Athens

When someone says Greece people always think of Greek myths, the Parthenon, and temples. In my fours days there I found out that there’s a lot more to Greece then that. Although the ruins were my favorite part of the trip. Just seeing the old pillars still standing is an amazing thing.


First stop in my Greek adventure was Athens. We drove 4 hours from Volos Airport to Athens. I was under the impression that Athens was going to be this amazing and gorgeous city. No offence Athens, but you were you a huge let down. As we drove toward our hotel I was sad to see that it was a very dirty city. Yes I know most major cities are dirty but this was a run down, worn out, grungy dirty look. So I was a little sad that my spring break seemed to have started off on the wrong foot entirely. Especially since it was raining.

^My first picture taken in Greece^

But we found our hotel around 8. It was tucked away on a pedestrian street and when I walked over to ask where it was that we could park the guy tells me that we can just pull up front… so we did. And my Czech housemate did a fantastic park job…

I could barely fit my fingers between our car and the pillar. But we were in Athens. When we went to bed we crossed our fingers that the rain would stop and we’d have sun for our visit to the Acropolis.

All our finger Crossing was for not… We woke up to gray skies and wet streets.

I didn’t mind too much since it only appeared to be drizzling. So we headed out to the Acropolis.

We get to the famed Acropolis of Athens, home of the Parthenon. We go to the ticket booth and were very sad to find out that the admission was €12. Lucky for me my housemates had a solution. Out came our Student ID Cards… and our admission price… €0.

That’s right I got into the Acropolis free and it felt awesome. The only damper on the epicness of the Parthenon was the fact that it was being repaired and had scafolding up... it was still cool thought.

Now what is it the makes the Acropolis so cool? The quick answer is the Parthenon. The long answer…

-it’s 150m above sea level
-It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the first Athenian king
-the Parthenon was built by Pericles in the fifth century BC as a monument to the cultural and political achievements of the inhabitants of Athens
-It took 9 years to build
-It was completed in 438 BC
-Each piece of the Parthenon is unique and fits together perfectly. So even though it looks like things can be interchanged they can’t!

And check this out. Wikipedia says “The Project began in 1975 and is now nearing completion. The aim of the restoration was to reverse the decay of centuries of attrition, pollution, destruction by acts of war, and misguided past restorations. The project included collection and identification of all stone fragments, even small ones, from the Acropolis and its slopes and the attempt was made to restore as much as possible using reassembled original material - with new marble from Mount Penteli used sparingly. All restoration was made using titanium dowels and is designed to be completely reversible, in case future experts decide to change things. A combination of cutting-edge modern technology and extensive research and reinvention of ancient techniques were used.”

Soooo cool right? The fact that they can undo everything they’ve done is really mind boggling.

“And for some more numbers from Wikipedia “A total of 2,675 tons of architectural members were restored, with 686 stones reassembled from fragments of the originals, 905 patched with new marble, and 186 parts made entirely of new marble. A total of 530 cubic meters of new Pentelic marble were used”

The hike to the top was a short and easy one. And the pictures… amazing!! Here are a few of the 62 pictures I took at the Acropolis.
 

 
Cheers,

Because Spring Break is Meant to be Epic

Never in my life have I had a Spring Break that was epic. Sure I’d been to the beach with my family and what not. I was never and will never be one of those kids that goes off to the “It” spot of the year to party. At the beginning of the semester I had been planning on staying in Ireland for my spring break and doing a little bit of local travel. Then I got to know my housemates. And they swept me along on their grand adventure.


What is this grand adventure you ask? Well it was three days driving in Greece and 4 days in Rome.

Here’s how this is all going to go I’m going to play out… this post is just telling you how awesome break was and the next few will be about what I saw and cool history facts and whatnot. So if history facts bore you then just look at the pictures!

My spring break started when I boarded the bus at 1am to the Dublin airport. From Dublin we flew first to Brussels. Why Brussels? It was cheaper to fly from Dublin to Brussels to Volos. Cheap was what this trip was about, after all we’re students.

