Aesthetic Life

I wish I brought my camera on my outing today. Sorry! I'll have to go back. I can say that the prettiest place I've seen in Athens was today, at the ancient agora. An agora is a marketplace, and when one of the other study abroad students heard we were going to the agora, she was disappointed to find that we didn't mean jewelry shops.

I'm trying to imagine how life could have flourished inside stone outlines now overgrown by grass and wildflowers. When in Thessaloniki checking out the stray cats at the Palace of Galerius, there were signs explaining how some areas were used as churches or baths or libraries, what have you...how do they KNOW that, I wonder. Same with here. That was a gymnasium? Oh...

Nevertheless, my exploration of the ruins were really calming and I think it might be my favorite location in Athens as of yet. Just knowing that Socrates used to roam around in there speaking to people made my day. Also seeing the ancient city right next to the modern busy cafe life of Monastiraki was fun, too. It's really pretty cool to wander around piles of pillars and stones with some designs or symbols, because there are just so many of them! In Egypt, for example, you can see the majesty of the Pyramids, but here in Greece, not only can you see the majesty of the Acropolis, but also the scattered remains of other places that seem to prove further the existence of ancient intelligent people. Plus, there's also more than one majestic monument other than the Acropolis of Athens.

That was today. On Saturday I stayed in. On Friday I finally did what I never do: walked around at night. Thanks to Ryan, I met some Chi Alpha in Athens! We met a few weeks ago at their new apartment downtown, and on Friday we went to the mall to see a movie. That wasn't cheap, by the way. After it was done, it was about 9:30, and we strolled down Syntagma and through the now empty Monastiraki and up Thissio. Everything was lit up even though the stores were closed, and the street vendors were trying to sell light-up toys, and people still ambled good-naturedly down the streets. It gave me another one of those "I'm actually in Europe" feelings. Must have been the lights and the cobblestone streets and swanky cafes and the fact that every single girl here is a fashion model. I felt out of place by not wearing a long wool coat and high heel boots.

Europe is the life. As much as I hate night life, I appreciated that the Europeans make such elegant use out of it. It's really only the Americans like us who hit up their nightclubs.

Sorry I don't write a whole lot anymore. I could, throughout the week, but unless you are interested in hearing complaints about unorganized school policies, Greek public transportation, or the employees at the supermarket yelling at me...in my opinion there are better things to promote about Greece :)