Spring break, part 1: Athens

Hello from Rome!

The past couple of weeks have been rather busy, with projects due and midterm tests last week. But it feels great to be done with them now and be on spring break without any school to worry about for 10 days. This also marks the half-way point of my semester abroad, which is pretty hard to believe. I feel like I am just now really starting to feel in place in Berlin. I know the second half is going to go even more quickly, with tentative trips planned for each remaining weekend.

Last Friday the 17th, spring break began for those in the Freie Universität’s international program. I flew to Athens early Friday morning. (Waking up at 2:30 AM is the price to pay for the cheaper, early morning flights.) By the time I got out of the Athens airport, found the right metro, and found my hostel, it was about noon and I could check in. Even though I was running on an hour and a half of sleep I kept moving because with only 3 days to see Athens, there was simply no time to nap! I started by walking through Athens’ Central Market, which is kind of like Pike Place Market in Seattle, if you’ve been there, only 4 times the amount of fish and fish smell. After a classic Greek lunch of souvlaki and wine, I kept going to Monastiraki Square, another market, but one with restaurants and gift shops. This offered my first glimpse of the Acropolis:

Next I saw the Athenian Roman Agora and wove through the streets towards Mt. Lycabettus, the highest point in the city. It didn’t take too long to climb and the view was well worth it – overlooking the entire city with the Acropolis and the gulf to the west:

My second day in Athens started with the National Archaeological Museum. There was too much to see inside to be able to take everything in, but I recognized many things which I have learned about in my curriculum at MLC in Rise of the West, Latin, and Homer’s Iliad, including decorated pottery from Ancient Athens depicting Greek myth, and Linear B tablets from Mycenaean civilization (riveting stuff, I know). After this I went to the Areopagus, near the base of the Acropolis, which gives a different view of the city. We know from Acts 17 that the Apostle Paul had spent time on the Areopagus, speaking to large numbers of Athenians about Christianity. It was so cool to have walked where Paul walked, while trying to imagine what the area looked like 2000 years ago.

Next I walked over to Socrates’ prison, where he was kept after being found guilty of corrupting the minds of the Athenian youth and was forced to drink the poison hemlock – (my pastor track classmates who went through Plato’s Apology can appreciate this). To end the day I climbed back up Mt. Lycabettus to see the city lit up after dark:

I started my last day in Athens by finally going up the Acropolis. At the base is the Teatre of Dionysus, where we could sit on the stone seats and have the same view as ancient Greek theatre-goers. Then, seeing the Parthenon at the top was my favorite part of the stay in Athens.

I headed back down the hill and to the Ancient Agora, with the Temple of Hephaestus on its crest, looking back towards the Acropolis:

Later in the afternoon I went around to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, with Hadrian’s Arch nearby, and just beyond that was Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium, which hosted the first modern Olympic games in 1896. Underneath we could go into a room where the collection of most of the Olympic torches are kept.

In the evening after dinner I was going to go back to my hostel because I had scheduled myself for another one of those 2:30 mornings to the airport, but it looked like it was going to be a good sunset so I went back up the Areopagus to watch. The view was stunning – the most impressive one I’ve ever seen:

Now I am in Rome and have another whole agenda to accomplish in a few short days! Tomorrow I am meeting up with a couple of my friends from the program to start walking around Rome. That’s all for now! Watch for my next post, hopefully in the next week or so, to hear about the rest of spring break.

Tschüss,

Collin