Acropolis and Agora...I want some mora!!!

Hey everybody!! I know this is a couple days late, but I wanted to get my moleskine back to write down some facts just in case i couldn't remember everything. I definitely could not have remembered all this. I read back through it and I wrote a whole lot of stuff. Hopefully there's more room for all the other trips..haha..I will try to skim it down some so you don't have to read about every single building..hahah..alright, well we took the tour on May 18th, and our guides name was Catarina.
We started off with a city tour of Athens. We looked at the Hilton, the War Museum, the National "Royal" Garden. She then told us all the stories about how Greece was a monarchy until 1974, and all the different battles they were in. I thought it was pretty funny that the biggest commercial street in Greece was Elmo. I don't know why, it just seemed funny to me..We also saw the Anglocan church which was dedicated to Paul. We also saw the 15 columns that belong to Zeus, but there used to be 104. Then, we saw the Marble Stadium where the first Olympic games were held in 1896. It had a capacity of 69,000 spectators. We were supposed to head to the Marble Stadium to get a closer view of it, but we never did, but I will probably go look at it with Jack and Andrew sometime later. The first monument we saw was the Odom, which was the music hall. The walls were restored in the 1950's. It has a capacity of about 5,000 spectators.
Next, we went to the Acropolis. Words can not even express how overwhelmed I was with admoration and just pure awe of all these temples. But before I go on about the temples, just a few interesting Greek stories. I thought the Poseidon vs. Athena story was pretty cool. They were trying to figure out who should rule, and the people said that they each get to give one gift, and whomever gives the best one, will get to be the ruler. So, Poseidon goes first and stakes his trident in the ground, and gives them salt water which was very important for trading and things of that sort, but Athena produces the first olive tree. Athena was picked. Since Athens was built in one of the driest parts of Grece, the olive tree was the only tree that could grow, so they became very sacred. I also thought the story about Athena being born from the head of Zeus was really interesting. Zeus was married and his wife got pregnant, but he killed his wife because he was afraid he would lose control to his offspring. Since he did this, a long time later, he got a huge headache, so he called Ephestas, the god of fire over to him. Ephestas hit Zeus' head, and then Athena was born. Alright, I guess I can talk about the temples now.
The Temple of Athena Nike was very interesting. It was completely taken down twice. It is made with the ionic style. The last time they made it, they used titanium so that it would stay up for good. Next, was the Parthenon. This was one of my favorite temples in the Acropolis. We entered on the west side. It was dedicated to Athena, and it is called the "Temple of the Virgin." It is very famous for its optical illusions because there are no straight columns. Everything is curved. It is of Doric style, and the corner columns were thicker than the rest. It had triglyphs and metopes in the capital, and the west pediment, had the depiction of the contest of Athena and Poseidon that I described earlier. While the east pediment had the depiction of the story of Athena being born from the head of Zeus. There used to be a statue of Athena inside the Parthenon that was 40 ft. tall, made of wood and gold and ivory. When I first saw the Parthenon, I can not even describe how I felt. I was just so amazed as to how someone could even begin to build such an amazing temple. It was just incredible. The next temple we saw was the temple of zeus which was the focal point of worship and sacrifice to gods.
The Placa has paved streets with the Parliament building. The next temple we looked at was definitely by far my favorite. The Erechtheion. It was just so astonishing. I really loved this temple. It was the only temple not undergoing restoration while we were there. It is in the most sacred spot of the Acropolis. It was dedicated to Athena too, and it was to be used for the fertility of Earth and the city. There was the story about the snake that disappeared from the Erechtheion and so everyone thought it meant that the Persians were coming. Many of the stories they made up were created after the event had already happened. I thought that was pretty funny. They make up the stories to show that the gods were with them. Probably my favorite thing about the Erechtheion is the caryatids. They were the "Porch of Maidens." The caryatids were just so beautiful and miraculous. Jack was obsessed with them. He probably took about 700 pictures of them. It was pretty funny.
Next, we went to Mars Hill. It was pretty hard to climb because the rocks were so slippery. I was just thinking it would be funny if the people waiting for Paul saw him walking up, and they were like, "Paul, is that you?!" and then he says, "Yea, hold on, I can't get up there. I'm slippin all over the place." lol..I know it didn't happen, but it was just something funny to think about instead of thinking about falling off. It's supposedly where Paul spoke, but he really spoke further over than where we actually were. They chose this hill to attack Athenians and the Acropolis. We also sang a few songs on Mars Hill, and read Paul's sermon. It was very moving.
After we finished with the Acropolis, we headed to the Agora where we saw the Tower of the Winds. It was called this because male figures are personal implications of winds that prevail through the years. There was a waterclock and a floating device and depending on the level of the water, it would tell what time it was. I thought that was pretty interesting. The lines on the wall also served as a sundial. We also went to the Stoa. It was the biggest part of the ground floor. In the museum, we learned about the Archaic Period, which in all of their art, the people had a specific smile so I thought that was pretty interesting. We also had an assignment to pick out something we saw in the museum that we did not think they would have back then. I saw two things. The first was a potty trainer. I had no clue they had potty trainers back then. I thought it was pretty funny. Also, they had a machine that you put a coin in, and a ball would roll out to tell you whether or not you had jury duty. I thought that was pretty cool. I didn't know they jury duty back then.
Next, we saw the Odeion of Agrippa. It could hold 1,000 people. The roof fell off, so they rebuilt it, and now it can only hold 500. We saw the Great Drain, where other drains would fall into. It wasn't really that astonishing, but still pretty interesting. The next temple we saw was the Temple of Hephaistos. It was pretty astounding too. Almost as much as the Parthenon, but not quite. There wasn't very much room to get a picture of the whole thing, so I kind of just have bits and pieces of it, but I think it will work!! Alright, well I told you I probably would need time to write this, and all of my notes..Hahah..Hope you enjoyed reading it...I love you all, and I miss you, and I will see you in 2 1/2 months!!! In Him, Ryan