Akropolis

Next stop: the Parthenon

Hi again! I'm taking a lazy day at the moment while Tony is busy with classes to tell you that we've actually been quite active lately. We've walked the 6+ mile journey everyday since that first post about it (except today, because it's a lazy day) and minus the blisters on our feet and our sore legs, we've enjoyed it. We're going to keep it up because we've now designated this summer as the summer we get fit and stay that way, so we're feeling pretty good about it.

Anyway, in addition to walking to Tony's neighborhood on Sunday, we also walked all the way up to the Akropolis to explore what was going on there. Tony showed me around a bit and I was excited to see all the buildings I'd learned about in Dr. Stevens's class; I had to make a map of ancient Athens, in fact, and I still remember some of it. Enough to correct Tony every now and then at least, and that's all I really need it for anyway. ;D Anyway, the Akropolis was highly impressive, what with its massive height above the city and the reconstructed ancient buildings on top.

View of the city in the background.

Of course the most impressive building would be the Parthenon, and before I tell you the most awesome thing about my experience with the Parthenon, I have to explain something. For awesome reasons, some of my friends and I have been inspired to find world famous old objects/buildings and, just to outdue all the tourists who have simply 'seen' these things, to lick them. We licked the oldest Iron Bridge in the world in England and I got a message from Vance that she licked the Colisseum. Not to be behind in the score, I licked the Parthenon. It was legendary.

Sadly, all of the Parthenon was roped off and the closest thing I could reach without being shipped off to a Greek prison was the original column base, but I still count this as a win.

So yea, that was awesome. You might think I'm crazy and be wondering "why would she do that?" to which I respond: How many people do you know who've licked the Parthenon? I'm just trying to blaze new ground here.

Anyway, the Parthenon is also amazing in its own respects, most of which consist of its massive size and the genius and beautiful design of it. I was excited because you could still see some of the friezes in tact. or at least reconstructed:


After admiring the Parthenon, we walked around a bit more and checked out the Erechtheion, the ending point of the Panathenaic festival and the home of the original sea water from Poseidon and olive tree from Athena. Here's a short mythology lesson I learned at Macon (more than once I believe): Athens was trying to decide which god to make their patron god/dess, and the two options were Poseidon and Athena. Both gave gifts to Athens to try and persuade it: Poseidon gave sea water and Athena gave an olive tree. The sea water was useless to Athens; no one could drink it and everything died in it. The olive tree, however, provided the whole city with food, so they picked Athena, celebrated her, and named their city after her. In the Parthenon they erected a giant bronze statue of her where they draped the paplos cloth on the last day of her Panatheniac festival.

Descendant of the first olive tree.

The Erechtheion, the "Porch of the Maidens". While we were there, someone called them the Vestal Virgins. Tony and I barely contained ourselves and burst out laughing. fyi, Vestal Virgins = Roman. Just for future knowledge. If you're going to pretend you know what you're talking about at an archaeological site, at least get the right period. It's right up there with visiting an art museum and saying an obvious depiction of Prometheus having his liver eaten by an eagle is "defintely something from the Old Testament". Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't act like you do.

Anyway, after that we wandered around a bit more and happened upon some other American tourists. There's one consistantly good thing about future American tourists abroad: they are the most reliable people to have take your picture. There's a significantly smaller chance that they'll run away with your camera. So, Tony and I took advantage of the opportunity.

We got a nice shot of some other couple in there, too, but oh well. I'll photoshop them out later.

And that's pretty much all there is to report!