Mip and Bip's Grand Adventures, Part 2: Athens!

Friday, we got back from the ferry super early in the morning and came back and slept!!! It was great to get some quality rest after the ferry! Mom and I figured that since the weather was iffy and we were still feeling a bit tired from our trip, we would go to the National Archaeological Museum here in Athens for the afternoon. So, I took her around my neighborhood a bit and showed her the fruit market. I love the markets, they are so fun! We got some yummy fruit to last our day! Thus, we began our adventure. Of course we took the trolley that passes the Museum the wrong direction and ended up on that thing for well over an hour! I felt so bad that Mom just had to sit on a bus! I am a pretty bad tour guide apparently! I've only been there with my class this year and I forgot how to get there! Anyway, so we FINALLY end up there and we relax across the street and have some lunch and juice. We then marched across the street to conquer the huge museum! I was trying to tell Mom that it was huge, but she didn't quite understand HOW big this place was!!! We were there for hours looking and standing and griping about our knees hurting, like two old geezers! But even though I've been there a few times, it was still beautiful and so big! They had a special exhibit on Magic in the Ancient World, as well as a larger temporary exhibit on Women in Ancient Greece. You can check out my photos but it was a great day to check out a museum. I had fun with Mom and showing her around. I tried to give some history and context to some of the pieces I was familiar with, and pointed out the super famous ones she should definitely take photos of! :) I also loved the Santorini Exhibit!!! I got to see my Spring Fresco that I love! Mom also took a sneaky photo of me smiling in front of it! Crazy, but I love it tons! After exhausting ourselves looking around there, we hopped back on the trolley and you guessed it, went the wrong way! So, once again we sat on a trolley and got to see much of the city for over an hour. Of course we were just in time for the supermarket to close by one minute, and sadly we walked back to my apartment and made dinner.

Saturday we set off on a big walking tour of Monastiraki and the city! We walked down the road a little way went to a few sites. I didn’t want to go to too many places Saturday because all of the sites are free to get into on Sundays during the off-season! So we checked out the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is just so huge and cool, even though much of it is no longer standing. We kept walking down and saw Hadrian’s Arch, which Mom had heard about before and wanted to see when she got here! It is pretty beautiful as well. We then went to the Acropolis Museum and I showed Mom around a bit since I had been there a bunch of times for class. We also enjoyed lunch and hot chocolate in the café of the museum, which is sweet and pretty well priced. It was a nice break before going to the final upstairs exhibit of the Parthenon collection. We watched the little video and all telling about it! After finishing up at the museum, we kept walking, in the misty rain, around Plaka and down random streets. We ran into the Lysikrates Monument, which I explain later in my blog, and enjoy wandering the cute back streets of Plaka. We popped in a few shops to escape rain and to look around, and saw tons of hilarious and ridiculous graffiti. After more wandering, I took us down a street that I recognized, Hadrian Street. This is the street that the Agora is on! We checked out Hadrian’s Library and the Roman Agora and did some window shopping along the crazy and fun streets of Monastiraki! It was a day full of seeing beautiful things and wandering with Mom! I enjoyed it for sure.

