Beach!

Busses and Trams – 6/2/07, Athens, 8:33 p.m.

So, we did end up going to the beach yesterday after a long and interesting journey. Brianne and I tried to find the right bus to take us to the beach and, long story short, we ended up in this industrial district. We thought we were supposed to take the 126 bus to Paleo Faliro, where our map from the hotel said the beach was. Turns out, it’s not. So the very, very nice bus driver (who, THANK GOD, spoke English) informed us that we had taken the wrong bus and in fact needed the A2 bus. So, he drove us to the stop that we needed to get to to get the A2 bus, which we took to the beach. Turns out, if we had taken the tram from Syntagma Square, we could’ve just gotten on and waited until we saw water.

We got off the bus and went to the beach. It was a little strange because there were small pebbles instead of sand, but it was nice nonetheless! The Mediterranean is beautiful! And warm. We took the tram back and, as opposed to our earlier venture which took about an hour and a half, it only took 45 minutes.

After coming home and showering, we all went to Dioschouri for dinner. It’s this lovely little taverna and the food was the best I’ve had since I’ve been here. It really was amazing.

We came home and prepared for our presentations today and hit the sack.

Today, there wasn’t much of interest going on. We went back to the Agora where we talked more about the Geometric and Classical periods of the Agora. Went back to the museum. Then we went to the Kerameikos, which is an entrance to the Agora through the Diplyon Gate (di – two, pylon – doors). It was mainly used as a burial ground for many of the people who lived in and around the agora. Because it was technically outside the walls of the agora. We talked a lot about our funeral papers that we wrote for the class last semester and walked around. The heat was stifling today, though, so we were pretty miserable. We had a big group lunch with some delicious kebabs and pita bread and then came back to the hotel. Brianne and I were going to go wandering around, but it was so unbearably hot that all we wanted to do was sit and read. So that’s what we did. We’re going to go grab some dinner and then just hang out. Chill night. It’ll be nice.

Tomorrow, we don’t have class, so we’re going to take an early morning ferry to the island of Aegina. There’s some ruins there, as well as a lot of beach. It might rain, though, but I hope it holds off.

That’s all from Athens for now!

All my love! Miss you all tons!

Xoxo, Ally