Sunday

Maralily on Athens

I am home in Prague now, and to sum things up briefly (because I am tired) I had a great four day trip to Athens. The symposium at the Benaki Museum was impressive but the labs afterward turned out to be a chaotic clusterfuck at best. Dude, I saw THE Acropolis. How cool is that? I saw The Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, Propylaea and the Erechtheion. I spent almost a full day at the National Arch. Museum and had a picnic with my sweetie at the Temple Of Olympian Zeus, which is really spectacular in it's size alone. I wandered through Plaka, went to the Athens Flea Market (and managed not to buy anything at all- which is impressive!) and made out in the Keramikos (the ancient cemetary of Athens) which is actually my favorite place in Athens.

I have been told quite a few negative things about Athens: that it is littered, dirty, smelly, chaotic and dangerous. I found none of those things to be true. The city was tolerable in it's dirtiness- it was not nearly as bad as Rome. And at least it didn't reek of piss like Prague. The people were friendly, humorous, warm and smiling. The traffic is chaotic but c'mon, my home is Panama- now THAT is chaotic traffic! I never felt in danger at any time during my brief trip. I was told by a few Greeks that Athens was pretty nasty a few years ago but that the preparations for the Olympics made the city undergo massive upgrades. New Metro systems were installed, new stations, hotels were upgraded, the whole city basically touched up. When I visited Rome it was a nightmare trying to figure out how to use the tram system. Several times the trams in Rome broke down while we were on them and the passengers were left on the street corner, lost and confused. Athens has a bus system, tram system and underground metro system (subway system) and I used the metro the whole time. It was the easiest, cleanest, and most pleasant metro I have ever used. I never got lost.

Remarkably, I managed to only spend 30 Euro in Athens.

Metro ticket round trip from the airport and back- 10 E
Two cups of coffee- 5 Euro
Small bag of groceries that I kept in my hotel's mini-fridge- 11 Euro
Misc Metro Tickets- 6 Euro

I happened to show up, unplanned, on one of Athens' "free days" in which most major attractions, including the Acropolis, are free to visitors. Normally it is 12 Euros, and the Zeus temple is 5 Euros, etc. Anyway- everything I went to was free. I was helping a friend with a presentation at Benaki so they didn't make me pay to get in, and since Ridley (my professor friend) gave me a tour of the National Arch Museum, I didn't have to pay for that either. So I somehow managed to visit Athens and only spent 30 Euros.

Of course theat didn't include my plane ticket, but that was on special and I got for 80 Euros round trip. My hotel was covered by CTAI.

My entire trip to Athens cost 110 Euros. Or $140 USD.

I have no idea how I did that. Maybe it is because I have never been a souvenir person.

thxs Maralily

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