Athens, Finally we Have a Translator

"A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art." -Benjamin Disraeli 

We celebrated America's Independence Day by getting up at 3:30 am to be ready for our taxi to the airport. We caught an early flight to Athens where we were met by the friendliest taxi driver yet to take us to our latest AirBnB apartment. Our host left a treasure hunt for us to find the keys involving about 15 steps that was actually quite hilarious. After such an early start, we all crashed for a little while before venturing out into the city. In the evening, we started at Syntagma Square to orient ourselves to Athens on a City Walk. Syntagma means "constitution" and is the home of Greece's former palace-turned Parliament building. We got there in time to watch the changing of the guard at Greece's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The uniforms complete with pom-poms and pleats are a little strange along with the pageantry and giant steps of the ceremony, but the pride of the Greek people is evident. Sure, it's no Buckingham Palace, but the people are deservedly proud of their contribution of democracy to the world as well as their return to self-government after centuries of being under the thumb of other nations.

From Syntagma, we continued through the Plaka and other neighborhoods of central Greece. We stepped into several Orthodox churches. After the grand "palaces" of Roman and Spanish cathedrals, it's shocking how small and simple the Greek Orthodox churches are. Even the Mitropolis Cathedral -- the head of Greek Ort hodox faith -- is not enormous. Inside each church, no matter the size, the iconography and floor plan are almost identical. Despite the gold-plate, Byzantine ornamentation, there's a humility in these structures.

We stopped for dinner at an outdoor cafe. Our first glorious Greek Salad and souvlaki! After dinner, we continued our city walk through "old Athens," visiting ancient monuments from both Greek and Roman BC times. We circled the base of the Acropolis, winding through the tiny village called Anafiotika that clings to that hill. This is the home of those whitewashed walls and blue doors that you see in every Greek travel brochure. We finished at Monastariki Square and took the Metro home from there. As you take the escalator down in that station, there is a glass wall in front of ancient ruins that were discovered when they built the stop before the Olympics. Archaeologists continue work on that site today as trains rattle around below them.

The kids enjoyed the walking tour and started a new game called "count the cats." Cory has always told us stories about how there are cats everywhere in Greece, and now we know what he means. Throughout Spain and Italy we have seen half a dozen cats total, but here in Greece, we see that many every time we walk out a door. 

The next morning we went directly to the Acropolis to hike up to the Parthenon. We got lucky with a slightly cooler, overcast day. I've worried sometimes on this trip that places I've always looked forward to seeing will not live up to my expectation. That is NOT the case with the ruins of the Acropolis. Even the smaller temples leading up to and surrounding the Parthenon are astounding. We learned that the architect of the perfectly-proportioned Parthenon pulled off some tricks of perspective to make that building so beautifully dynamic instead of feeling Ike a box. Long, flat baselines appear to be "sagging" from a distance, and right-angle columns don't appear straight so the architects calculated bends into the design to create the harmonious structure we all know. As impressive as this temple is now, it's hard to imagine the impact it must have had when fully whole, painted, and adorned with the monstrous statue of Athena that has been lost to history. 

On the north side of the Parthenon, is the temple Erechtheion. One of the porches houses the "Caryatids." These are fully functional pillars built in the shape of graceful women. The pillars on the temple are actually faithful copies of the originals that were removed to protect them from pollution and other destructive elements. Five of them are in Greece's new Acropolis museum, the sixth was taken to London by Lord Elgin in 1805 -- perhaps the most hated man in Greece. He carted away pieces of many of their ancient monuments in a vulnerable phase of their history. 

At the east end of the Acropolis, in front of the Parthenon, a Greek flag flies. We learned that when the Nazis occupied Athens during World War II, the man guarding this flag when asked to remove it, wrapped himself in it and jumped off that cliff to his death. Then within a few days, a group of brave teenagers climbed up under cover of darkness to replace the flag, one of the first acts of Greek and European resistance.

After the amazing views and tour of this ancient hillside, we hiked down in search of one thing -- gyros! After lunch, we next toured the new Acropolis Museum. This is where they house many of the preserved decorations, statues, and other elements of the ruins. The architect who designed this space is a genius in my opinion. The displays are open and inviting while remaining informative. The top floor is set on the building askew to mimic the exact orientation of the Parthenon, and the center of the floor is laid out in exact duplication of the floor space of that temple. All the pieces in Greece's ownership of the marble frieze that wraps around the top of the temple are laid out around the floor in their exact placement on the actual temple, but lowered to eye-level. They have subtly included notes on each section of the frieze about whether they are lost or are being kept in other countries (cough, cough, Britain). The government here has asked London to return the missing Caryatid along with other pieces of the Parthenon that were carted away in the 1800s. For years, Great Britain deferred, saying Greece had nowhere adequate to display them. This museum is definitely making their case that this is no longer true.

