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Last week was our Travel/Study break. For about a week, the students at IBEX are given the opportunity to travel to another country. Most of the students went to Egypt this year but we decided to go to Greece. Two other girls, Christina and Rachel, went with us. We left the moshav here in Israel early Saturday morning and arrived in Athens in time to find a hotel and go up to the Acropolis and see the Parthenon. It was a bit disappointing that the Parthenon is currently undergoing renovations and as a result there were scaffoldings everywhere! But when you only get one chance to travel to Greece…you can’t be too picky about the state of the ancient ruins! At least we did get to see the Parthenon…

Path on the Acropolis

Ancient theater

The Parthenon

 The Parthenon in all its reconstructed (and reconstructing!) glory!! It was amazing to get to see the Parthenon!

Rachel, Christina, Brigitte, Melinda

Taken by a nice English speaking dude

 Of course by the end of the trip, anyone who spoke English was a nice person! We met so many interesting people and discovered that as a whole the Greek people are quite friendly and helpful. They can even be helpful when they don’t speak English…but of course when they are jabbering directions in Greek it isn’t all that helpful! But it was a blessing that for the most part it was not difficult to find someone who spoke English and could help us figure out what we needed to know.

 

 In front of yet another temple on top of the Acropolis…

Jennifer in the Parthenon

Dog at Parthenon

 During our first day in Athens, we quickly discovered that dogs run rampant in the streets! If Israel has lots of stray cats (which it does), then Greece is its rival in stray dogs! We also noticed that a vast majority of the dogs are big dogs…we’re not exactly sure why small dogs and medium dogs don’t really end up as strays in Athens. Another unique feature about these dogs was that most of them did indeed have collars. One man called them wild dogs but in reality they were very nice dogs and not aggressive at all…unless they happened to be chasing cars. One dog in particular seemed to be inviting cars and motorcycles to just run all over him! It made for a most distressing walk since the dog insisted on following us and we did not want to see a dog pancake right in front of our eyes!

Jennifer

 Jennifer standing on the Acropolis with the city of Athens behind her.

Poseidon

Once we realized dogs are everywhere in Athens, we decided it was time to start naming them. So what do you name dogs when you’re wandering around Greece? Obviously you name them after gods from Greek mythology…which is exactly what we did. The above dog, Poseidon, was one of the cutest dogs we found (at least according to Melinda). 

Athena

 It’s only appropriate to name a dog after Athena when you are on the Acropolis and within eyesight of the Parthenon.

Hercules

Theater of Dionysius

 

Climbing up to Mars Hill

 On our second day in Athens, we set out to find Mars Hill, also known as Aeropagus Hill. This is the location where Paul preached a sermon to the Athenians about the unknown God. While sitting on top of Mars Hill, we took a few minutes to sing some songs and read the biblical account in Acts. Just like all of the places we’ve seen in Israel, the account of Paul’s sermon came alive in a new way as we sat where he preached it.

Statue on a building

 Greece is a city of stray dogs to be sure…but it is also a city of statues. This one, I assume, is of Athena.

National Library of Greece

 We wanted to visit the National Library of Greece…but unfortunately it was closed the first day we went there. But not to waste the situation in which we found ourselves, we took some time to take some pictures in front of the library. The curvy staircase, pillars, and sculptors made from some great pictures!

Brigitte, Melinda, Christina

Rachel in Athens

 While in Athens, we stayed in a nice hotel called Hotel Byron. It was within walking distance of the Acropolis and a nearby metro station. A definite benefit is that Hotel Byron also has free wireless. If you ever go to Athens, we would recommend Hotel Byron.

Waiting for a train in Athens...

We spent a great deal of our time in Greece in train station waiting for trains or riding in trains. In the above picture, we are preparing for our first train ride of the whole trip…from Athens to Corinth.

Temple of Apollos and Acrocorinth

Temple of Apollos and AcrocorinthAcrocorinth is on top of the rocky hill behind the temple. Acrocorinth was a fortress that offered protection to the city of ancient Corinth. On our second day in Corinth we hiked up to Acrocorinth.

In ancient Corinth

 

Acrocorinth

Christina

 

Brigitte

Leaving Acrocorinth

After leaving Acrocorinth, we headed back to the train station and went to Pyrgos. From there we were able to take a day trip to Olympia and then on the following day we went down to the southern part of the Peloponese and visited Kalamata, a coastal town. But those pictures will have to wait for another time.

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