much awaited time in greece

After a very, very early morning flight allowing us to arrive in Athens around 10:30 the group packed on the bus to meet our very friendly tour guide and explore the city (by bus) before going to our hotel for lunch. On the bus ride over I took a few pictures of Athens, which I found to be a very dreary and dirty city. Pre-arrival I had expected this beautiful ancient city but instead i saw a lot of poverty surounding a few beautiful ancient ruins. On returning to America many people asked me what I thought of Athens and what I said is that go to Athens for a day, see the magnificent Acropolis and the Propylaea, Temple of Athena Nike, Parthenon, Erechtheion
and Museum of the Acropolis.







Although I have many complaints about the city of Athens arriving at the Acropolis was very powerful and inspiring. After being given half an hour to walk around on our own and take pictures:
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we sat down for a lecture/ discussion with Peter (the head of my program) and our tour guide to learn about how the Acropolis was built and it's importance to Ancient Greece. Although I sometimes found it hard to pay attention (what with my fatigue and desire to explore what was going on around me) i really got the sense that even though the Greeks ruled the world thousands of years ago there presence is still very much engrained in our Western Society.
The next day my group went out for free time in Athens and to see a Athenian Synagogue and the Olympic Stadium but I was unable to attend because I caught a stomach bug that had been floating through Kivunim.