Περὶ τῆς δευτερᾶς ἡμέρας τῆς ἐν ταῖς Ἀθήναις: Ἀρχαιολογία Λυκαβέττος τε καὶ Κοκορέτσι!

Ἄνηρ ὁ σὺν χολίοις ὀφθάλμοις... ἢ σὺν χολίῳ ὀφθάλμῳ...

ὁ Ζεὺς ὦν ζηνικός

Athens: Day 2! Today's big event- the National Archaeological Museum! Just off the Viktoria Metro stop and near the University of Athens, the Museum is located near where some of the riots recently have taken place- we saw splatters from paint balloons and an armored bus full of riot police o.O We first went to Mass at St. Dionysius, one of the few Catholic churches in the city. It was a bit strange, seeing Mass said in the Roman rite in modern Greek in a Baroque church in Athens. Bizarre. Then we went to the museum (a real bargain at 3E a pop), and proceeded to spend the rest of the morning into midafternoon drooling over everything awesome there. I'll share some of my favorites; unfortunately a lot of the smaller artifacts were in glass cases that were very adverse to photo-taking. So if you want to see the "Mask of Agamemnon", look at someone else's picture haha.



The absolute best part however, was the entire exhibit on the Antikythera shipwreck! In addition to the famous mechanism/device, there were also fantastic bronze statues, and some other artifacts, including a fantastic glass bowl. This was another great instance of not knowing when I was going to see something awesome, then being very pleasantly surprised!

THIS is Mt. Lykavettos

Thoroughly exhausted after the museum, we took a brief break at our hotel, then set out to conquer Mt. Lykavettos! It was a bit of a hike, but the views from the top are excellent. Plus there's a very nice chapel at the top dedicated to St. George (if you zoom in on the picture, you should be able to pick it out as a while blob on the summit). Go there, light a candle, pray for an end to the East-West schism.


To finish off the day, I had a nice, filling, traditional Greek food- Kokoretsi, a sausage made with organ meats, roasted on a skewer- in an all-natural casing, of course!

Mmmmmm..... Yummy!

ὁ φιλόσοφος τῆς Ἀντικυθέρας

And here's another picture from the Antikythera exhibit, just cause it's awesome. And a philosopher.