Is it the weekend yet?

Visitors, ruins, and a great trip - as soon as the weekend gets here.

In front of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina

The weather is turning cold in Athens, which is somewhat unfortunate.  Normally, the temperature wouldn’t drop till the end of October, but it hit early this year.  Guess I won’t be swimming in the ocean any more.  Considering the cold weather, I had to go hat and sweater shopping for my upcoming mid-semester break in the colder, northern part of Europe. 

Speaking of which, I don’t think I told you about these travel plans yet.  AHA has a ten-day break in the middle of the semester where we’re free to travel or whatnot.  I am going to be traveling with a group of six to Budapest in Hungary, Prague in the Czech Republic, and Vienna in Austria.  We’re going to fly from Athens to Budapest, take trains between the three cities, and then fly out of Budapest at the end of the break.  If all goes according to plan, (we won’t have our train tickets till we get to each city) we should spend about two days at each stop.  Needless to say, I am really excited to end this week and get on the plane to Budapest.  Before we fly out on Friday morning, however, we have a museum tour this afternoon and an all day tour of the Attic region of Greece tomorrow.  I’ll tell you about those next week.

We did hit a few ruins this week, in Athens and the island of Aegina.  In Athens, we visited the ruins of the Agora, which was the center of the ancient town of Athens.  There, we saw the temple of Hephaistos, an ancient shopping district called the Stoa, and the prison cell where Socrates most likely was put to death.  At Aegina, we visited the Bronze Age settlement of Kolonna and the Temple of Apheia.  See the album for pictures on that. 

And remember that surprise from last week?  Well, Darryn’s parents has been secretly emailing back and forth with me, trying to arrange a surprise visit with their daughter.  So on Friday evening, Kalenga and I took Darryn down to Syntagma Square, where we were supposedly going to meet up with some friends and go to a dance club.  Well, wouldn’t you know it – Darryn’s parents showed up instead, and caught her completely by surprise.  We went out to a nice restaurant that night, and the three of us played tour guides the next day, and showed them around Athens.  It was a lot of fun to see some new faces in Athens, and I’m pretty sure Darryn enjoyed it too.

And on a side note, Kalenga and I found a massive five-story mall near the Olympic Stadium.  I know it probably wasn’t the greatest cultural experience, but that mall was amazing! (See the album for more.)

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Next time I write, I should be somewhere in Eastern Europe - see you then.