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My month in Athens
Athens Review: |
Date posted: Apr 27, 2009
Posted by: Gina21sp
Times Viewed: 1006
More: Athens
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The Acropolis is the symbol of Athens, of course, but there are so many other things to discover in this town. I stayed there for almost a month last winter as my boyfriend in on an Exchange University Program and studies there till the middle of summer. The weather was pretty good for winter, not too cold but quite rainy.
Yes, we visited the sites, but I was not that impressed. Forgive me for saying that, but except for the Acropolis and the Ancient Agora, the rest of the sites didn't hit me that much. The temple of Poseidon is also nice and they say that this is the best sunset in Greece, after Santorini. Well maybe, it was just a shame that the area around is not organized: not a tavern, not a cafeteria, not even a kiosk to buy a glass of water.
We also visited a couple of museums. I searched the web for any special and unique museums. We didn't want to see the usual archaeological and historical museums that you find in all countries. So, we found that there is a Tactual Museum in Athens, which is actually for the blind people. This was very nice, the tour guide is a lovely, blind woman and the exhibits are actually excellent copies of famous pieces of work, from the Hermes of Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Milos to many other works of international artists. If you are not blind, you wear a mask around your eyes and touch the exhibits, like the blind people do. Pretty nice, right?
Athens in the daytime may be noisy and frustrated and tiring, but in the night it gets better. The Greeks are cool people and my boyfriend's Greek friends would make sure we see Athens by night: bars, clubs and bouzoukia, of course. I most liked bars in Gazi, a central area which is said to be a gay place. Bars were small but music was loud. Once, we went to bouzoukia to see really Greek entertainment! People actually sit in tables around a dancing floor, where a single singer sings for many hours. Guests drink whiskey and there is an unusual costum there: if they like the singer, they throw flowers to him (without the scapes, of course)!
In Athens, we also tried some fun sports, like mini football and paintball. Also visit the Zoo, many rare animals are kept there in a nice environment.
Another good thing about Athens is that it gets close to many islands: one weekend, we went to Salamina and stayed int eh cottage house of a friend. Another weekend we went to Aegina. This is a beautiful island only one hour away but pretty remote in winter.
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