Athens

Last week we were lucky enough to get a quick weekend trip to Athens. We actually had to go for business, but we turned it into a weekend of fun!

Ben is still struggling with is visa. He has really worked hard to find solutions: asking for an extension, working to find a job so he can have a work visa (he has several jobs that really like him and plan to hire him, but Greece is so far behind on their work related residency permits that the companies have to catch up with their current employees before they can hire more), and talking to Germany for an extension since we entered the EU through Germany (they said yes, but Greece said they were unhappy about it and Ben was worried it would jeopardize his future prospects of a visa). 

In the end, we talked to the US Embassy in Athens. They suggested getting married. We can get married here, but not have it recognized in the US, which means it is only recognized here in Greece. We were in Athens last weekend to get the paper we needed to do this. But, that was on Monday. We had Saturday and Sunday to fully enjoy the sites of the city, and we did!

We flew in to Athens at about 10 in the morning. We made a quick stop at our Airbnb to drop of Momo and our bags and then headed out to explore. Our first site was the Byzantine Christian Museum. Greece is an extremely religious country, and it was so interesting to hear about the history of how it went from worshiping ancient gods to being mainly Orthodox Christian. Check out some of the cool photos below:

This is the outside of the Byzantine Christian Museum.

This is part of the head of Medusa. Be careful looking at it! You know the legend: if you look at her directly, you might turn to stone. 

They had so many murals like this that were beautifully painted in gold on wood. It is crazy to think they survived over 400 years!😱😱

Here is another one, since they were so beautiful!

The outside grounds of the museum were a garden. So, we did some flower viewing there as well. Unfortunately, I don't know the names of any of the flowers since there weren't labels. But, they were all beautiful!

This one is a pomegranate tree!

We saw this lizard on the way out of the museum. 

After the museum, we went to see the Olympic Stadium. It was being set up for a concert that evening, so we didn't get to stand on the winner's plinth, but it was still amazing to see! They had almost all of the torches from the Olympic games, including Paris 2024! A neat fact about the Olympic Stadium in Athens: anyone can come and run the track between 6:00-9:00 AM daily! No one could that weekend because of the concert, but if we go back to Athens, I am totally taking advantage of this cool place to run!

Here is the stadium. The blue mats are where the track usually is. It was being prepared for the track.

The famous rings!

We couldn't resist a picture with the rings!

This is the tunnel the athletes go down to get to the locker rooms.

Here is the torch from the 2024 Paris games.

We finished out our Saturday by eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. This became a tradition for me in high school when I started to visit Hard Rock Cafes in places I was visiting to collect glasses for my dad.

On Sunday, we woke up bright and early, because we had a jam packed day planned! Our first stop was the ancient agora of Athens. The pictures speak for themselves. Basically, this was the hub of the town in ancient times!

The ancient agora was mainly ruins of public buildings, shops, and homes.

This was the most famous building in the agora. It was a house of worship. It is the best preserved building as well.

Another view of the building.

This is the jail that Socrates was housed in before he was killed. He was put to death because he was "polluting the minds of the young with new and radical ideas". Later they discovered his ideas were correct, but it was too late, so they built a monument to remember him. 

We had a good view of the Parthenon from the agora.

After the ancient agora we went to the Parthenon (I mean, you can't go to Athens without seeing it, right?). It was good, but all three of us agreed that it wasn't as good as the agora because it was so packed. People are everywhere! 

The Parthenon!

Another view of the Parthenon.

A worship temple. When Greece moved to being Christian, it became a home for a while.

The theater that was part of the Parthenon.

Even turtles visit the Parthenon.

Finally, we went to the Parthenon Museum. This was super cool. It was basically a museum about pieces of the Parthenon that needed extra care and were falling apart. It was built over an archeological site for more of the ancient city of Athens. This was probably my favorite part of the whole trip! Unfortunately, photos were not allowed at all. But, they were allowed in the archeological site under the museum. Here are some photos of the ancient houses of Athens.

Monday, we simply got the paper we needed from Athens and headed back to Thessaloniki. Ben had to leave for the UK on Tuesday, because he only has four days left on his visa. He will remain there until this coming Wednesday (October 16th) when we do the Greek wedding. Then, he will fly back to the US to get a visa. Finally, the visa madness will be done! Woohoo!