NIke, Athena and the Olympics, Day 18 in Greece #HogsAbroad

-- Emily

Today was our first full day in Athens! For some of us it started with a run through the city and a visit to the Olympic stadium from the 1896 Olympic Games. We had a wonderful breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel overlooking the city of Athens.

After breakfast we met with our tour guide for the day Helen. Helen was awesome, much like all of our guides along the way have been. We winded our way through the city center to find the entrance to the Acropolis. Along the way we saw churches, small ruins, and Jerry even got a picture with some Greek police men.

The path up to the Acropolis is full of ruins from different eras and luckily Helen knew about them all. We saw the ruins of one of the first Greek theaters which our university used as a model for the Greek theater on our campus. There were ruins of a hospital and a Roman style music hall. On the top of the Acropolis we were met with a variety of temples.

The first we saw was the temple built for the goddess of victory, Nike. They say the temple was built and the wings of Nike's statue removed in an effort to win the war with Sparta. The goddess Nike is the inspiration for the name of the popular sporting goods company we know today. The logo of the swoosh is a symbol of Nike's wing. We saw of temple built to honor Poseidon, the God of the sea.

Then of course we saw the Parthenon built to honor the goddess for which the city is named, Athena. The Parthenon was a lot bigger than I imaged it would be. The construction and architecture of the building was incredible. We learned that it was built as if it was on a mound, meaning the sides get closer together as the structure rises and none of the columns are straight. They did all of these things to make the Parthenon look perfectly straight.

After all of our pictures were taken and we had fought through the hundreds of tourists we made it back down and took a break for lunch. We ate at a cute little restaurant and had really great food and plenty of water. Today was one of the hottest days we've experienced on our trip.

After lunch we got the opportunity to visit the archeological museum that was only opened six years ago. The museum was full of archeological finds from the Acropolis and the surrounding area. Helen came with us and made the experience even better with her stories and knowledge of Ancient Greece. We saw these jars that were used to store perfume and oil for Olympic athletes and then latter used to contain there sweat for sale.

Sports were a very important aspect of early Greek life. Each city had a gymnasium and stadium for the men to train at. Distance was measured in stadiums and time was measured in Olympiads. We also saw many statues from the 5th and 6th centuries and large pieces of the walls of the Parthenon. The top part of the museum was shaped like the Parthenon and had either pieces of the walls or replicas of the them in the places they actually were in the real Parthenon . When Greece was conquered a lot of the statues and art were taken from the Parthenon and are now located in the British Museum.

​After our great museum tour we wondered around and found some great souvenirs shops and then headed back for a much needed siesta. Refreshed and free of sweat we headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner! I think all of us have missed Mexican food! We had a great time and got to celebrate Dr. Edgar's birthday with her!

She has been an awesome faculty leader and all of us are thankful that she got to come with us!!Tomorrow will be our last full day in Greece. We have all enjoyed every minute of our Greek adventure but are ready to see our family and friends again. Thanks for following and reading our blog!

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Read more from these students at http://bumpersingreece.weebly.com/
Find our more about the U of A Faculty-Led: Food, Agriculture and Sustainability in Greece program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/aggreece