Heard about Athens on the News Lately? (July 17)

Today, we arrived in Athens!

At preport last night and in Global Studies yesterday, we learned a lot about what’s going on in Athens currently (we are completely out of the loop of world news here on the ship). We were told that there were 5 options for Greece, and that they were having some kind of important meeting over the weekend and would announce the new plan either the first or second day we were there. In other words, be wary of riots, because there’s no way to satisfy everyone. Also at preport, we were told how to use the metro since it is the best mode of transportation, and the taxis will likely be striking.

Back to today. About an hour after the general clearance announcement came another announcement- “Attention please, attention please. We have just been informed that the metro is NOT working in Athens today. Please keep this in mind while you make plans to travel.” Oooookay, so now what? We knew they had buses, but we didn’t know WHERE we could buy tickets or where any of the bus stops were. We knew we wanted to go to the Acropolis today, so since it was SO hot (another heat wave- surprised?) we waited until a little later to head out. On our way out of the port, we ran into the crew doctor (different than the SAS doctors). She’s the cutest thing. She’s Croatian, and walks around the ship every day in heels, little pencil skirts, and always has her sparkly lip gloss on. We hadn’t ever met her before- just seen her- but we were all looking for the darn bus stop and ticket stand and had no idea where to go, so we bonded over that. We had all walked all over and didn’t know where to go! (I was with Michelle and Kelsey.) We decided to all walk together and look. The doctor stopped a motorcyclist with the wave of her hand and got directions- kind of. She kept stopping people going by and using her Spanish and Italian to communicate. None of us knew any Greek! She’s Miss Independent and has this little I’m-not-an-idiot attitude. She finally got us to the bus stop, and said goodbye as she took a bus to the beach! She was all set in her swim suit, wrap, sparkly lip gloss, cute hat, and big beach bag. I hope she had a nice day sunbathing! Anyway, that left the three of us there. Our bus stop was somewhere else, and we had to buy the tickets somewhere ELSE because the stand she bought them at didn’t have any more tickets. Lovely. So we set out to find another place. Found it! Now to communicate what we want…Michelle and Kelsey did that while I was crouching down in pain (remember the stomachaches?). While I was down there, I studied some magazine covers like Glamour and Cosmopolitan to see if I could figure out what sounds any of the Greek characters made. I know the Greek symbols forward and backward from all my math, physics, and engineering classes, but none of us knew what sound they made in words, which left us helpless when even attempting to pronounce things. I figured maybe I could figure out what something was in English, then relate it to the written Greek. ZERO luck! It was like trying to read jibberish.

Once we had our tickets, we looked for the bus stop and found it. We all sat on the bench to wait. Once the bus 040 came, we jumped on, validated our tickets (if you don’t validate them, you get fined 60 times the price of your bus ticket..1.40 Euros!), and sat down. I was facing the back of the bus, so I was moving backwards. After awhile, this plus all of the bumps made my stomach even WORSE, so Kelsey switched with me so I could be going forward at least (thanks Kels!). As we were sitting there, one of the girls pointed to my leg that had bright orange on it. How weird! I rubbed it off and it was gone for the most part. A couple minutes later, I went to cross my legs and Michelle’s face was priceless. After a jaw drop and a point to my leg, both of the girls were shocked. What in the world? I had orange ALL over the back of my legs, in the little dot pattern of the bus stop bench. I couldn’t see so Kelsey took a picture. Picture to come….it was bad! And of COURSE that would happen to me. We went back and looked at the bench later and it was just rust. Sooo apparently either my skin or my sunscreen has a reaction with rust, and then rubs off with baby wipes? Beats me. Once we asked the bus driver about ten times if this was the Acropolis stop and finally got the answer yes, we hopped off and looked for somewhere I could fix my legs. We went into a little bookstore, walked way in the back, and used a wipe I had THANKFULLY brought. Of course then I had to put more sunscreen there.

