Today was our last real day before our group would travel back to Nashville. After having spent the past three days engaged in service work, today was primarily spent in recreation, leisure, tourism, and walking. Lots and lots of walking. And food. There was a good amount of that, too. While walking, eating, and acquainting ourselves with the city were par for the course by this point in the trip, this day specifically was centered around visiting Athens’ greatest and most recognizable structure: the Acropolis.
First things first, before we could go to the Acropolis, we had to get our COVID-19 tests and eat breakfast. The test wasn’t all too bad, just the standard swab in the nose, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. Thankfully, all of our results were negative, so it seems that none of us contracted COVID-19 while in Greece. Breakfast was more or less the same as any other day. I ate my usual meal of eggs, Greek yogurt, nuts, fruit, and coffee. I’d rather not admit how much coffee I had. It was good, definitely, but I kind of wished that the menu would change daily, like what they had done with lunch and dinner. As good as my breakfast was, eating the same thing repeatedly got stale. Granted, that is my own fault for choosing the same meal every morning, but I know what I like and I’m not really one to stray from routine.
Almost everyone was ready to get going to the Acropolis by 9:00 a.m. I say almost everyone because we had a few stragglers. You know who you are, guys. Fortunately, the bus arrived a little late, so it turned out to be not that big of a deal. The bus ride itself was about an hour in length, comparable to the time it took for us to get to the inner city of Athens. During the ride, I was intending to get some studying done by reading a textbook I had brought me, but I honestly didn’t really care enough to do it, so I just vibed and listened to music on my phone. This is my Spring Break of high school; I shouldn’t have to study during it.
Getting back on track, we arrived at the Acropolis Museum in Athens at about 10:30, I think. The details of the timing are a bit fuzzy to me, to be honest. The Acropolis Museum, while not the primary attraction, was a wonderful tour that I would say measures up to walking into the Acropolis itself. Some things that struck out to me were that ongoing excavation was taking place around the area and a noticeable area of the floor was transparent so that we could see the ruins below us. To say that I loved every minute of touring the museum would be an understatement.
Among the artifacts housed, what I first noticed was a replica of a Peplos Kore, a statue which I learned about in my AP Art History class at MBA. This particular statue is quite memorable to me for many reasons. It epitomizes the Archaic Greek style of sculpture, it gives insight into the religious and cultural dogmas of Ancient Greece, and it creeps out my good friend Jacob Huizinga. I gladly tried explaining to my peers why it was so significant and I hope that I entertained them in doing so, even just a little.
The tour through the museum was well put together and informative, if not a little bit too quick for my liking. I would have preferred to take my time examining and learning about each and every artifact, but that’s just me speaking as an anthropology nut. It just gives me an incentive to return one day. I could hardly contain my excitement as I viewed artifacts that I recognized from my studies, such as Nike Adjucting her Sandal and several bas reliefs from the Parthenon’s metopes. In fact, I was wanting to explain away to my friends about what each of them was, but I thought that would be disrespectful to our guide. What some people may find surprising is that a good majority of artifacts in the museum are actually replicas; the originals are held in Great Britain. The statues, often referred to as the Elgian Marbles, were stolen (our guide’s words, not mine) by the Lord Elgian of England because that’s just something that Britain has a tendency of doing. The argument favoring Britain’s ownership is, in more or less words, that they have kept the relics preserved, and returning them to Greece carries the risk of damaging them. Plus, it would instigate a domino effect in which several other countries would demand to have their artifacts returned to them. This issue is a whole can of worms that I’m not really going to, nor wanting to, expound upon here, though.
Following the tour of the museum, we went outside to walk up to the Acropolis. Acropolis, when translated rather literally, means “high city” in Ancient Greek. As its name may suggest, the Acropolis is located atop a tall and steep hill, and it is important to note than Athens was not the only city to have an Acropolis in ancient times. The purpose of an Acropolis was to act as a vantage point and military citadel for each respective city state, and as such placing it atop a high altitude was the best location for it. What makes the Athenian Acropolis so special though, besides still being somewhat intact, is that it also served a religious function. In essence, the Acropolis housed temples dedicated to Athens’ patron goddess Athena, whom the city is named after.