We followed the museum tour by heading next to the Ancient Agora. These ruins at the base of the Parthenon were the center of government, civics, and commerce of Ancient Athens. It's where Plato and Socrates spoke, where democracy was born, and where Paul the Apostle taught. Though mostly reduced to rubble at this point, on one edge of the grounds, Haephaestus's Temple still stands more whole than the Parthenon. It's amazing to have walked in such ancient grounds and seen such ancient structures. After a full day, well-spent, we headed home for a well-deserved break.

In the morning we had another quintessential, Greek experience. We trekked out to the National Archaeological Museum, arriving a little after 10am to discover it was closed for a strike. Apparently this kind of thing happens constantly here at government-run establishments from museums, to the Metro, to the garbage collection. (We luckily missed the garbage workers' most recent and smelly strike by a few days.) Luckily, the note on the door said they were only "striking" until 11:00, so we hung out until then.

The museum is another jewel. It's set out chronologically from the ancient Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations through the Pax Romana. It's the home of the Mask of Agamemnon, the only surviving model of the great Statue of Athena that once was in the Parthenon, and a walk through the evolution of Greek sculpture. One of the coolest things on display is something discovered in a shipwreck in the 1800s that wasn't understood until much later as an early "computer." It could be used with accuracy to determine dates, times, phases of the moon, astrological placement.

The other great find of the day (besides more gyros) was Dad's favorite Greek pastry, bougatsa. Cream-filled phyllo pastry, it tastes like a cross between a cream-filled croissant and a napalitano that is greater than the sum of those parts. 

In the evening, once things had cooled down again, we walked over to the Karameikos Cemetary. This is an ancient burial ground that was discovered when they began work on the Subway system in the 1980s. They re-routed the Metro, and established a museum and tour site here. It's small, but interesting; we strolled around the ruins, even climbing up onto some of the walls. We came across a friendly cat that Anna wanted to take home, and a couple of tortoises crossed our path as well.

On Friday, we got up early to pick up a rental car for a road-trip. I'll cover that awesome side excursion in the next post about all we saw outside of Athens. We came back Saturday night so we could be back for church in Cory's old mission branch. We took the Metro to church and Google routed us through a gypsy camp on our walk to the building. I'll be totally honest that this was kind of scary, but a real slice of an impoverished people and part of the world. Cory didn't think he would know anyone in the branch since it's been 22 years, but was thrilled to see 3 people he knew. One man named Patrick, had been baptized while he was here. Another man, Gordon, he had actually been able to teach. Knowing these men have endured through the challenge of being members of the church in this part of the world opened my eyes to the privileges I enjoy and another perspective on the phrase, "endure to the end." It was wonderful as his wife, to see the love Cory still has for this land, for this work, and for these people. When we arrived, the mission president's wife swept our kids off to YW/YM and Cory and I attended Sunday School in Greek. Anna told us she really enjoyed Young Women's and realized how lucky she is to live so close to a temple since the lesson was about Temples and the other girls talked about how their closest temples are in Spain and Switzerland. Sacrament Meeting was last and about half of those attending were missionaries; both speakers were visitors from the US. Noah blessed the Sacrament and Isaac passed it. We spoke with the Mission President and his wife after the meeting and learned that attendance is typically this small in the summer when Athenians leave the city for summer tourist jobs. They talked to us about the mission and the struggles they face, but they say the work continues. They also gave us safer walking directions back to the Metro Station. 

In the evening, after dinner at home, we hiked up Areopagus (Mars Hill) just in time to catch the sunset. Cory talked to us a little about the apostle Paul's sermon about the Unknown God delivered from this spot. We went back to the apartment and read it from the Book of Acts. Such a cool Sunday.

Our last day in Athens, we explored the Plaka and found a few souvenirs. Cory has been unsuccessful in his quest for a St. George icon. He can't find one he likes that's less than 60 euro. He did, however, find the exact key chain he brought home with him from his mission and picked that up. We enjoyed some Greek frozen yogurt. Italy has mastered gelato, but the Greeks have the best yogurt. At these bars, you get frozen yogurt with your choice of fresh fruit and nut toppings. Yum. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, packing, cleaning, and enjoying one last Athenian meal. Unfortunately, we had to decline the complimentary liqueur the brought us at the end of the meal. Ah, Europe.