I did begin my day with a church service in Athens though. Church was interesting here. There are as many African people as Greeks. The African people are much more outgoing. Had a great time talking with them! Didn't really get to chat much with the Greeks.
The LDS church is literally right across the street from the old Athens city gate.
Also right below the Acropolis.
I first went to the Temple of Zeus since it was right next to the church. Pretty cool.
Writing on a stone from a long long time ago.
The remains of an old home.
I think this stuff is cool. It had been here for centuries!
Here are all my shots heading up to the Acropolis.
What a view from up here!
Wow! Now this is cool! I felt extremely grateful I got to come see this place. It is somewhere we see a lot so it was neat to be here and look at it in person. They are repairing it so there are machines all over the Parthenon. This is the one place where you could get a great shot without the tools and machinery. I think this is a great picture!
Look how amazing Athens is!
Cool shot of where I just was!
One of the things that cracked me up is the marble rock all over the ground is so slick because it has obviously been worn down for centuries. People were continually slipping on it lol. It really made me laugh a lot.
Right next to the Acropolis is Mars Hill. I think I was more excited to see this than the Acropolis. When I was 21 and was meeting with my Bishop a lot he one time told me a story about Mars Hill and how amazing it was for him to come to a place where the Apostle Paul preached the Sermon on the Unknown God in the Book of Acts. His story always stuck with me and ever since then I have wanted to stand on Mars Hill where Paul preached that message. I had a great experience sitting on the hill and reading the account and imagining Paul here.
His sermon written out in Greek.
Makes me sad people would do graffiti in a place like this. Not sure what Greece's fascination with graffiti is but it's everywhere.
Um, yeah... Then I pulled a Travis moment and decided to try to find my own way out and got lost. Had to start hopping fences and stuff.
Some kind of government building I think. Wait... What government?
I then made a trip to the Original Olympic Stadium! Now this was cool!
The tunnel.
The Olympic flame stick things are here from almost every Olympics, both summer and winter. I searched all over for SLC 2002 but found absolutely nothing. Extremely disappointing.
Those 2 end slabs are originals. Those are sooooo old! Don't remember how far they date back to.
Amazing view of the Acropolis from the Stadium!
After flying through the sites I didn't know what to do. Luckily I ran into some members from church. The one girl had served her mission here and was back visiting with her husband. They were so cool. They told me I absolutely had to go to this place to get the best Greek Gyros. So I was off to there. Ironically it was right next to the New Olympic Stadium from the Athens Olympics from 2006. So I decided to hit the new stadium first then get my Gyro.
I had no idea if it would be open. But as I walked up I started to hear chanting. I knew immediately what was going on. Futbol!!
I just walked in and nobody stopped me. I think because there was only 25-30 minutes left in the game. I enjoyed watching how passionate these fans are. Fans yelling at each other and yelling at the players. So invested!
I sat down and 4 minutes later the home team scored. Place went nuts. Smoke and fire things went off!
And then about 15 minutes later they scored again on an amazing goal. I was standing up celebrating too!
This little Greek boy was awesome! Made me laugh.
Time for the infamous Greek Gyro. They make these up so fast! Way better than any Gyro I've had at home. Packed full of meat, French fries, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and onion. Soooooo good!
I sat and ate my Gyro and watched the Euro League basketball championship game. It was Olympiakos (from Athens) vs CSKA Moscow who has Andrei Kirilenko! It was a good time. I left at halftime because Moscow was killing Olympiakos. Later that night every channel on tv interrupted the program to report Olympiakos made a Huge comeback to win the title. Cool!
Awesome day and had a great time here in Athens. I'm nervous and excited to go to Israel tomorrow.
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