Henry King

The day most people were looking forward to most in Athens had arrived. I myself was buzzing at the thought of going to the acropolis, although my spirits were slightly dampened by the rather unappetizing nutella sandwich I had made for lunch. We set off and we soon realised that two dogs were following us. In Athens stray dogs are everywhere, and these two were particularly interesting, appearing to have most diseases known to man, and one of the dogs seemed to have a liking for the other (i wont mention the dirty deeds they got up to ). We arrived at the Greek archaeological museum which was absolutely awesome, and the dogs that had been following for an hour gave up their chase. As I said before the museum was awesome, in particular a bronze statue of a man that had been raised from the sea. From the museum we headed off to the train station to have our first taste of the Athens train system. I stood beside a soldier and took note of his decently sized gun. We got off the train and got our first close up view of the acropolis.

The first thing we saw was the theatre of Herodes Atticus. This thing was enormous, and had been refurbished which really gave us an appreciation of the skill in making something like this. Jack Adams enlightened us on the history of the theatre and then we were off to the next theatre at the base of the acropolis – the theatre of Dionysus. This was even bigger, but most of it was destroyed. Then we were off to the acropolis itself. It was my turn to give a speech, on the gateway to the acropolis (the Propylaia). I breathed a sigh of relief at the end, and out came the camera. Coming through the Propylaia we saw the Parthenon and there were a few exclamations. Once Henry Tombleson had done his speech on it, Mr Buckingham was elected to take photos of pretty much everyone in front of the Parthenon, including the traditional tourist high school musical themed jump.

Robbie still scarred from his encounter with the 9 year old gypsy selling tissues did a speech and so did James Clark. We then had lunch and went cross country to get to the temple of Haphaestus, where Reid Towers finished the day of speeches off. Mr Buckingham, aided by his trusty map, led us to the monstrosity that is the acropolis museum, where they had everything from giant statues to 5cm high bowls. By now most of us were absolutely bashed, and at the end of the museum about ten of us headed back to the hotel for a rest before going out for dinner. Here I did my first load of washing, and I was proud of my job on a pair of boxers and three pairs of socks. However Kathmandu quick dry socks aren’t that quick drying and were drenched even the next morning. At 6PM we headed down to the square we had been to every night for dinner. Mr Buckingham and Henry Tombleson went to their beloved bakery to have as many bacon cheesy bread things as possible. Me and a few others went to mcdonalds, bowing to the pressures of fast food for the first time.

We met back at the square at 9 and the first thing most people noticed was Finn’s interesting t-shirt he bought from the flea market. I wont go into details. We all walked back to the hotel and crashed.

We got the wake up call at 6 30, and began to pack up our rooms. After breakfast and a shower we hopped on the bus to Corinth. Here we saw some pretty cool ruins of what was once an incredible city. James and I were pursued by some French girls insisting on having a photo with us. After about twenty minutes we caved in and obliged their requests, to much thanks. We also saw the giant Corinth canal. Finn threw one of his slightly odd looking oranges he had bought off the canal and we saw it explode when it hit the water. Our next stop was Mycenae, the city of Agamemnon, the king who waged war against troy. We had seen his golden burial mask in the archaeological museum the day before. After a quick view at everything we hopped onto the bus. This is where I am now, typing this as we head to Patras to catch the ferry to Ancona, then the train to Rome. I’m sad we are leaving Greece but also very excited to see Rome. The first few days of this tour have been great and I’m sure there is much more to come.