So our time in the Brussels airport was a grand total of 45 minutes. We ended up being a bit rushed for time and that was my fault. First is was coming in. Since I have an American passport I have to get stamps and go through a different passport check since I’m not an EU citizen. The guy behind the counter kept me for about 5 minutes asking me a ton of questions. I tried my hardest to explain I was leaving real soon so no need to get worked up. I had to pull out my boarding pass for him to finally stamp me and let me through. Then I had to go get a stamp on my boarding pass from the RyanAir desk saying they’d checked m passport. There was a long line. All in all by the time we got to the gate we were close to the last to board.

But we made it to Volos Greece. The Volos Airport… the smallest airport ever! My elementary school was bigger then this thing.

We picked up our car. It was a tiny bright yellow car. I forget what type it was but we named her daisy.

Daisy did good the whole time in Greece. Our treck around Greece looked something like this.

J -Volos
b- Athens
c- Epidaurus
d- Argos
e- Tripoli
f- Olympia
g- Patra
h- Nafpaktos
i- Delphi
j -Volos

Day one of Greece was arriving in Volos and driving 4 hours to Athens. Day 2 was sight seeing at the Acropolis in Athens then we drove and stopped at towns, had dinner in Tripoli and arrived in Olympia for the night. Day 3 was sight seeing in Olympia before driving lots more and arriving in Delphi for the night. Our last day in Greece started with us visiting the temple of Apollo, which was where the oracle of Delphi was. Then we drove back to the Volos airport to catch our flight to Rome!

Four days in Rome was amazing. We walked everywhere and saw so many beautiful fountains and squares and ruins. My favorite part was walking down the street and suddenly there are ruins! I loved it! And our hostel was super sketchy but totally cool and it was in a really good location.

And that my friends is a quick over view of my spring break… the fun stuff is still to come!!

Cheers,

Depression Solved

I’ve been depressed for over a month now. It’s been the worst month of my life! I don’t think I ever experienced such anxiety and depression before… and just when I saw that the end was a mere 3 weeks away… everything was suddenly solved.


What could possibly make someone such as me depressed? Simple. I waited patiently for many long years now for one thing. I diligently followed Pat’s blog only to be devastated to find that I was going to be out of the country for the release of The Wise Man’s Fear!!!!

Now it’s no secret the Patrick Rothfuss is my favorite author. I’m in love with The Name of The Wind and I waited and waited to hear news of Wise Man’s Fear. When Pat announced the release date back in the fall I was so excited! Then I got accepted to my study abroad program and immediately became sad as I realized that I would miss the release. I wasn’t sure if the release date was the same over here so I told my brother to bring it when he came on spring break and he promised me he would.

Then he didn’t and that’s when my depression set in!! to make matters worse I had to read all the good stuff Pat was posting about the book. So every time I was in city centre and by a bookstore I would go in and search fruitlessly for it. Until today!!!!

I was on my way out of O’Mahonys on O’Connell street, quite depressed, and I look to the left and what do I see? The missing piece of my soul that I have been searching for! The fear that I would have to wait till I got home to read it was banished and I snatched it off the shelf (yes snatched it was the last copy and I NEEDED it). My friend I was with just looks at me oddly as I hug the book to my chest and smile and start babbling about how I’ve been searching for this and how amazing Pat is and how amazing this book will be. The lady behind the counter also looks at me weird as she informs me a lot of people have been looking for the book. As I open my wallet to fetch the money I almost have a heart attack as I see that I have 2 €5 and I started panicking. I was €4.99 short! Freaking out I started looking in another pocket and found €3 in coins and I was about to ask my friend for a Euro when low and behold I could another and triumphantly bought my precious baby.
Look at how cute it is….

And check out all 994 pages of it!!

So I’ve got a lot of reading to do. Plus….my depression on not being able to enter Pat’s photo contest is gone. I now have the book and it is going on spring break with me to Greece and Rome. True it might be half of my luggage weight allowance but it will be worth it!!

And now I bid the world good bye as I am going to stick my nose into this amazing book and not emerge until I have thoroughly dented into it!!