As I’m sure many people know, the center of the Acropolis houses a large central temple called the Parthenon. You guys reading this are likely Tennesseans, so you should probably already know about it. We do have a replica of it, after all. But having seen the real deal, I can definitively say that the original is much better. Words cannot describe my excitement as I first stepped up the hill and entered the prolypia. What was immediately made evident was how beautiful the structure was. The entire Acropolis is constructed of marble, which made the structure both immensely beautiful, and somewhat hard to walkthrough since it was so slippery. Regardless, I took great pleasure in exploring the area and taking as many photos as possible of everything I found to be of interest. So basically everything. Near the end of the tour of the Acropolis, I talked with our tour guide about it. This interaction made me feel incredibly happy, as I was able to share my love for historical sites with another person, but I can’t help but think I was being a little too pushy or coming across as a know-it-all. Regardless, I still do like explaining the history of things, whether people want me to or not.
After exiting the Parthenon, our group’s next stop was lunch. We dined at a local restaurant in Athens and sat on the top floor. Most of my peers ordered either the checking or pork gyros, but I was getting kind of tired of eating meat in almost every meal, so I ordered the falafel. It was pretty decent. The restaurant itself was nice as well, and it had a great view of the Acropolis.
After eating, we walked to one of Athens’ main plazas and each of us was given free reign to tour the area for roughly two and a half hours. This time was used primarily for resting our legs and purchasing souvenirs for our families. Most souvenirs were what you would expect, some pretty standard stuff like mugs and shirts, but there were some more…questionable ones that I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about here. I bought a scarf for my grandmother. During this time, I remember taking a break from walking and sitting with Coach Redmond while watching and talking about the swarms of pigeons. I wanted to try and feed them, but I didn’t know if that was legal. Shame; I want to amass my pigeon army sooner rather than later. Even though we were having our fun, all of us had to be watchful of our surroundings, because the plaza, as a hub for tourists, is a prime location for scammers. We actually had a few encounters and there was this one guy who was supposedly supporting refugees (he obviously wasn’t) by selling us bracelets, which he had originally marketed as free but then asked for payment after giving them to us. I didn’t like him, and I think that was a common sentiment. I wasn’t involved in it, but I’m fairly certain that there were a good number of us making fun of him on the bus ride back.
Once we returned to the hotel, we ate dinner (which was great, as usual), and the seniors, myself included, thanked our servers and gave them some MBA brand tervices. Following that, we were given a short break before meeting for our final time at about 8:00 at night. During this meeting, we gave our final reflections about what we learned, what we enjoyed, what we think could have been better, and overall just a big collection of the memories we accumulated about our experiences in Greece. It was quite wholesome to listen to. We gave special thanks to Tina and Mike for being our guides here in Greece, and I personally hope that one day I, along with my friends, may have the opportunity to see them again.
Before finally going back to our rooms for the night and packing our luggage, some of the members of our group decided to spend some time on their final night at the shores of the Aegean Sea just outside of our hotel. What’s crazy is that a good number of them had the idea that it would be a great opportunity to go swimming, even though it was around 30 to 40 degrees outside. Why? I have no idea, but they had fun so that’s what matters here. Both Tina and Mike accompanied us there, but they did the sane, rational thing and didn’t get in the water with us. After taking a quick dip in the sea and arriving back to the hotel, another group of boys decided to go to the local McDonald’s around the corner. Tina and I didn’t really understand why, as there are so many McDonald’s joints in Nashville. On the way back to the hotel, Tina and I discussed my interests in anthropology, to which she responded by telling me that she used to work alongside university students. She further explained that Greece offers many opportunities for hands-on learning in the anthropological field, which I was very glad to learn about.
It took not much time at all to return to the hotel, and, after saying goodnight to Tina and my teachers, I went upstairs to my room, took a shower, packed, and at last went to sleep in preparation for the next day. Tomorrow’s definitely going to be busy!
