So Lauren P and I ventured to Athens, what a trip that was. It started out as a hectic morning, what with waking up late and misplacing a few very needed items. Then a traffic jam made us give up all hopes of reaching our plane on time. However, we arrived at 10:30 with our plane departing at 11:00, and some how we made it. Either way it was great.
The first night we were there, we went for a walk and took some pictures of the Parthenon at night. It was great to navigate on the metro. Only 40 euro cents a ride not bad considering that we are used to paying like 1.30 a ride in DC. 
The metro was the nicest I have ever seen. Each station is decorated differently but the main one (Monasteraki) has marble floors and display cases containing objects excavated during the metro construction. This was great a free museum and transportation.
The next day it was rather cold, so what better thing to do than go to the National Gardens right? Well that's what we did, it was very cold. But we had fun. We also did a lot of shopping, not so great for the budget. However it was a lot of fun, we did get a lot of cute stuff, and most importantly it was indoors. After our mini shopping spree, we went in search of a cafe to sit in, upon not finding anything we resorted to getting tea and sitting in a McDonalds. The Greek men are even more persistent than the Italians. Several of them came up to us and started talking to us in Greek (of which we know none). Upon our confused looks they took that to mean they should sit down and continue communication. Oh well c'est la vie. It was most certainly entertaining.
On one of our walks we ran across an indoor/outdoor corridor, much like the one we saw in Naples.
On Sunday we ventured to the Akropoli or the Acropolis (my main motivation to go to Greece). 
We climbed the hill, passed through the gates, passed by the remains of the temple to Athena-Nike, and came upon the Parthenon. It was such a spectacular site. It seemed surreal to see something that we studied so thoroughly in text books, to see something that has stood for 2000 years. 
Also part of the complex was the Erechtheion. An important building because it is said that this is where Athena and Poseidon fought over who would be the patron God of Athens. A man Erectheus was killed in the process and this building was erected in honor of him.Also atop the Acropolis there was a museum dedicated to the findings. One piece of a pediment struck me as particularly interesting.
It is a horse being attacked by two lions. The facial features of the dying animal are incredible. The pigments of paint that remain on the animal too only would have increased the intensity of the piece.
A top the Acropolis had some very interesting view points of the city. Lauren and I snapped a few pictures and headed down to see the rest of the ruins connected with the Acropolis.
The next building we entered was a stoa left by the Romans. It was left in good condition and then refurbished into a museum. It was cool to see all the ancient artifacts. 
A smaller version of the Parthenon was included in the park/ruins left by the Romans. It too was very beautiful and almost completely intact.
After this we wandered through flea markets of Athens. Which were not the temporary flea markets I was accustomed too. The were more permanent structures, they reminded me of storage lockers, save for the fact that people were selling stuff out of them.
The following day we went on to see the national archeological museum. It too, had a lot of very interesting artifacts. It was interesting to see the different uses a building can take on. Here, a little girl used the gutter outside for a slide. 
Walking around the city allowed us to take random photos of interesting old buildings, the over grown plant-life in places, various statues, ancient ruins.
, and stray cats.
On Tuesday we took the train to Corinth. A small town an hour south of Athens. Upon getting there we had no hotel and the train dropped us off about 10 minutes out side of the city. We hoped on a bus and found a hotel. Pretty good considering hardly anyone spoke English. But we did it. Immediately after our arrival we went to see the ancient ruins.
The Corinthian Sea was an amazing blue.On Wednesday, we took a bus to Sparta. The ancient city of destruction was actually rather small. It is ironic that we choose this day to go to Sparta. Sparta is still where most of the military training goes on. In Greece it is mandatory for all men to serve for 12 months in the army. After being sworn in, the men go through a 15 day solitary confinement, and then they are "released back to the town". On the day we went 300 new soldiers were released out. The was a nice museum on olive oil (which we didn't go into, however the piazza in front was very nice).
On Thursday we returned to Athens and spent the next few days just wandering around and looking at the sights. There was a large amount of cool graffiti, more like art than destruction of a building. Instead of random spray paint, these were cut out and sprayed on like a stencil.
We saw the temple to Poseidon, of which a few columns remain.
On Friday we went back to the national gardens, this day it was in the high 70's and a very sunny day. It was gorgeous. We saw a lot of parents with their children, I helped a little boy catch some tadpoles. The plant life here too was incredible.
