Last Day of the Trip

Today was our final full day of the trip and we spent it checking out the facilities used for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. After a quick breakfast at the hotel we met our translator friend and walked to met the bus that would take us across town to the site. On the way she gave us tons of information regarding both the city of Athens and the Games that took place here seven years ago. You got a sense from her that the Games were something that the Athenians were very proud of hosting even though they were not the most successful Games of late. Our first stop on the site was the Olympic stadium which was built in 1993 with hopes of the Games one day returning to Athens but it wasn’t til nearly a decade later when they added on to it to make it suitable for hosting such a massive event. The stadium is used today primarily for soccer games and concerts and was in pretty good condition. Next we walked around the street to the basketball arena which is now home of the Greek national basketball team and the Greek professional team Panathinaikos. The arena was pretty cool but not in the best shape because of missing seats due to rowdy fans breaking them. After we walked around the Olympic park a little more but did not go in any more buildings. The rest of the park was in bad shape, with graffiti and uncut grass everywhere, but Professor Ryan said it looked better than last year so maybe they are making progress towards restoring the park. The bus then took us back to the hotel. Some people hung out on the roof for the afternoon playing cards while others went shopping. We all met up at four to have a ‘reflection hour’ about the trip and to talk about what we learned. At seven we walked over towards the base of the Acropolis for our last group dinner which was very enjoyable because of the great food and Robert’s entertainment. The trip is coming to an end but we all had an incredible time and will be back in the US tomorrow!

Final "Real" Day of the Trip

Today was our last real day of our Olympic Odyssey trip, as tomorrow we are traveling back to JFK arriving around 8:00 pm. We met at 8:15 am this morning, which meant I had to get up earlier than the past days we have spent in Greece. Everyone who ate breakfast at the hotel met Elsa, our tour guide/translator for the day. We took a bus ride to the site of the 2004 Summer Olympics that took place in Athens. On the way to the Olympic Stadium, Elsa told us some interesting facts about the 2004 Olympics, including how much tomato sauce the athletes ate. Once we got to the Olympic Stadium we met our other tour guide, who doesn't speak english so Elsa helped her and us out. We got to sit in the Olympic Stadium of 2004, which holds about 69,000 fans. Unfortunately the, what once was incredible, venue is not used to its best ability.

Concerts and some other events are currently held at the stadium including a Jon Bon Jovi concert this summer.

After visiting the Olympic Stadium, we walked over to the basketball stadium that sits about 18,000 fans. This stadium is put to good use, which includes a basketball game this Sunday between Olympiakos vs. Panithanakos. After visiting the two Olympic stadiums, a few students and I went to lunch with Professor Ryan at an awesome gyro restaurant. The food was great and the service was even better as we got an appetizer and a dessert on the house.

Tonight was our final meal and it was also a group dinner. We ate at another Greek restaurant, which was very good, but I am getting sick of Greek food. I have had an incredible time on this Olympic Odyssey trip, but after three weeks of traveling I am ready to go back home.

A Hot Day in Athens

Today we woke up and made our way over to the Acropolis in the morning to check out the site. It was an extremely sweaty and hot day so the hike up to the top of the Acropolis was a grueling trek and we got there at the same time as about a dozen cruise trip tours so it was really busy. Robert, our humorous British tour guide, showed us around the site and explained to us all the history and architecture of the buildings. The Parthenon is an impressive structure that is currently being restored using all the pieces of the original building that have been recovered. We walked back down the hill and checked out the ancient Athenian agora which was the main marketplace of the city. Everyone was sweaty and hungry so we split up for lunch and met back up at the new Acropolis Museum that is located at the bottom of the hill. Big Matt reeked havoc in the lobby bathroom when he accidentally spilled his bottle of baby powder. Robert showed us around the museum for about an hour and it was very interesting even though most of the Parthenon artifacts are located at the British Museum in London, which we visited earlier in the trip. After the museum we all headed back to the hotel to relax and cool down. We then made the long trip across the street to the Noodle Bar for a quick dinner. Some people are now headed to bed early so they can wake up at 3 AM for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Pix from Prof Ryan

Olympia...

Kalimarmaro Stadium, Athens...