Alright, now we were set. We walked around the area of shops and restaurants, and found this little shop down in a basement. There were a few pieces of jewelry outside on display, but once you go downstairs it is HUGE and there is SO much stuff! AND it was nice and cool down there. We were sold! We spent about the next hour in there. We got a couple things, and then as we were buying them met George. George is one of the owners- a typical Greek old man, with his shirt completely unbuttoned. He was SO enthusiastic about what we were buying. We all got these pretty silver-plaited rings that he made. They stood for long life, love, and friendship. Since he made them, he said he had to pick out the best one for each of us. Good thing we loved them! After we got them, he was so excited to bring us back to his workshop and show us where and how he made them. He showed us a some similar, thicker pieces of jewelry like the ones he made, and said they were from China so we could have those really cheap, but they aren’t the same because they’re not handmade! The ones he made were a little thinner, and we got to see exactly how he did it. It was so cool! He told us all about how he was on CNN and how we should watch for him there. After about an hour at George’s, we figured we should head up to the Acropolis. It was SO hot! Luckily there was a little breeze by the time we went up.

Side note: Can I please mention how many COPS were everywhere? We knew they were there to keep us safe, but at the same time we wondered if they were expecting something and that’s why there were so many. We saw some walk by all decked in heavy duty bullet-proof gear and huge shields, and later we saw a huge bus unloading police officers. We later found out that a protest was supposed to happen on one side of the Acropolis, so that’s why they were there. Thankfully we weren’t there while there was a protest!

Anyway, we bought our tickets (only 6 Euros with a student ID!) and headed up. It was sooo cool! Knowing its long and complicated history made it so interesting, and I was so intrigued with its perfection. I have to admit, I did eavesdrop on a bit of another tour. I just wanted to know more about how it was built! It is built purely of marble, with no material to hold it together. Instead, column drums were stacked to create each pillar. Each drum had a square cut out, and an iron rod was put in to hold the drums together. We also got to see the Parthenon while we were up there. It was really cool seeing it, especially because I remember learning about it in 8th grade geometry. Mr. Timm talked about it a lot and how the Greeks were geniuses (genii!). We learned about how its shape is perfect, and ideally aesthetically pleasing- the “golden rectangle.” I always wanted to see it in person and am so happy I finally got to. Apparently within the hour we were up there, Hilary Clinton was as well. We must have just missed her, because just after we got down, we ran into SAS people who couldn’t get to the Acropolis because the road was blocked off for her. And when we were up there, an Asian man was asking about Hilary Clinton and we thought he was asking if we knew her- we later figured out what he really meant.

After that, we walked down and went to the New Acropolis Museum. The entrance is one of the coolest parts! There is a glass ground with the archaeological excavation right below it, so you can see it all. Inside the museum was cool too. No pictures allowed, though. :/ It was huge and open and there were statues everywhere from the ruins. On the descriptions of one of the building remains, I learned that the Greeks kept track of important parts of the building process ON the actual building! We saw a part of wall that had the finances chiseled into it. What better place to keep important information that ON it! After leaving the museum, we went back to George’s. We couldn’t help it, it just had so much stuff! We got some more stuff, and he was thrilled that we were back. As we were leaving, we asked for a suggestion for dinner. He told us a great place, gave us his card and theirs, and sent us on our way. He promised they’d take care of us!

