After a rough nights sleep (maybe a solid 4 hours) last night, when my alarm went off this morning, I was in a bit of shock that it was already time to wake up and head over to Panathenaic Stadium. This is where the very first Olympics ever was held. They opened at 8 and J and I wanted to be the first ones there and have it all to ourselves if possible. We ran over there and bought our tickets (student discount FTW again) and were the first visitors of the day, which, not gonna lie, was amazing. We ran on the track, climbed the stairs to the top of the stadium, and took pictures on the podium. It was awesome! As a runner, I was totally in awe. I know it is where the finish line for the now current Athens marathon is, which is really cool to imagine. (I mean after all, I was beyond pumped to finish the Illinois marathon on the Illini 50-yard line.) After playing around the track a bit, we went inside to the museum area of the stadium and saw all the torches from all the previous Olympic Games, winter and summer. It was actually super cool. Of course, all I could picture was the iconic moment of Muhammad Ali carrying the torch many years ago. Goosebumps.
After the stadium, we ran across the street to the National Gardens. At first, it kind of reminded me of Retiro Park in Madrid, but I soon realized it wasn’t nearly as pretty and there didn’t seem to be much of an actual running path (or at least we couldn’t find it) around it. We ventured inside some hidden side pathways, but got a little nervous about getting lost in there and there seemed to be a lot of homeless men just kind of sitting around there, which seemed shady and not very safe so we left. Between all the traffic, narrow sidewalks and seemingly lack of a great public park place, I realized Athens doesn’t seem to be a great running city. At all. Boo. Because of that (and the heat), we ran back to the hotel for breakfast.
Once we decided exactly what we wanted to tackle today and the order based on efficiency, we headed out on our way to the highest point in Athens called Lycabettus Hill. Almost the entire walk to the funicular was uphill and it was actually quite brutal in this heat, but we made it, albeit very sweaty. At first we missed the street it was on and continued uphill until we saw what we assumed was a stray dog and immediately turned around and got to where we needed to be. If we had kept going, we would have had to climb our way up the whole mountain and that certainly was not what we wanted. Once on the funicular, we sat next to two women, also from Chicago, and chatted them up to the top. The panoramic view of all of Athens was pretty incredible, and not-shockingly, even hotter. We took our pics, got on some WiFi and then took the funicular back down and started onto our next destination.
Next on the agenda was back to Syntagma Square to see the changing of the guard. On our way there we walked through what we think was a very upscale neighborhood. There were a number of high end stores and apartments. When we finally made it to the Parliament building we had time to kill before the changing of the guards so we made ourselves comfortable in the lobby of a very ritzy hotel for some much needed AC and some water (and WiFi, duh).
Once it got close to the time of the changing of the guards, we headed back out to get a decent view. The whole thing was very similar to the changing of the guards at Arlington National Cemetery, but so interesting to watch. The honor that the soldiers have of doing what they do is obviously huge and they take great pride in it, so that makes it more fascinating to watch. As soon as it ended we had to get out of the sun again, and onto our last adventure of the day, the National Archeological Museum. We had planned to take the train there on a different line than yesterday, but we were super confident in doing so. So much so we even decided to buy our train tickets on the self-service machine and were super successful and so natural. I love taking public transportation in other countries because not only can it be cheaper and quicker, it’s also nice to get the real experience of the locals. We want to immerse ourselves as much as possible in the culture and blend in as being locals (minus having to do a ton of tourists things too).
After getting off at our stop, we got very confused as to which way to go, but recognized the neighborhood from our cab ride home last night. We stopped and got ice cream bars and headed into the museum. There were obviously a ton of archeological artifacts in there including an obscene amount of vases and sculptures of Greek Gods. There was also some jewelry, tombstones, coffins, weapons, etc... One of the more interesting things to us were the uncircumcised penis sculptures (hey, what can you do?!?), the fact that all the men looked super similar to each other, how the women used to make perfume, and learning about Nike, who we googled later is the Goddess of speed, strength, and victory. We had assumed it had something to do with how the brand named itself which proved correct, and it was obviously very interesting to us. Also, as it was a museum, we assumed they’d have more “normal” toilets for us to use. No luck. The whole toilet seat issue, which I don’t even know how I failed to mention yesterday is that almost all the toilets here in public places have no toilet seats. It’s really an issue. Our struggle has been real. As if walking around a ton and having sore legs and being sticky with sweat isn’t enough, try squatting over one of these in those conditions. It’s less than to be desired. Moreso, how would you poop in one of those? I’m desperately hoping I won’t have to find out for myself. Luckily our hotel has normal seats.
After the museum, it was back to the hotel for some relaxing and time in the pool again to cool off. And to eat some snacks, try some ouzo (we did NOT like it) and also meet a mother and daughter who will be on our cruise. Then it was time to shower and head out for a bit. We had decided we wanted to try and hit up a bar or two where other Americans might be just to see how that was. It’s supposedly one of the oldest pubs in all of Athens (the Red Lion...I mean, doesn’t it sound like it would be an American bar?) and happened to be like a five minute walk from our hotel so we gave it a go. J even had a friend who got into Athens tonight who met us over there as well. The bar was pretty empty (and turns out it was their last night open for the summer), but we managed to have a good time for the short time we were there. There was no AC and we were getting tired so only stayed for like two hours, but it was still nice to get out for a bit and hang. Finally it was back to the hotel to get ready for another full day ahead tomorrow. Another hot day ahead so some hydration and rest is key.
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