Sunday, was the big day. We began our day by sleeping in a little, then heading out, praying for good weather, to the changing of the guards ceremony at Parliament. I hadn't seen it since last year, and it's pretty cool to experience. I had the most obnoxious tourists on the planet standing behind me, but I resisted urges to hit them and carried on with my spectating. From Syntagma, we walked down Ermou and checked out the new Christmas store that had come into the street! I'm getting so excited for Christmas! Anyway, after that, we visited the Poet Sandalmaker and I let Mom check out the shop. I may end up buying some, but I wanted Mip to see the place and check out all the cool stuff they do there! I then took her down past Monastiraki to the Agora! Before we went in the Agora, we had gyros and I showed her a fun shop I like that we bought scarves at! Then off to the Agora! It was so cool to be able to show her where I worked last summer. I never thought I would have the chance to do that!!! I showed her all of our dig sites and gave her a quick tour of the site. I also brought her in the museum, which is small but good and we ran into a student and his Mom! We chatted with them for a few minutes and got along our way in our Sunday Adventure. We took the back way out of the Agora to sneak up to the Acropolis and ta da, we saw the way to get onto the Areopagus! I knew Mom wanted to go but I was not quite sure how to get up there! She almost killed me for taking her up the crazy steps carved into the rock and not the tourist stairs put in! It was so cool to be up there with Mom and we read the passage in Acts where Paul addressed the Areopagus! It was just great to be experiencing all of these things with my Mom. I also love the view of the city and Agora from the Areopagus. All was well until Mom looked over at the Acropolis and said, "Let's go! We've got to get up there!" She was excited; it was so cute. I'm kind of over it seeing as though I've been a ton of times and have foolishly begun to take these things for granted. So we enjoyed wandering the Areopagus a few more minutes and descended to make our way to the Acropolis! We hiked on up and accompanied by cute dogs, checked out the Acropolis. We went at a great time and I even got to snap some photos of the Parthenon with NO tourists!!! Yeah, it's pretty unbelievable! We had a fun time checking out the buildings on the Acropolis and snacking on pita chips. I also showed her from the awesome view of the Acropolis where all the stuff we had visited and where my apartment was! She was amazed we had walked so far that day and seen so much already! She was not excited about getting back home though! Alas, we made our way back through Monastiraki and to a shop I wanted to bring her to to pick up some little gifts for people at home. We stopped for another gyro and some gelato for the walk back! Mmmm. We took the trolley back to my apartment from Syntagma. Long, good day.

Monday, I had class and tons of homework to do, so I went to school pretty early in the morning to get the work that I had long neglected finished up! I had class all day pretty much until after 5, so I showed Mom where some of my favorite museums are, the Byzantine and Christian Art Museum and the Benaki, and set her loose in the city! I don't quite rememember everything she did, but I do know that she visited the Cycladic Art Museum, which I still have not been to, and she got to see tons of the little Cycladic guys she loves. She then moved to the Byzantine Museum and it was closed... I can't believe I forgot. Then she blew off the Benaki to head back to meet me at my apartment. We went out to dinner with a few of my friends that evening at another taverna in our neighborhood! :)

Tuesday, I had class early at the Agora, or so I thought. My roommate and I were walking down, only to meet people who thought class was on the Acropolis. We were all very confused due to many schedule changes recently and the issue was finally resolved by a mass text from our professor! Acropolis it was! I felt bad having to ditch Mom again for class, but she spent the morning journaling and sleeping, and I met back up with her for a while before my last class of the day. Before I went to class, I walked Mom to the Byzantine and Christian Art Museum and headed back to class. After class, I met up with her at the museum and we walked over to the Benaki to check it out together. Of course, the Benaki was closed on Tuesdays! So, we abandoned that and decided to go to a café or something, especially since it had started raining. We weren’t quite ready to just go back to my apartment for the night, so we went to Syntagma to have coffee. It started POURING for the longest time! It was ridiculous! We sat drinking our coffee in astonishment, people-watching for a while and talking. It was great to just lay low and relax a while chatting. We stayed there for a long time and had a nice walk back after the rain had slowed down. We concluded the evening with a nice Mommy breakfast for dinner with bacon and fried eggs. I think we had it Tuesday, I don't even remember! Ahhhh how I forget things so easily.

Wednesday, Mom left at 11 in the morning, so we got up early and walked to Syntagma to catch the bus to the airport. We ended up missing the bus we wanted and caught the next one 15 minutes later. Yep, we watched the bus pull away without us… Anyway, we got to the airport and found the right area for Mom to check her bags and such. I waited just a while until I realized that I was totally going to be late for my class! So I hugged Mom tons of times and sadly left her in a hurry, calling my professor to let him know I’d be there late. I ended up again missing the bus by a minute or so and had to wait for the next one. It wasn’t a big deal that I was late and class was alright, except I was sooo tired already at noon by the time class ended from carrying luggage and practically running back!

Thursday and Friday were pretty typical, except that we had class on Friday! Lame! Thursday our class met in the Acropolis Museum to look at the Parthenon collection, or recreations of it, and discuss the Elgin Marbles, the frieze, etc. Friday, our class met on the Acropolis Friday for our last visit there. We spoke mostly about the Parthenon and the Acropolis during the Classical Period. It was weird no longer having Mip around to hang out with! I relaxed a lot and tried to rest up for the long weekend ahead!