Olympics and Greece

07.12.09

Sea Olympics! Go Carribbean Sea!

Today was our ship-wide Olympics competition. I'm in the Carribbean Sea, our color is orange, and our mascot is the Pirates (cute, right?). My roommate was the mascot for our floor (and the only mascot on our ship, that's how much spirit we had) complete with eye patch, boots, and a light up sword that made clanging noises. We had so much fun finding a mascot costume for her. She was a really good Pirate, and there will be pictures! The opening ceremony was in the Union and EVERYONE was there wearing the colors of their hall. All of the teams were doing their chants/cheers/songs and waving their posters. We had a Pirates song to the tune of Baby Got Back, it fit really well actually. The Olympics were really intense competition actually, everyone got really into it, and we ended up getting second! I was on the pictionary team, and we definitely made the other teams walk the plank! I spent the rest of the day watching the other competitions: pool relay, lip syncing competition, tug of war, dodgeball, boat racing...it was an exhausting afternoon, but I met a lot of new people and was very entertained.

07.13.09

Athens by day, Piraeus by night

Walking through the Plaka (cheap marketplace in Athens) wasn't quite what I was expecting. Most of the shops were full-blown touristy, full of sports jersey, or normal American-style merch (skate shops!). There were a few tucked away Greek gems of art work and hemp clothing, but for the most part it was like shopping for cheap in America. After walking around a bit, and getting giros, we made our way to the National Archaelogical Museum. Much of where we spent our time was in the Mycanean grave collection (excavated by Heinrich Schliemann) which was filled with gold and bronze and at the "ancient" Greek sculptures. My favorite parts of the Mycanean section were the artifacts decorated with octupi- there were clay vases, golden jewelry, and other grave decorations covered with the friendly, multi-legged creatures. In the sculpture area we saw the free-standing bronze statue of Zeus posed to throw his lighting. (There's a bit of controversy, it could be Poseidon with his trident, but it's most likely Zeus.) In the Egyptian section we saw a sarcophagus with the real mummy still in it and hundreds of scarabs (good-luck beetle jewelry).

We made our way (via the very convenient and cheap Metro) to the Acropolis were, although it is mostly covered with construction, we saw the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Erechtheion. I was awed by the massiveness of the Parthenon, the people who lived when it was a temple were lucky to have such a grand place in which to worship, it must have been so peaceful to be up above Athens. The view of the city was amazing. We could look down past Hadrian's Arch into the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Past the Temple was the old Olympic Stadium. The white buildings of the city spread out around and beyond the ruins, a quiet metropolis broken only by the islands of deep green trees and park-covered hills.

We came back to Piraeus for dinner and by the time we got back out on the streets the only places open were fast-food joints...but Greek fast-food is DELICIOUS! We ate at one called Everest. Along with healthy whole-wheat roll sandwiches and numerous other savory pastries they have toss your own salad where I got a huge spinach salad with anything I wanted in it for really cheap. And all of the quick food stops here have real juice, all juice no added sugar, with tons of fruits. I was in heaven.