We went there and immediately as we walked up, the owner brought us to a table and offered us wine on the house, asking what kind we wanted. We said any kind of red would be great. Unfortunately, I knew my tummy wouldn’t be able to handle any wine so I just took a little sip and was done. Then for dinner, Kelsey and Michelle ordered Greek salad and Moussaka. I tried a little bit of each of theirs. I ordered a stuffed baked potato, and it was really good. I didn’t get to eat all of it, though. Darn stomach. We did some more shopping, then realized it was dark so we headed back to the ship. Well, the buses had stopped running so we couldn’t do that. We didn’t want to take a taxi because they’re more expensive. We asked a police man about the buses, and he told us to take the metro. We told him we thought they were closed but he assured us they weren’t anymore. After telling us which lines to take about 5 times, he found a map and showed us there. Ooookay, that made a lot more sense. We had to take 3 different metro lines. We could do that, we were metro pros! We did the first two fine- got our tickets, hopped on. Then when we were trying to find our third platform, we noticed that all of the signs for Piraeus (the port where our ship was) were covered. Uh oh. We still tried to get there, but there were security guards stopping people. THAT metro wasn’t running. Okay, thanks cop! We should have learned our lesson after the Italian cop told us to take the metro and it was closed. So…now what? We had to leave the metro station and we figured we’d take a taxi, even though it would be expensive. We walk up the stairs our of the metro…and are definitely somewhere we DON’T want to be. It was kind of like the Placa in Barcelona, where the protestors were all living and hanging out, and it just wasn’t all that safe. Only here, it was worse. There was a bit of a stir, and we knew we needed to get out fast. There was graffiti EVERYWHERE- more than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Well, I guess we found the heart of all the protests! SAS had advised us that over anything, STAY AWAY from protests. We wanted to take a taxi, but we didn’t have cash. So…we had to do what we didn’t want to do and get money out of an ATM at night in a sketchy area. We did it fast and were all watching carefully. We went to find a taxi, and got in after negotiating a price (we didn’t negotiate long, we wanted to get the heck out of there!). On the drive, Kelsey was trying to make conversation with the taxi driver in the front, like she usually does. Nope, he wasn’t going to have it. He was so rude! Okay…so then we’d just be quiet. About two minutes in, he lights up a cigarette and starts smoking away. Who happens to be directly behind him? Your truly. Lucky me got smoke blown in my face by the wind the wholeeee wayyyy home. Back to the graffiti, I thought I’d seen a lot in that square we were in. Nope, I hadn’t seen a fraction of it. For the next 15 minutes I stared out the window and the ENTIRE left side of the road (I didn’t even look at the right) was COVERED in graffiti. There was literally not an inch of building material showing, no matter how high the buildings were. I have never ever seen that much graffiti ever ever ever before. It was actually really pretty, with every single building covered in colorful graffiti! I thought it was really cool to see some effects of all the protests and riots in Athens, since I’ve been hearing about them on the news for so long. I was right in the heart of it.

The taxi got to the port, but the port of Piraeus is HUGE. We showed the taxi driver our “green sheet,” that said our ship was at berth 4. Well, he told us berth 4 didn’t exist. We had to tell him where we wanted to be dropped off. Just at the port? It’s huge. Okay…well then berth 4. It doesn’t exist. Okay, then 3. Fine. We got dropped off at 8. Thanks dude. Whatever! We paid him and went on our way, three girls SPEED walking around the port at night. Not so fun. Finally after about 20 or 30 minutes, we got back to our ship and were safe and sound. By the time we got back, the other girls had been worried about us for awhile. They had texted, but almost as we were back. Point of the story: we got back safely, even though it was much more complicated than we anticipated (but what ISN’T when traveling?)!

Well, later on we talked to someone who had been in that sketchy square at 8 pm. We were there at 10 pm. While she was there, someone came up to her and told her to GET OUT FAST because it was NOT somewhere she wanted to be, and a protest/riot was about to start. She booked it out of there, like we did. So sometime between 8 and 10, there had been a huge protest/riot, or maybe it hadn’t happened yet and was about to right when we went through. And when I saw “square,” I mean yes there was a smallish square where people were gathered, but the large surrounding radius was still just as scary. It wasn’t like we had to just walk out of the square- we had to drive 20 minutes away. Glad we got out of that!

Oh, what I didn’t mention is how attractive and non-touristy we were today. OH wait, we were just the opposite! We heard the walk up to the Acropolis was really slippery, so we decided to wear running shoes. And since we were wearing running shoes, we figured we might as well just “COMMIT.” As in, wear full running attire. So when we ran into other SASers dressed all cute, we justified it by saying that we committed, and that was that! What a day.