Athens in Pictures

Pictures from February...

These are some of the strawberries from the fresh air market.  They are amazing.  The big one is on Tuesdays, but there is one closer to my apartment on Fridays that I am going to check out today.  They sell all kinds of fresh foods for really cheap which is great.  And Kelly, I'll let you know if I become allergic to strawberries...

This is a street that is also a track.  I don't now why but I thought it was really cool and I like to think maybe it used to be a track and the city chose to preserve it when they started building. 

 
These are my clothes drying.  It takes FOREVER!
Me at the top of Mt. Likavitos.  It is the highest point in Athens so a group of us decided to climb it one Saturday.  We pretty much just looked at the hill and followed streets until it got us there.  Eventually it did, and on the way we met a nice man named Thore who was from the Netherlands.  He was trying to find his way up as well and ended up tagging along with us around the city for the day.  It was a little weird but I think it's more common in Europe?  I don't know.  He wasn't a creeper or anything, more like a lonely middle age business man.  Anyways, this is after we finally found our way to the top.  

It started to rain on us when we got to the top, but when it stopped and the sun came out there was a rainbow that went over the city.  It made it completely worth the rain. 

This gives you an idea of how high Mt. Likavitos actually is in comparison to the rest of Athens.  In the background you can see the Acropolis and the Mediterranean.  

We went to a bookstore and I found Twilight in Greek!  

Really cool clouds.  

This is one of the guards that is in front of the President's house.  Their skirts are quite short and they do lots of high leg kicks.  I mean, I'd be embarressed to be one of them.  

These are my friends Jess, Wells, and Amanda.  We all live in the same building.  Wells is from North Carolina and I'm mildly embaressed to say that he has gotten me addicted to a country song called "Chicken Fried."  His roommate, Brian, introduced me to this band called Sigur Ros and if you like Snow Patrol/Coldplay and such I'd highly recommend checking them out.  They are from Iceland so I can't understand them but that makes it great for studying music.  

This is a far away shot of the Temple of Poseidon.  He is the god of the sea so his temple overlooks the Mediterranean.  It is about an hour outside of Athens so a bunch of us went there last weekend.  
This is some of us after we climbed down the side of the cliff.  Don't worry mom, it is just the angle that makes us look like we could fall down a cliff at any moment.  It was steep, but not dangerous.  

This is me in front of the Temple of Poseidon.  I think I'm going to go back before I leave because it is supposed to be the best place to watch the sunset in all of Greece.  

This is my roommate Ashley teaching me how to Greek dance one night in the street.  I actually learned some steps last night and cannot wait to dance!  

  
This is the side of a building in a neighborhood next to mine.  You can't tell that well, but all of the holes are from bullets from the 1940s.  This is the main neighborhood where immigrants came in the 1940s.  It grew from a population of 11 to 40,000 in about three decades.  Crazy, I know.  
This is in the same neighborhood.  This and the next two pictures are the remains of the base where the Nazis controlled Greece.  It was originally a shooting range and is still technically one, though it isn't used anymore.  The Nazis decided to use it as their own shooting range for all of their executions.  The cyprus trees are typically seen next to graves in Greece.  
This is the memorial.  Greek teens are known to be some of the most disrespectful youth today (it would make you appreciate American teens so much more if you saw how horrible teens in Athens are to everything and everyone) and that can be seen on the graffiti on the memorial.  It is therefore only open on May Day each year but kids still manage to sneak in.  

This is the original shooting range building.  It is pretty eery to think about how creepy it must have been back in the day.  

This is Amanda and me at TGI Fridays for her 21st Birthday.  A ton of us went there because we missed American food and she wanted her first drink to be a girly one.  I had been craving a grilled chicken salad and she had been dying for Mexican food.  And soccer was on the TV.  I was in heaven.  

Yasas!