Athens and a wee taste of the Peloponnese Peninsula

Ruben writes: We had an awesome time island hopping in Greece. I think my favorite island that we went to was Lipsi. Lipsi is a very small island and has a population of only 690 people (even smaller than Cortes). We got a taxi straight off the ferry to our nice three bedroom apartment. We went on a walk to a beach on the east side of the island to take a swim. We brought some snacks so we had a little picnic on the rocks and Mia was the first to dive in the water. Once you get past the stage feeling that your parts of your body might fall off the water becomes really nice. I also learned at the beach that shoving two cookies in your mouth at the same time it (according to Mia) does not count as eating only one. We made friends with the local restaurant owner/cook and since we did not have Wi-Fi at our place I hung around there some evenings. The second time I went there I was sitting outside and some young teens started playing football near me. When one of the kids accidently kicked the ball to far I kicked it back to them and when they asked if I wanted to join I said agreed. We mostly just passed the ball around in a random order but when another kid joined in we started playing piggy-in-the-middle. I kept playing until the time that mom set for me to come home arrived, I said good by to my new friends and we decided to meet same place same time the next day. I got home and immediately took a shower to rinse all the sweat off me. The next day I played some more football except with different kids, we decided to play tag after a while (even though we didn’t know each others languages we communicated well). We actually ended up getting invited to a kid’s Birthday party, we had a great time ate lots of cookies and cake and then we played man-hunt. Mia and I were really pooped the next day so we had a nice indoor day. The night before we left we had a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant, I went up to get the addresses of my friend so I could mail them from Canada, but I got way more then I bargained for!They were so generous and gave me an email address as well as some DVDs and basically the only picture in the house of the kids. I felt overwhelmed by their generosity coming home with an armful of gifts. I intend to mail them some presents from Canada on our return. Once we got to Athens we decided to go to the archeology Museum before visiting the Acropolis. It was really cool to see all the famous statues, including statue of Zeus and the famous funeral mask of Agamemnon. Most of the items were dated from Neolithic era (6800-3000 BC) and mid-Bronze Age (3000-2000). There were all types of collections in the museum such as the Sculptures collection, the Vase and minor objects collection. The thing that I found the most interesting were probably the burial swords, they were very ornate pieces with lots of life after death pictorials and shiny gold handles. Some swords that were buried with their owners were bent! Why you ask? Because it is impossible to use a bent sword and so grave robbers would not bother to steal the weapon, and so the sword would stay with the owner forever as intended. The next day we set out in the scorching heat to the heights of the Acropolis. There are sooooo many tourists and tour groups wandering around that it was hard to keep track of each other. We looked at the amazing temples and gigantic stone pillars. The Parthenon was stunning! It was all that I imagined it to be and more, caryatids and goddesses overlooking each corner. I understood that at one time the building would have been embellished with elaborate paintings all along the top, it is hard to imagine. I also heard that the Greeks did not use slaves to build it but paid masons and carpenters. I remember hearing that the pillars supporting the Parthenon are angled in every so little so it tricks the eye, making it seem like the columns are in fact perfectly strait, and architectural wonder! I can not believe that out travels are almost over! That’s all for this week . Your geeky Greek lov’in student ! Ruben

Mia writes; It has been longer than a week since I last wrote. We spent a week on the beautiful Island of Lipsi where we had many fantastic experiences. We met some local kids and spent almost every day with them. Meeting their animals playing tag, taking their dogs on walks and playing soccer was a lot of fun. One day the kids came to our house and asked if we wanted to go swimming. We brought some crazy balloons and headed to the beech with my parents and five of local kids leading the way. We ha a swim and then went searching for sea urchins around the rocks. We found many urchins and they explained that the colored ones could be eaten. We even swam to the other side of the bay to find more urchins and in the end we had a big bucket full of sea colorful sea urchins. We took out the mouths, sipped out the juices and ate the eggs. We only wanted the colorful urchins because they were the ones with the roe (eggs). I learned witnessed that sea urchins can walk on their spines which looked truly amazing. Mom and I went down to our neighbors to ask how to spell Happy Birthday in Greek for a birthday party that we were invited to and found that our neighbors and some of their friends were making an incredibly beautiful wreath of flowers for a festival at one of the 37 churches on the island. I love flowers and gardening and so this was very interesting and special to see. When I am in high school or College I would like to work as a florist for some pocket money. It was very hard to say good bye to Lipsi. We visited the Island of Leros for a few days and then took an overnight night boat to Athens. We went looking for a hotel on our arrival. The hotel we found was startlingly beautiful, covered with Bougainvillaea and an incredible view from the roof top terrace across to the Acropolis. We took a route to the Acropolis that took us through little winding lanes painted white with even more colorful flowers climbing walls and hanging from pots on window ledges. We climbed the 150 meters to the top and made our way to the Temple of Athena. The city of Athens was named after Athena the Goddess of Wisdom and War after she won a contest with Poseidon making her the cities namesake. Although before the city was dedicated to Athena many Mycenaean kings ruled the city. Acropolis means high city in Greek. We wandered around the huge ruins with their incredibly large whit columns and tried to imagine what it would have looked like way back in the 5th century BC. We went to the archeological museum where we saw many interesting and beautiful artifacts. Beautiful pottery and intricate golden jewellery, weaponry with elaborate designs on the blades. A model of a statue of Athena the used to stand around 40 feet high with intricate designs on her crown and Athena’s symbol of the snake. A bathtub from Mycenaean times with painting on the inside indicating that the bath tub was probably inlaid in stone making the designed part the only part you see. A small pottery bowl type seat was used as a potty. We made our way to Epidavros where there are many ruins of a city of ancient Greece. We went to see a theatre which is famous for its acoustics and beauty. You can here a penny drop on the stage from all the way back in the farthest seats. I sang a few songs and afterwards every one clapped. After we went into their small museum with many displays of statues of the Greek gods and I tried my best to recognize them. We have had some exiting times these past weeks. On to Rome! Your student, Mia