Cheers,

London Calling

On Thursday I took a day trip to London for a college visit. While I was there I was informed I had an Unconditional Offer, or in American terms I’m accepted! So I’ll be moving to London this fall! so as a tribute to my new home I had a little fun with some of my London photos…

Cheers,

Kiss It

Everyone’s heard of it and more then 300,000 people kiss it each year. That’s right I’m talking about the Blarney Stone.


Last Saturday I went on a day trip with my program to Blarney Castle.

^You see those grates at the top... that's where the Barney Stone is^

Impressive looking place right? Well since I was there who was I to pass up such an opportunity? I HAD to kiss it. So my friend and I started the hike up to the stone. The stair case was tight and steep. And the stairs were small… or maybe my feet are just big… either way it was a bit tough at some spots but I did it. I got to the top and surveyed the land…

 It’s Ireland so how could it not look pretty?

And I waited in the queue to kiss the stone. And ta da!!

I did it! It was really exhilarating because you’re really high up and you have to lean pretty far back to get to the stone but I did it!


Now on the bus ride home for the day I was wondering to myself why is it that people see the Blarney Stone as lucky? So I decided to do a little research and what I found was pretty kick ass!!


So here’s the deal the caste that I saw is the third Barney Castle to be built. When I read this I thought of this scene in Monty Python;




The first was built in the 10th century and was wooden. That sank into the swamp… well not really… what actually happened was around 1210 AD it was replaced with a stone structure. Later that was demolished for foundation of the current castle which was built in 1446 by the Dermot McCarthy the King of Munster. And that my friends is the castle you see today!


So back to the stone. Legend has it that Cormac McCarthy gave 4,000 men to aid in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 so as gratitude Robert the Bruce gave half of the Stone of Scone to McCarthy in gratitude. This part of the Stone of Scone was built into the battlements and is now the Blarney Stone that so many people kiss.


What if the Stone of Scone you ask? Well this is where it gets really cool. The Stone Of Scone is more commonly known as the Stone of Destiny. This is because for centuries it was used in the coronation of the Scottish monarchs. That alone isn’t what makes the Stone of Scone so cool you see it’s origins are debatable and the best part of the debates are that each theory of origin is equally as epic. One of them says that the stone was brought over from Ireland where is had been the coronation stone for the Kings of Tara. A Biblical origin says that it’s the Stone of Jacob. Yet another says that Fergus, the first King of the Scots in Scotland had the stone brought over from Argyll to be crowned on it. Either way all of those are pretty sweet origins and to think… I kissed half of it… I feel pretty darn cool.


After kissing the Blarney stone I climbed back down the castle and wandered about the grounds. Now the grounds are as cool as the stone. The part of the grounds that we went to is called Rock Close.

First stop the Dolmen: also known as a Portal Tomb or Portal Grave. It’s a Neolithic period (4000-300 BCE) structure. Not much is known about these types of structures since they’re so old and we don’t know who built them or why. Sometimes human remains and other artifacts are found close to them which provide dating material but that’s about it. So this was really cool to see… I mean this is super old!!

Next up the Wishing Steps: legend has it that “if you can walk down and back up these steps with your eyes closed - some suggest walking backwards - and without for one moment thinking of anything other than a wish, then that wish will come true within a year" cool right… so my friend and I just HAD to try it out… and what do you know it was easier then I thought.

Next we came to The Witch’s’ Kitchen: Historians say that this was home to the first Irish Cave Dwellers… legend says it’s where the Witch Of Blarney spends her night by a fire made from wood paid for by our wishes on the Whishing Steps (because she has to grant wishes in order to get the wood). She stays in there to keep warm while she’s on her nocturnal escape from the rock.

The Witch Stone: it’s super easy to see the witch who is imprisoned here. “Some say it was she who first told McCarthy of the power of the Blarney Stone.” And it’s only at night that she comes out of the stone.

The Druid Circle: it’s said that if you’re within in this circle that nothing evil can harm you

My Favorite part was Fairy Glade!

And that concluded the epic walk of Rock Close. Blarney Castle has officially been added to my list of favorite places in the world!

Cheers,