Temple to Poseidon, Sounio, Greece February 6As promised, I will now let you know about the beauty of Attica which Athens tries so hard to cover.
The field trip that was scheduled for a few weeks ago was rescheduled for last Saturday. Our school was split up into three buses, all going different places. Though originally, my bus was supposed to go to Marithon, this time around, we were scheduled to go to Brauron and Sounio. I was much happier with this change of plan. Whereas I would have seen a grassy hill and hear the story about the Battle of Marithon, I now got to see actual standing structures of the past.
Due to the flooding at the site, Brauron was closed, and we were once again herded to a different monument. Our first stop was Thorikos, home of the first stone theatre, which was made in 4th century BCE. This site is also famous for the mining of materials which go into making bronze.
Then, we continued down the coast of eastern Attica to the tip of the peninsula. Sounio was the most beautiful place that I have yet to see in Greece. Located right on the sea, the Temple to Poseidon acts as a landmark to all ships, both leaving, and returning to Athens. Though only a few pillars remain, it is still possible to imagine the glory that it must have been when a whole temple. Even Lord Byron thought so, when he carved his name into one of the stones when there in the late 1700s.
Thorikos 
Sounio, Temple to Poseidon
4th Century BCE Theatre and Sea
After being blown to pieces at the top of the cliff, we returned to the bottom to have a picnic lunch on the sea shore. Sadly, it was windy and quite cold, so we had to shield ourselves behind the bus and were not able to appreciate the crashing waves to go with our sandwiches.
Sunday, after a long day of homework, discussing travel plans with Martha and Erin (both friends also from Michigan who are studying in France and who are coming to visit me for a week!!!), we had a nice roommate dinner and got ready to be Americans... afterall, it was the Superbowl! Now, I'm not the biggest football fan (unless Big10), but I did not want to pass up this chance at seeing Americans pretending to be Greek one minute, and the next walk into and Irish pub and go back to being American. (The good part about having it at an Irish pub was that Guiness was finally on tap, and the same price as the other beers.) We had a fun time; There were a ton of students from CYA and a bunch from one of the other study abroad programs, as well as a couple of random Greek, Welsh, and Australian men. And as if that wasn't enough, they gave away free superbowl food at halftime. The down part, was that I stayed awake till 5 am watching football only to have to get up at 7:45 for an orientation at the Blegen Library.
Carpe Diem?
That temple is soooo beautiful! Too bad it was so windy, but still a great place to visit.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good Superbowl but less than three hours of sleep good? Glad you had a good time.
Lack of further posts indicates that you are working on those presentations and the paper. You get a gold star!