Chasers, starting tomorrow at 2:30 PM Greek Time (that’s 6:00 AM CST), we are moving on out. That’s right, my time in Greece has ended and soon the Three Caballeros and I, along with 26 others, are off to Rome, Italy. We’ve had quite the last week here in Athens, trying desperately to get in everything that we hadn’t seen yet. Our classes officially ended on Monday, so this entire week has been spent running around and seeing as many things as possible. So excuse me if I haven’t been around to write a blog entry, but for the first time since getting here I can honestly tell you that I’ve been too busy.
Classes ended on a high note here. When I last wrote, I still had a History and Art test to fret over. Why was I fretting? No clue. Both of them were a lot easier than I had expected, and I hadn’t even stayed up studying the entire weekend (like some of the girls on this trip did). It was quite the relief to be done because it meant the start of two straight weeks without class. Once again, I ask you to pray for me and my difficult life…this is far too tough of a schedule for any mere mortal to deal with.
With the end of classes came the questions of “Now what?” But, after a week of running around the entire city, I think we’ve sufficiently answered any questions of what to do in this town. One thing that we hadn’t done yet was to climb all the hills around Athens. There are a couple large hills on the North and South side of the Acropolis that provide amazing vantage points of the Parthenon and the rest of the sprawling city below. We climbed the first hill around 1:00 PM on Wednesday (the one on the South side of the Acropolis). This hill is so important that I forgot its name. But seriously, it is kind of important. And upon further research the hill is called Filopappou Hill. How did I forget that?
In the 1800’s the Venetians were sitting on top of this hill looking at their enemies across the way…the Turks. The Turks were cooped up on the Acropolis, and both parties were firing cannon balls back and forth like some sort of deadly ping-pong game. Pulling one of the stupidest moves in history, the Turks decided to store their ammunition INSIDE the Parthenon. Great call guys. Really shows your dedication to history. Obviously, one of the Venetian cannon balls went straight through a hole in the Parthenon roof, hit the cluster of Turkish ammunition, and blew up the Parthenon. Art historians everywhere cried and Chinese firework-makers took notes.
Besides being on of the most notorious locations in world, this hill actually had quite the view. We hung around for an hour and took some pictures before making our way back to CYA to meet up with some others so we could (you guessed it) go climb another hill! The point of climbing this hill (Lycabettus Hill…that one I remembered) was to go see the best view of the sunset in all of Athens. Lycabettus Hill is the tallest hill here, towering about three times as high as the Acropolis. According to my guidebook, it’s the #1 thing to do during a trip to Athens. It only took me two months to listen. Needless to say, the view was spectacular. We got up there with a little time to spare, allowing us to take plenty of pictures of the quaint church on the top and the city way down below. Soon, however, the sun began its slow creep down and over the mountains, putting an end to the day. The remaining orange glow served as a perfect reminder of the short amount of time we had left here before the dusk settled on our Greek journey.
The next day was one of the busiest of the semester. Besides having to prepare for our departure, we still had a lot to see. The main order of business: The 2004 Olympic Park. We set out to see Athens’ largest stadium and recreational area at about 3:30 PM. Little did we know that we wouldn’t be back until 2:00 AM.
After a half hour of riding on the metro, we arrived. We had originally set out to see the stadium, but it turns out that basically every other venue for the 2004 Olympics was there too. At first we didn’t think we were even going to be allowed into the park, but we soon found out how lackadaisical Greek security is. Every venue in the park seemed to be semi-blocked off. There were fences that ended too early, doors that were unlocked, and guards that were oblivious to anyone’s presence. I’m not sure exactly how many things we saw that we shouldn’t have, but we definitely saw a lot.
Since the Olympics, the whole place had turned into one giant fitness club. The Olympic pool that Michael Phelps once dominated was filled with kids learning how to swim. The diving pool was festooned with amateurs who kept belly flopping into the deep waters below. The indoor velodrome, once used for high speed cycling races, was being practiced on by a couple serious bikers along with someone on a moped and two people on a tandem bike. It was like the Olympics gone mad.
Gradually we made our way to the giant landmark that we had really come to see. By 5:00, after sneaking through one more hole in the fencing, we were right in front of the Olympic Stadium. I should mention at this point that one of the reasons for going there was because there was a scheduled soccer game against the leaders in the Greek league (Panathanaikos) and the Austrian league. We had been told the game was at 8:00. So, you can imagine our surprise when there was no one else at the stadium except us. As we walked around to the East side, we started to see security. We tried to ask one guard to let us in, but he shut us down (more about that later, though, in the European Insult section). We continued on, hoping that maybe we’d find someone who was easier to fool. Basically, our walk was taking us on a gradual spiral downward towards field level on the same side that we first walked up to. We started to pass multiple guards, none of which asked us any questions. By the time we had done a full circle, we had gone down an entire level and had somehow reached the Southwest tunnel into the stadium. Acting as nonchalant as possible, we walked right in. Though we were stopped eventually, we still had enough time to take pictures of the field and the amazing facility that surrounded it (unfortunately, however, there wasn’t enough time to run a race at this stadium, but on the plus side, that means my Olympic stadium record will still stand at 2-0).
