On Saturday morning, the group flew from Istanbul to Athens for the start of Spring Break, a much-needed ten-day vacation to do whatever one pleases. I spent the first two days of break with Liz and Allie in Athens. We shared a room at the Easy Hostel, and had a truly blessed and wonderful two days. I even wrote in my personal journal that I enjoyed every minute of it.
From the airport in Athens at the start of break, we took a bus, two trains, and finally a walk to get to our hostel. Dr. Krentz was with us on the bus and first train, and he guided us almost like a father would. He has lived in Athens and knows the city quite well. When he left us, we were finally alone in a huge foreign city. But we arrived at our Easy Hostel without any trouble.
This was my first time staying in a hostel, though we will start staying in more after spring break. It was quite different than the hotels we are used to, and it had no amenities. Our room had four beds on two bunk beds, no soap, towels, television, refrigeration, or a working shower curtain. And at night the hallways were pitch black. Breakfast, though it sufficed for us, consisted of bread, jam, and eggs.
After crashing at the hostel for about an hour, we explored the city for a few hours. The three of us love to walk and explore, and we took full advantage of this time together. We headed towards the Acropolis and walked up part of the way through tiny streets with adorable small houses, most of which were white-washed and covered with overgrown vines. At one point we were convinced we were trespassing because we were on the narrowest, most definitely single-file path between two houses. We also had a delicious meal on Saturday and picked up food at the grocery store for a light dinner in the hostel.
On Sunday, we woke up at 6:00 am to find a 7:30 English service at a Greek Orthodox church that we had read about online. Though we got turned around and lost several times on the way to the church, we found it right on time only to find it closed and gated up. The guard there looked at us like we were crazy and said he wasn’t sure if the church ever has services, let alone English ones. This was a disappointment, but we decided to look at the map and just go to any church that we saw. We headed towards St. Nicholas, where we stopped and watched part of a Greek service. This was a very interesting experience. We were the only people there for the start of it, and we stayed for about 20-30 minutes until an elderly woman came in and got mad at us for sitting in her seat. After this, we had basically given up hope of finding an English service, so we headed back to the hostel for breakfast and so Allie and Liz could ask the receptionist questions about catching their ferry to Santorini on Monday. After we ate and they asked the necessary questions about the ferry, it was probably around 9:30 am. They needed to visit the ferry booking agency, so we set out in that direction. Then at exactly 10:08, we stumbled across St. Paul’s Anglican Church.
An Anglican Church! That must have an English service! Sure enough, St. Paul’s has a 10:15 Sunday service, and it was no coincidence that we showed up at this time. We stayed for a beautiful and very interesting service in a packed church. In front of us sat a young American couple who we talked to afterwards. Allie approached them because she noticed the man holding a Boston College mug, and Allie is from Massachusetts. He and his wife are living Athens as he gets his PhD in archaeology at the American School in Athens, where Dr. Krentz studied!
As we left church, we saw a major festival going on across the street. We decided to go, and this was quite a cultural experience! This was a children’s festival in which kids all dressed up in costumes. There was fair food, music and dancing, and all sorts of other festival activities. We had a blast, and being there with so many happy people and cute kids having the time of their lives was inspiring. There was confetti all over the ground, and it seemed to me like everyone was smiling. The festival was adjacent to national arboretum in Athens, and we walked through this and we also walked through this and the miniature zoo there. At the fair, as I bought some delicious fried fair food, I met two American girls from Minnesota who go the University of Wisconsin! I told them that I was from Mequon, and we have common acquaintances from high school both at Davidson and Madison.
After the festival, we went on a walking tour of Athens, using a guide book which we borrowed from the breakfast room at the hostel. The walk was really interesting and was the perfect activity for our Sunday afternoon. We again had a delicious late afternoon lunch. Then, as we continued our tour, we ran into Sylvian, our archaeological guide from Eretria! Talk about a day of coincidences! Overall, Sunday was a truly awesome day, as was the entire time that I spent in Athens with Liz and Allie. It was inspiring for me to be with two other people who also wanted to explore, be restless for a few days, and go to such an early church service on Sunday. I said goodbye to them early (at 5:30 am) on Monday morning as they caught a ferry to Santorini and I headed for the airport.
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