Prof Ryan

First day in Athens

Today was another travel day, but this morning we woke up early to go back to the Olympia site to run the 192 meter Stade where Alexander the Great competed. Chad, Drew, Jake, Brett, "Big" Matt, and "Little" Matt all ran. In a controversial finish, the winner was......."Big"MATT!!!! Due to an illegal start by all other contestants, Big Matt won the race in a one step finish and fell to his knees in VICTORY.

There will be an epic video added later by Professor Ryan of the true victor.

After the race, we had time to walk around Olympia before getting on the bus to Athens. Robert, our tour guide, showed us the rest of the "pre interesting" and "post interesting" monuments of Olympia like Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great. We spent about a half hour in Olympia and then were off to Athens. The bus ride took about 5 hours with a stop in between for lunch. Everyone slept the whole ride this time, which made it much quieter and relaxing. In no time we were in Athens checking into our hotel. We relaxed for about 2 hours then went for a walk to get our bearings straight. We first walked to the Zappeion building built for the Zappa's Olympics in the late 1800s. Then we visited the Panathenaic Stadium built in 1896 for the first modern Olympics; which was reconstructed and marbled in 2004 and is now being used for the Special Olympics in 2011. We couldn't get any closer to the stadium than outside the gates but it looked amazing from what I could see. After getting pictures of that, we walked around the area and stopped to watch a tennis match between four younger looking Greek boys. They were impressive players and had us all clapping for them like it was the French Open. Everyone enjoyed watching their match but soon enough we got hungry and went in search of a restaurant. We had dinner at a nice Greek restaurant and topped it off with a scoop of Gelato afterwards. We walked around for a bit, shopped at a couple of the stores until it got late, and then went back to the hotel to call it a night. I'd have to say it was a good start to the last destination of our trip.

Olympia

So today, was our only complete day in Olympia and Drew's blog post "Olympia" summarizes all the historical archaeological goodies we saw today. But, I'm going to have to say, the best part of this day for me was having lunch/appetizing for dinner with Matt and Sam. Yes, Olympia has been great, because it's something we spoke about in class, and one of the sites I was most excited about. I wanted to see, the track and the museums, but after Robert (our tour guide, who is very knowledgeable on the subject) told us most of this was rebuilt and some artifacts in the museum were fake I was really disappointed. So just sitting down with Matt and Sam having one two three four or more drinks made my day. We sat at the "Tavern" for like 4 hours just people watching waiting for it to be 7pm, to go to the place right across the street to have dinner with everybody else and as Drew said "I personally enjoy how the Greeks eat because you can just keep ordering and ordering and the food will keep on coming. As it is whenever the entire group eats together there was a lot fun and a lot of laughter."

Travel Day From Hell

May 29th was a day that most of us were not looking forward to for a while. Today was known as the “travel day from hell”. The morning started off normally waking up and going to get breakfast in the hotel, which was pretty standard. Then we got onto a bus at 9:20 a.m. from the hotel in Switzerland and enjoyed a half hour bus ride to the Geneva airport for a flight that left at 1:00 p.m. to Munich. We got to the airport and checked our bags, which was a pain. Some people’s bags were a little bit too heavy and depending on who was checking you in this became a problem. My bag weighted in at 23 kg, which is 3 over what they allow, by the guy at the counter said he would let it slide. Someone else’s bag weighted in at 22 kg and the person behind the desk made them take out 2 kg worth of things to have the bag make weight.

Once all that was worked out we went though security and had some time to relax. This was a great time for me to finally finish a book that I have been reading for a while now. I wont go into detail about the book but I will just say Tucker Max wrote it and if you don’t know who that is then that is probably a good thing. Then we got on the plane and flew to Munich. Once in Munich we only had a half hour to switch planes good thing that gate that we needed was pretty much right next to the one that we came into. Then we got on the flight from Munich to Athens which was not too long nor was it too bad and I still didn’t understand why this was the travel day from hell yet. Then once we got into Athens I understood why. We had to take an over 4-hour bus ride from Athens to Olympia. We have been traveling all day the last thing I want to do is sit on a bus for over 4 hours. The ride was long but we finally made it to Olympia at 12:30 a.m. After this day I can understand why it is considered the travel day from hell and I am so happy we don’t have to do anything like that again because it sucked.