Day Four

Thursday, June 30th

Today we went to Lavrio and Sounion! First we went to a monastery. It was beautiful and serene, but it was so hot in the church that I honestly thought I was going to pass out. I am not religious, but being at the monastery was actually very peaceful and serene. I was worried at one point that I was going to pass out in the church, but once we went outside, it was fine. I felt bad because we all looked like we were falling asleep, but we were all just at such peace we were overly comfortable. I hope we all were respectful, and I am very thankful that the nun didn’t hear Colin’s jokes about being a patron saint of Coke cans. The nun we talked to was friendly and had just enough sass, which I loved, and she hates Monsanto which only made her that much better.

After the monastery we went to Sounion for the Temple of Poseidon. I loved learning that Poseidon got this temple because he was mad at Athens, so they gave it to him as a compromise. I swear, Poseidon is the whiniest god and holds so many grudges, but he’s still pretty cool I guess. The temple was built in 480 BC and was a very convenient spot for the Athenians to watch for ships coming in. It was primarily a fortress that incorporated a traditional local sanctuary, so it was a win-win. Might as well appease the gods at a really important location- I like how the Greeks think! The temple has your standard doric columns, but they aren’t in the best shape.

This was our first view of the ocean up close, and the Aegean looked GORGEOUS. I love little fun facts that are pretty useless in real life (when I found out why the marathon is called the marathon I quizzed people about that one WAY too much), and learning that it is called that because Aegeus threw himself into the sea because he thought his son, Theseus, was dead is really morbid but gives me a new trivia fact. I doubt it’ll come up at Craft Beer Cellar trivia night, though.

After we left the temple we went to a place where we could swim. I wore my Chacos that day and I decided to wear them into the water, which I was very thankful for because many people were attacked by the evil sea urchins. It felt great to finally be in the water, and we all spent some time just swimming around and being goofy. Afterwards we had a seafood dinner that was really good but pretty small in my opinion. I had some great mussels and shrimp with eyes on them and other things, but most of the people at my table thought that we were just finishing the appetizers when dessert was coming out. At this time, we started begging Professor Barnes for food, so he brought us a french fry jokingly. Some animal instinct took over me and I snatched that french fry and devoured it in one bite. People laughed at me, but I got one more french fry than them so who won?

That night was our first night on an overnight ferry. The overnight ferry was interesting. Our room was sort of hard to find and was very small, but it was only one night and is what is to be expected on a ferry. We all gathered together on the top of the ferry to watch it depart from Athens, then we split up. Some of us were hungry and decided to get food. I got nachos which were terrible- Jordan, Madi and some of the guys all agreed on that point- and a smoothie. The smoothie was about as great as is to be expected on a ferry. After the food was done I decided to go back to my room. When I got to my room I realized my key wasn’t working. I put it up to the door every way I could possibly think to and was freaking out. I then thought “oh no! I must be at the wrong door!” and went around to every door on my hallway, but it never worked. I went to the front desk and the guy looked at me like an idiot and reprogrammed my key. It still didn’t work. I went back up, he reprogrammed me and looked at me like the stupid American I probably am, and sent me on my way. IT STILL DID NOT WORK. At this point I’ve been banging and banging on the door. Every night so far on this trip I’ve been the one out late drinking of the people in my room, so I figured Katie and Haley were already back and were knocked out and I was panicking at this point that I was going to be sleeping in the corner like the people who didn’t pay for a room. I went up to the desk again, in fear because that man there hated me, and I found a new guy at the desk. He gave me completely new keys and was very kind, and guess what? The key worked! I got in my room! And I was the first one in there! Not long after getting in, Katie and Haley arrived, so I wouldn’t have been sleeping in the corner alone anyways.

It’s now time to go to Crete!