Georgia Gals Discover Athens!

We have had a big day of sight seeing today, we woke up early had an amazing breakfast and went to see the sites!

We started off our tour with seeing the first Modern Day Olympic Stadia built in 1896. It was beautiful, made of marble and still had the award podium in the middle... The whole time i wanted to jump the fence and stand on it!

Next was the Temple of Zeus! 16 of the original columns are still standing and it is breath taking! Apparently back in the day, Grecian folk were uneducated and would just go grab marble and supplies for their own houses from the Temple... So most of the deconstruction is from people rather than natural disaster or war.

Before I move onto Acropolis I need to admit that all day I was mad at myself for not paying more attention in World History in the 9th grade... (( Blaire, Meg- who was our professor? All i remember was making some kind of formation out of gum and meg and i performing a Christmas carol to the class!-- yikes!!)

Acropolis means highest point in the city in Greek... It used to be the highest point in Athens and is the home to the Parthenon the home to Athena. Everything in Acropolis is made of marble, with lots of Corinthian style architecture.

The Parthenon has been stripped of most of it's decor and is all over the world in different museums...Mostly because of the power struggle in Greece and also the change of religion over the years. St. Paul stood there and preached to the Greeks in 500AD, he could speak Greek and about 400 years later Christianity became the religion in Athens.

I could not get over how OLD everything is! The Temple of Zeus, Acropolis, and Parthenon were built over 2,500 years ago! Our country is so young!

I think my highlight of the day was seeing an Oklahoma fan at the Parthenon and talking football with him... Turns out he has only missed one game in 12 seasons- serious dedication!!

Melissa's favorite part of the day was seeing the Parthenon, she says it is "majestic!"

We had lunch in the quaint area of Plaka... Lots of tourists and shopping around and beautiful Catholic churches.

Tomorrow we are off to Olympia. For now, it's time for Happy Hour to celebrate our adventures!