After being led back out, we decided to try to get in one more place. We walked back the way we had came from, heading back towards all the security guards. Without pausing, we strolled right through all of them and into the main players tunnel on the Southeast side. When we made it to the field this time, no one stopped us. We figured that every guard probably assumed that we had been questioned earlier, so they didn’t want to bother us again. It took about a half hour before someone finally built up the courage to ask us what we were doing. He was a heavier Greek guard who seemed as if he’d never confronted anyone before. He probably got a service medal for actually doing something as a security guard, because no one else was doing anything.
With the image of the beautiful 70,000-seat stadium fresh in our minds, it was hard for the five of us to pass up actually buying tickets to the soccer game. We made our way back to the metro station (where the box office was), bought our tickets, and headed back to the stadium. At this point it was about 7:30 and still none of the gates to the stadium were open, nor were there any fans. This seemed kind of suspicious, but we continued on. We got to our gate and handed the people our tickets. Unexpectedly, the guards freaked out. It was about now that a wave of realization started to wash over us. There was a reason that the stadium was so deserted and why we had been able to “sneak” in everywhere without anyone caring. The game didn’t start until 10:30. We were the first ones there, probably earlier than any fans had ever been before. And, on top of that, we were apparently entering into the Austrian fan section.
Though we couldn’t understand why at the time, the guards had freaked because all of the Austrian fans were supposed to be arriving together to make crowd control easier. We were escorted in to the main concourse of the stadium where we were greeted by the head of security, a huge mobile police headquarters, and a throng of police dressed in full riot gear. What were we getting ourselves into? The head of security took our tickets and led us to our seats, but as we arrived, he stopped short. He turned around and asked, “Do you really want to sit here?” as if we were signing a death wish by doing so. We still were lost, and didn’t understand why our seats would be so bad. They looked perfectly fine (12th row in the corner). But then he explained: the Austrian fans would be sitting in the second deck directly above us…all 7,500 of them. These seats were in perfect throwing range to get hit by anything they threw over the second deck. And apparently, these Austrian fans were coming to fight. Uh oh.
Realizing that we were ignorant to any and all dangers of going to a soccer game, the head of security (Nikos was his name) led us to some seats at the top of the first deck, underneath the overhanging second deck. These would be safe. Since we all probably were looking like scared puppies, Nikos promised that he would stay outside this section and keep an eye on us. He stopped talking mid-sentence, hearing something in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” he asked
“Hear what?” we responded
“They’re coming.”
Suddenly, we started to hear cheers erupting outside the stadium behind us. The Austrian fans had arrived. They were bellowing like some sort of barbaric army ready for battle. It was as ominous as this. They were interrupted sharply by a loud bang that made us jump even though we were inside. “Tear gas,” explained Nikos. This was going to be interesting.
The next three hours were spent in anticipation, fear, excitement, and any other emotion that you can think of. We waved to the guard who had stopped us in the tunnel, listened to the Austrians singing outside, and waited as the stadium lights grew brighter and the sky grew darker.
It turned out that the slow anticipation might’ve been the best part of the game. Panathanaikos ended up winning 1-0 on a penalty kick, but other than a couple decent tries there wasn’t much offense. However, it was an experience that I am definitely glad I was a part of. Hearing that stadium rock with cheers and songs the entire game was amazing. I mean, the Panathanaikos fans literally never stopped cheering and waving their giant flags for 90 minutes. Now that’s dedication.
Alas, now that we had finally experienced the true Greek pastime, our time in Greece had officially past (see what I did there?). I write to you now with less than 24 hours to go before I land in Rome. My last load of laundry is drying in the window, my travel plans are neatly placed in a folder, and my last gyro at Grill and Pita awaits me. Greece has been a pleasant surprise for me this trip, as I originally came here because I got to see Rome afterwards. Now the icing on the cake is near and I can’t wait to eat it.
But before we get there, we have quite the weeklong trip planned. The Three Caballeros and I are again heading out on our own, this time to see Venice, Salzburg, and South Germany. We will be traveling to a new city almost every day until Halloween, so I will probably have a lot to write about when we finally get to Rome. But, for the last time, I now say Kalinikta from Greece. See you in Rome.
Here is the link to all the pictures from the last week in Athens. Enjoy!
Special Shout-Out of the Day: Nikos, the Head of Security at the Olympic Stadium. Not only did Nikos help us to our own seats, send us a snack man, and discuss America with us, he also later got two Bennies into the game for free. He even informed the owner of Panathanaikos Football Club that there were seven Americans at the game. The owner responded by telling Nikos to treat us like VIP’s. I love Greek Security!
European Insult Tally:
Bill—1
Scott—3
Matt—1
Ryan—3: Ryan scored another point because of a quick-witted comment he used during our walk around the Olympic Stadium. Ryan was the man we sent to ask the guard to let us into the stadium. Moments after we were shut down, a Greek man on a bike rode up to the guard, said something in Greek, and continued on into the stadium. Without hesitation, Ryan turned to the guard and asked a new question: “Can you tell me where we can rent bicycles?”
Ya digg?
Your friend or family member (or random acquaintance)
Scott Twelves
