Dear Readers!
315 days behind us and 50 more days to go. A week and a half ago we once again packed our bags and left the small, simple life we had built for ourselves in Israel over the course of the last four months. Don’t be mistaken; we might not have had so much there but the emotional impact of leaving all my new found friends was pretty hard for me and It left me in a bad mood for the next week. Which we spent in Greece! We spent one-half of the week in the city of Athens, viewing the Parthenon, the temple dedicated to Athena, visiting its museum and a tour of the Jewish quarters in Athens and their history. One of my lifelong dreams has been to see the Parthenon, and I thought I knew a lot about it. I had read book after book after book about Ancient Greece, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much there still was to learn. Knowledge is like the universe, it can always, and is always expanding. Which is knowledge in itself because outer space is in fact always expanding and getting bigger.
Sadly, because of frequent strikes and protests that are happening all over Greece because of the economic situation, we could not enter the Parthenon grounds, but we did view it from the outside and we then later went to the Parthenon Museum, which was an excellent substitute for the real thing. One of the most amazing things about the museum is that the floors are partly made of a see through material so you can see all the ancient Greek ruins that you are walking just above. It is a very different experience, and It gave me a strange feeling inside. Mostly sadness that such a great powerful, exciting and challenging Empire different from many that had come before it and will come after, is now lying under my feet. In nothing but ruins.
Many of the original sculptures were in the museum while only replicas are actually on site, which meant I could see the real thing. That was carved over 2,500 years ago by an ancient Greek. There was so much to see and learn, and while my brothers thought it was sleep inflicting, I found that it was one of the most enjoyable museums I had every visited. Second only to the tech museum of course. The most interesting thing I discovered in the museum, were the plethora of Kore that covered an entire floor of the massive museum. A Kore is a statue of a young lady, with the ideal body and face of the time. You could call them the Supermodels of ancient Greece! These Kores were given as thank you gifts from the rich to the rich or, as offerings from the rich to the goddess Athena. Of course, these statues were female because Athena is female. At least that is what a kind lady at the museum, who I suspect was a tour guide because she had been talking to a large group of senior tourists had said, when I sidled over to hear her explanations. I am a bit confused with the logic of giving the ideal woman statue, the supermodel of the time to a lady. Wouldn’t they want to give her a man? I don’t question the way of the ancient Greeks though; they must have had a good reason. Alright back to the Kore, these Kore ranged from formidable women towering high above us, to little girls I could hold in my hand. Some were smiling some were not. Some had apples and doves in their hands, and some had intricate braids in their hair. I took the time to sketch my favorite one. A small girl who’s name was quite long, The Kore with the Almond Shaped Eyes. It was true these little girls eyes were slightly angular, but it made her so much more interesting.
315 days behind us and 50 more days to go. A week and a half ago we once again packed our bags and left the small, simple life we had built for ourselves in Israel over the course of the last four months. Don’t be mistaken; we might not have had so much there but the emotional impact of leaving all my new found friends was pretty hard for me and It left me in a bad mood for the next week. Which we spent in Greece! We spent one-half of the week in the city of Athens, viewing the Parthenon, the temple dedicated to Athena, visiting its museum and a tour of the Jewish quarters in Athens and their history. One of my lifelong dreams has been to see the Parthenon, and I thought I knew a lot about it. I had read book after book after book about Ancient Greece, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much there still was to learn. Knowledge is like the universe, it can always, and is always expanding. Which is knowledge in itself because outer space is in fact always expanding and getting bigger.
Sadly, because of frequent strikes and protests that are happening all over Greece because of the economic situation, we could not enter the Parthenon grounds, but we did view it from the outside and we then later went to the Parthenon Museum, which was an excellent substitute for the real thing. One of the most amazing things about the museum is that the floors are partly made of a see through material so you can see all the ancient Greek ruins that you are walking just above. It is a very different experience, and It gave me a strange feeling inside. Mostly sadness that such a great powerful, exciting and challenging Empire different from many that had come before it and will come after, is now lying under my feet. In nothing but ruins.
Many of the original sculptures were in the museum while only replicas are actually on site, which meant I could see the real thing. That was carved over 2,500 years ago by an ancient Greek. There was so much to see and learn, and while my brothers thought it was sleep inflicting, I found that it was one of the most enjoyable museums I had every visited. Second only to the tech museum of course. The most interesting thing I discovered in the museum, were the plethora of Kore that covered an entire floor of the massive museum. A Kore is a statue of a young lady, with the ideal body and face of the time. You could call them the Supermodels of ancient Greece! These Kores were given as thank you gifts from the rich to the rich or, as offerings from the rich to the goddess Athena. Of course, these statues were female because Athena is female. At least that is what a kind lady at the museum, who I suspect was a tour guide because she had been talking to a large group of senior tourists had said, when I sidled over to hear her explanations. I am a bit confused with the logic of giving the ideal woman statue, the supermodel of the time to a lady. Wouldn’t they want to give her a man? I don’t question the way of the ancient Greeks though; they must have had a good reason. Alright back to the Kore, these Kore ranged from formidable women towering high above us, to little girls I could hold in my hand. Some were smiling some were not. Some had apples and doves in their hands, and some had intricate braids in their hair. I took the time to sketch my favorite one. A small girl who’s name was quite long, The Kore with the Almond Shaped Eyes. It was true these little girls eyes were slightly angular, but it made her so much more interesting.
Other than the Parthenon museum, we did another immensely fun activity. We did two escape rooms. Escape rooms have nothing to do with Athens, or Greece as they can be found worldwide but the were still very enjoyable. An escape room is a sort of game. Each room has a theme, and the point of the game is to try and escape a room. To escape the room you must solve all kinds of riddles, puzzles, locks, and do challenges together as a team. Each clue leads to a next and eventually you need to have found a specific item which in the end helps you escape the room. Oh, I forgot to mention that you have an hour to complete the challenge. These rooms sure make your heart beat, your adrenaline run, and your head try and think under immense pressure. The first room we did was called the Perfect Crime. It was about a serial killer, (It wasn’t as scary as it sounds), and the second on was called the Da Vinci Code. It used all the hints that Da Vinci supposedly hid in his work as a starting point for the story plot. I loved these rooms, and I hope to do more in the future!
More coming soon!
Liv the Explorer
More coming soon!
Liv the Explorer