Last Europe Post

Hi everybody! This is Madeleine. We are back at home now, but I will tell you about our last five days of traveling.

We took a ferry from Naxos to Athens, and the next day we went to Delphi. It was really neat to see all the ruins and where the oracle made her prophesies. Sadly, around half the site was closed because of a rock fall so we couldn't go up next to the Temple of Apollo, the theater, or the stadium. The same day we went to a small Greek mountain town. It was really strange, because it was 80 degrees in October, but alot of people ski there in the winter.

The next day we spent in Athens. First we wandered around the city and saw the Temple of Zeus (though all that was left was columns), the Roman Agora, and some Greek Orthodox churches. The afternoon we spent at the Acropolis and the new Acropolis museum. It was a long climb to the top of the Acropolis, but it was worth it. It was really wierd to see the Parthenon after seeing pictures of it for so long. We also saw the caryatids (columns shaped like women).

On our last day in Athens we saw Syntagma Square (the main government center of the city). We also saw changing of the guards in front of the parliament building. The guards have very odd costumes (with pompoms) and a strange march. Then we saw the Agora, the ancient central market/business place where all of the famous philosophers hung out. Our last stop was the National Museum of Archeology where most of the Greek artifiacts are placed. We saw a famous bronze statue of either Zeus or Poseidon (they are not sure which) that they found under the sea. We also saw Agamemnon's death mask.

Our trip home was TERRIBLE. We started at 9:30 AM Athens time and got home at 9:30 PM the next night (Athens time). That is 36 hours of traveling. We had to catch a flight from Athens to London, London to Shannon (where we spent the night on freezing metal chairs in the airport), Shannon to Dublin, and finally Dublin to Philly.

Our next big trip should start in the middle of January, and I will start posting again then. I might post about some of our shorter trips around the US before then. Until then, bye.