Athenians Link with Canadians

On our 4 hour drive towards Athens, we devoured Grecian apple strudel, sang to Turkish karaoke songs, practiced our Greek in different accents when coming upon a toll booth and enjoyed Chupa Chups. When arriving in Athens, although we were tired, we took the time to notice the city around us. The traffic was hectic and many cars backfired on the way to the Hilton. We drove through the busy city and made our way to the hotel. When we first walked into the Hilton Athens, it was a little bit of an upgrade from our previous hotel in Kyparissia. We dropped off our bags and went to a "Taverna" also known as Starbucks for a quick lunch. Meeting our tour guide back at our hotel, we strolled through the city and made our way to the metro station where we caught a metro to the next stop. After we then followed the red light to the other side of the station and almost missed the metro, which was very lucky on our part as we would have had to wait another 40 minutes. 

We arrived at the Akropoli station and made our way up the stairs and to the Acropolis museum. When walking into the entrance, below us you could see an old excavation site that they decided to preserve. Since the ground was made of glass, that terrified most of us, especially Lizzy, but the tour guide mentioned that the glass could last through a magnitude 9 earthquake. The museum was very interesting and the guide was full of information which made it better. She informed us that the museum was built like the Acropolis, the first floor is a ramp leading up to the gates, which were the second floor, and the third is the Parthenon with many metal poles representing columns. After the museum, we made our way up to the Parthenon which was amazing. We could see the construction work on the side that blew up, and they said it would be done in around a decade. We learned about the birthplace of democracy and how it is significant today. The group had a birds eye view of the first stadium as well as Zeus's Temple. We made our way down to the shopping district but some people felt very hot and tired so they left for the hotel. While shopping, we all bought tacky shirts and souvenirs for our family, someone even commented on how great my Greek was (thank you Greek travel book)!

On our way back to the hotel, we took pictures with the guards at the Government Building and even got to see them moving places which was humorous and interesting at the same time. We thought that they were animatronics because nobody can have skin that perfect and keep a serious face as well as they did. When we walked back, Mr. Doland decided to guide the group through the city with an empty, crumpled water bottle from his backpack. We then checked into our rooms, freshened up and headed upstairs for dinner. The dinner was fantastic. It was laid out in a buffet style with many options, and after a long day of exploring, this was heaven to us. We socialized and said our thank you's and goodbyes to the group and went out for a swim and relaxed. From our hotel room, we had a view of the Acropolis at night and the lights throughout the city and cars. We had our last get together with everyone in our room, packed up and slept a fair amount throughout the night. In the morning, we gathered and had an array of food laid out in front of us. There was even something called the "Healthy Bar" for those fitness people on the trip. After craving a nice breakfast other than dry cereal and toast, we indulged and headed to the vans to begin our journey home. We are now sitting in the Athens Airport and Matias can safely say that "The Hilton was one of the nicest hotels I have ever been in". So next time you find yourself in Athens, indulge in apple strudel and buy a tacky tee shirts. 

From your friends,

Meaghan, Lizzy and Matiti