Today was our first full day in Greece. And, unfortunately, our second to last full day in Greece. And....I know that I say this a lot, but it was incredible! We began the day by enjoying a delicious breakfast, including greek yogurt of course! After our breakfast we walked out of our air conditioned hotel at about eight in the morning, and it was already like an oven outside. However, excited for the day’s adventures, we walked into it and up the steps of the acropolis to behold the Parthenon. We had a great tour guide, who led us through the olive groves and beautiful aged white marble steps up to the Parthenon. Unfortunately, the entire Parthenon is not standing any more because it was bombed by the Persians hundreds of years ago, but now they are working to rebuild and restore it. It was very cool to look up at the powerful columns as well as see all of the hundreds of pieces of it laying around and see the old and the new all in such close proximity. We had some time to stand and gaze in wonder up at the mighty Parthenon, which can be seen everywhere in Athens because it is illegal to build skyscrapers, or any building more than about 10 stories. Interestingly enough, the Parthenon does not look massive when you are standing very close to it. Because everything was built using the golden ratio, it mimics nature and looks natural, which presents it in a way that it never looks overpoweringly huge, except from far away, because it is so gradual and natural.
After enjoying this, we hopped on our bus for a 30 minute guided tour of the city where we got to see a couple of cool sights such as the Temple of Zeus, white marble olympic stadium, tomb of the unknown soldier monument (yes, there is another one in France), and we ended this near the Plaka for us to get lunch and spend our free time. Starving, we headed to the first gyro place we could find. However, it had to be a restaurant so we could get in out of the heat in the air-conditioning! We found a place that was just perfect, and we all ordered pork gyros. We were graciously served a greek salad of tomatoes and cucumbers first, and then enjoyed the most delicious gyros on perfect pitas. It was just what we needed. We left from here to walk around a bit, but some of us wanted to go back to the hotel, so we went back to sit in the air conditioning of the hotel and make a plan. Some people wanted to go shopping, some of us wanted to just hang out at the hotel, and right as we were making plans we ran into Mrs. Libby, who told us that she just had a unique experience - a fish treatment. We thought that this sounded cool, so those of us who wanted to head back out in the six hours of remaining free time. It was definitely an experience. We walked into the spa where they do it, paid for the treatment, and then after washing our feet sat down and placed our feet into fish tanks. As soon as my feet hit the water, a hundred miniature carp with no teeth went to work on my feet and lower legs, sucking off any dead skin to rejuvenate the skin. It was definitely one of the strangest feelings I have ever felt, like lots of tiny bubbles all over my legs. 
After the 30 minute treatment, we walked back into the extreme head of the outside and went back to the hotel to meet up with everybody. Once we were all together (just a small group), we went back down to the Plaka to do some final shopping. We browsed lots of little shops and found some very cool and unique stuff all around the Plaka. However, after a good hour or so of this, it was getting to be too hot again to walk around so we headed back to the hotel to sit on the roof jacuzzi (don’t worry, it’s not hot!) to relax for about an hour before dinner. The water felt great! It was just perfect for getting in out of the heat, and it was perfect before dinner.
From the water, we headed down and met the entire group in the lobby of our hotel to walk to dinner. Tonight’s dinner was very unique! Pork kebabs with rice and potatoes, fantastic tomato, cucumber, and feta salad, finished with some ice cream. It came complete with live music and dancing to watch, which made for an altogether very delicious and fun night!
We still had some free time after doing this, so we decided to do something that some other people had done the night before - rent a “fun bike”. A fun bike is a bike with four wheels, on which four people pedal and it is a fun way to enjoy the city. However, this seemed like a little too much work in the still hot evening, so we each (about 5 of us) rented little electric mopeds on which we toured the city. We were all set for an hour. We drove everywhere! We almost completely circled the Acropolis, went to the Agora, made it back to some highways (which we had to drive on to get back to the Plaka because we were hopelessly lost!). It was another adventure for the day! We got hopelessly lost in Athens for about 45 minutes, and it was so fun! We just explored streets and used the Acropolis as a landmark to find our way back eventually to the stand where we rented them just in time to return them.
Now, after this adventure, we are back in the hotel before our early 6:30 breakfast call tomorrow. The boat ride tomorrow tomorrow will be very fun!
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