Friday, August 21st - Athens

After spending two and a half weeks or so in Athens last summer through the study abroad trip, I navigated myself easily through the metro system to Omonia Sqr. and up to the same hotel we stayed in the year before. One key thing that happened in this area over the past year (December) was the shooting of a 15 year old boy by a policemen, which occurred near the park across from my hotel. Riots erupted throughout Athens and the rest of Greece as anarchists believed this was the straw that broke the camels back in their belief that the government and police force were becoming too big/overbearing (right). The violence eventually subsided and the city today is as I remember it a year ago, allowing me to immediately revert to the familiar taste of a Savvas pita, and Crepe Mad crepe (Both of which I want to create on campus because they would be major hits for their price and quality, especially in the early morning hours of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!).



After breakfast in the morning, I made my way over to the one site that I needed to see in my limited time in Athens, New Acropolis Museum. The acropolis proper is something that I had seen just a year ago, and would take almost a whole day to discover which wasn’t possible on this trip. When we came to the Acropolis Museum last year, it was only open as an exhibition of the building with not much to see within as far as ruins are concerned. Now it is absolutely packed with remains from the hill, which can be seen out of the glass façade to the north of the building (note the reflection in the photo), that span from the old temple period (prior to Persian Invasion) to the marbles of the acropolis structures as we know them (the Parthenon and its sculptures were completed in 432 BC)! The beauty of the marbles of these great public buildings are of absolutely incredible size and detail, but after many alterations and periods of destruction of the land known as the acropolis most of the marbles were bought by Sir Elgin of Britain in the early 1800’s from the Ottoman Turks. The majority of the marbles he took from that excavation can now be found in the British Historical Museum in London (which I also attended last year). The construction of the New Acropolis Museum is a statement from Athens to Britain for the return of the Acropolis marbles, which has been a long debated issue. There are many stories of improper care of the marbles at the BHM, such as the bleaching of them by a janitor who thought they looked dirty, but the main issue is the implementations this case has on rights to cultural property around the world. If Britain is forced to give back these marbles, what will happen to all of its exhibits from other places in the world? This issue has international implications, spanning continents in the ownership rights to many of the most important monuments in a museum (or for a country).

After long delays because of the excavation of ruins on the site (not uncommon in Greece), the building was finally completed by raising it off the ground (not the class walking area that looks down into the ruins).