). Some girls went to the beach, most of which were from California, the rest of us stayed closer to the hotel to grocery shop, and look at the cool places close to the hotel, like Zeus's Temple.

Temple of Zeus (Jupiter)

At 7:00 pm we headed to dinner. It was up on the hill, half-way between the Acropolis and our hotel. This was my second favorite meal of the whole trip - and the best so far! They had the bread made on-site and toasted in Garlic. We had moussaka (meat wrapped in what we think was eggplant), souvlaki (pork or chicken kebabs) and sweet cake for dessert. Here are some pics:

The view from Helen's Restaurant 

Greek Olives

Bread grilled in garlic

All the good food!  

Pork souvlaki with AMAZING potatoes

Salad

and cake for dessert!

I was a little worried about the food in Greece, because I don't love sea food, but Athens is too far inland to get much of that so I was safe!

We also visited the Acropolis museum and the Archaeological Museum while we were in Athens. These museums had some of the best quality remnants from the Parthenon and examples of Greek sculpture and culture. Here are some pictures of these fabulous examples: