Greece with Kids: The Acropolis, Falafel, and Feral Cats

Y'all, this is about to get ridiculous. Our entire trip to Greece was seven days, but that included two full days of traveling, so although I took a couple of pictures of fun/not fun travel logistical stuff, let's just say that I took five days' worth of photos.

And five days' worth of photos is?

Ummm.... 874 photos.

In my defense, we were in GREECE!!!! Where everything is new and amazing. Where the ancient architecture makes lovely angles. Where there's a beautiful alphabet on every street sign. Where the skies were blue and sported nary a cloud. Where my family never all smiled or kept their eyes open at the same time, necessitating fourteen shots for every final photo, and even in that final one not everyone would have their eyes open or be smiling.

In conclusion, buckle up for lots of posts with lots of photos and lots of gushing words.

The children seem happy enough for airplane adventures, so even a full 24 hours of travel and three separate airplanes and three separate security screenings didn't wear them down too much. I normally get pretty near assaulted by TSA officials every time I travel (I have a theory that every middle-aged mom they target allows them to profile 20 or so brown-skinned people while still keeping their numbers looking even), but that didn't happen nearly as much overseas--I didn't even have to take my shoes off during one screening!

Of course, round that off with the fact that we randomly had to remove all of our books for the security screening at the Indianapolis airport (do you KNOW how many books Will and I had packed?!?) but the kids got to keep their shoes on, and that we didn't have to remove our books (although I had prepared for this) at JFK but DID have to remove our tablets and the kids had to remove their shoes, and in between those we unpacked all of our stuff and repacked 90% of it, because United doesn't have free checked bags and Swiss Air does, so on our United flights we packed all of our crap into our carry-ons, along with two rolled up duffels, and then before we checked in for our Swiss Air flight we got out the duffels and switched most of our stuff so that we could take a break from being pack ponies.

You know what else Swiss Air gives you? A meal on every flight, even a two-hour one! And on our eight-hour flight we got two meals! And personal screens so that we could numb our discomfort with movies. I watched Passengers and referred to it so much in Greece that I made Matt watch it on the way back so we could talk about it together.

Also, I just need to tell you this: if you recline your airplane seat, you are a bad person, full stop. No excuses, unless the seat behind you is vacant, which you know it's not. I don't care that you can't sleep if your seat is not reclined, because you being only slightly more comfortable is not worth the misery of the person behind you. On all of my flights, the person in front of me reclined their seat from the second they were told they could until the flight attendant had to come by and make them put it up again as we were landing, and I promise you that it was hell to live with. And I am very short. Please don't be a seat recliner.

Here are the kids just before our last flight. We're about 20 hours into the journey that began the previous day at 8 am, and we still have that flight, then customs and baggage claim, then our van ride to the hotel, and then we can check in.


You can tell they're tired, but they claimed to still be having fun, and in fact, during this entire trip, they barely complained and they fought even less. It was a pleasure to take them traveling.

In that photo of Syd, she's getting her doll out of her bag to play with. Remember in the winter, when Syd worked her tush off to sell over 1,000 Girl Scout cookies? She wanted to use her cookie profits to help the Humane Society (and this summer, she IS! It's her Bronze Award project!), but she also really, really, REALLY wanted the 1,000+ prize, which had a few options, one of which was an American Girl doll. I'll tell you more about her another time, but in short, please meet Zelda, Syd's new American Girl doll.

In that photo of Will, you can see to the left an older fellow. He took approximately 40,000 photos of Syd blithely immersed in her doll, and I think even some video of her brushing her doll's hair and futzing with her outfit, etc. Syd was completely oblivious, and although it's tacky, for sure, to photograph someone without their permission, he was so clearly some random tourist from some random country that I gave him a pass. We were about to do so much gazing about at other people's everyday lives that it didn't really bother me to spend some time being the object of another gawker's gaze.

Speaking of something to gaze at... check out the clown car that we flew to Athens in:


Apparently, Swiss Air likes to customize the livery on some of their planes.

We did a little wandering around on foot when we got to Athens later that afternoon, found sunscreen, got ourselves fed, but let's just fast-forward to the next day, after a good ten hours of sleep and a nice, big breakfast (our hotel's buffet was short the full English breakfast by the beans and the black pudding, but had a doohickey that let you fresh-squeeze your own orange juice, and real Greek yogurt is even more delicious and not as tangy as American Greek yogurt, and you're allowed to stir jam and honey into it and put walnuts on top!), when we met up with our tour group for a tour of the Acropolis.

These devices that you'll see in all of our photos look super dorky, but they're genius:


When we wear these and the connecting single earbud, our tour guide can talk to us at a normal volume, and we can hear her entire spiel at both the super-crowded outdoor sites and inside the super-quiet museums. I was ambivalent about how it was going to be, touring in a herd led by a guide, but actually, it was awesome. I always want to know all the things about everything, and tour guides both know all the things and deeply desire to tell them, as well, to you. We understood what we were looking at and why far more than if we'd toured on our own.

And here's what we were looking at!

This is actually the view of the Acropolis from the third floor of the Acropolis Museum, which you'll see later, but it's my best shot from outside the area.

I was surprised to learn that lots of Greek cities had an acropolis, since in Greek it just means the "highest point in the city," from the Greek άκρος and πόλiς (my Greek improved a LOT during this trip!), but this one, of course, is THE acropolis.

Here's what you can see before you ascend:

In the foreground you can see the facade of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a concert venue since 161 AD through the present day. In the background is the Temple of Athena Nike, which used to have a "wingless victory" statue, because if your Victory doesn't have wings, then she can't fly away, can she?

Here's my admission ticket, with the Parthenon in the background. I told you that before we left for this trip, the kids and I were learning Greek phonics so that we could sound out words. I had a harder time with diphthongs and blends, but since there are so many Greek root words in the English language, I found out that if I could sound out a word, I could often figure out its meaning, as it was often a cognate.  I spent the entire trip trying to sound out every single word I could find--I simply couldn't help myself. It reminded me of the kids when they were learning to read--I wonder if they experienced that same compulsion, because I know they, too, tried to read every word they saw!

This one's not a cognate, but it's good to memorize so that you always know where the entrance is.

You climb the hill to the Acropolis, then enter via the Propylaea, with the Temple of Athena Nike past that on your right. Here's more of the Propylaea:

I've cropped out most of the tourists, but this place was packed. It was by far the most crowded site of our trip, but it was about par for the course in temperature; on most days, the temperature where we were hovered between 38-40 Celsius. For those of you who haven't had a crash course in temperature conversion, that's 100-104 Fahrenheit. And we were generally on bare, baked ground surrounded by marble ruins. The kids quickly got used to it, and there was little complaining, and the tour guide kept us well hydrated, but it was distinctly uncomfortable, and apparently my face would get so red that total strangers would become concerned for my health.

Interesting fact: if a column is completely reconstructed, it's to show you where the ceiling was and how high it was.

Here's more of the Temple of Athena Nike:

At this site, the original marble is the weathered brown, and the restorations are white. In other places, the marble weathers differently, though, so you can't always use that as your guide between old and new.

Once you make it up the path, whose original steps are as slick as ice (the Greek people must just be used to walking on all that marble all the time, but I about fell on my butt eight thousand times on this trip--marble is SLICK!), you really are at the highest point in the city:

This spot is Areopagus Hill, where there was a court where Ares, for one, was tried for murder (regular people were also tried there), and where the apostle Paul gave a famous sermon (Paul had a LOT of things to say to and about Greece). It was decorated on this day because it was Paul's feast day.

Here's what you really want to see, though: the Parthenon!

It's taking a lot longer to restore the Parthenon than it took to build it, which makes sense when you realize how many prior "restorations" are having to be repaired and redone, as well.

I really like this photo Matt took, in which you can see all of the restoration equipment. Also, see how the vertical columns are perfectly parallel? If you've paid much attention to tall buildings, or even railroad tracks, you know that straight lines don't look parallel from a distance. These columns actually taper, so gently that they'll come to a point 3 miles up, but so perfectly that they correct our vision distortion.

You can also see the pieces labeled and organized around it, ready to be replaced.

As you move around the Parthenon, you can get perspectives that aren't so busy with construction equipment.

Only one of them has her eyes closed, and they're all smiling!

Oh, look! I'm here, too!

I really like this photo Matt took of me: neck craned like a tourist, open-mouthed in awe, face beet red, getting myself some more water, wearing my dorky orange Whisper, the Temple of Olympian Zeus in the background.

Here's what you can see from the Southern side of the Parthenon:

Theatre of Dionysus, where Greek tragedy was invented

Temple of Olympian Zeus--we walked over there later in the day, so I'll show you more of that later.

another perspective of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus

The cleanest views of the Parthenon are of its east side:

Check out the tops of the columns, waiting to be replaced.

There's also more original surface to walk on here:

Slick as ice, I assure you, although worth it to step on the footprints of thousands of years.

You go around, then, to the north side--

Check out the intricacy of the reconstructions added to the original pieces. How on earth could they place these broken pieces in exactly the right spot?

--and to the Erechtheion, which is my favorite structure of the Acropolis:

My favorite structure of the entire trip may have been the Porch of the Caryatids, here with reconstructions so that the Caryatids can live in the Acropolis Museum. I'll show you the real Caryatids in a minute.

After drinking our fill of the structures, we walked back through the Propylaea--

See my two adventurers, with the Temple of Athena Nike in the background? See that slick-as-ice marble under their feet?

--and met back up with our tour group to walk over to the Acropolis Museum. One of our fellow tourists had bought herself an ice cream; I was super jealous.

During construction of the Acropolis Museum, archaeologists had discovered settlements from the Byzantine and Roman times, so they put a glass roof over them, and you can see them throughout the ground floor of the museum:







Pictures aren't permitted in most of the Acropolis Museum, but my second favorite part was the floor dedicated to the surviving relics damaged when the Persians sacked the Acropolis during the Greco-Persian War. This was after the Battle of Thermopylae, the site of which I'll show you later! The Persians deliberately broke up all of the statuary that they could find, and when the Greeks  regained the city,  they simply buried their desecrated things. This was lucky, because it enabled archaeologists to discover them later and they're displayed in the museum with the damage purposefully not restored, but the pieces set up so you can see them as a whole despite the missing parts. I'm not describing it well, unfortunately--too bad I couldn't take any photos!

Here's my first favorite part of the museum, and something that we COULD take photos of:

Here are the original Caryatids from the porch of the Erechtheion, on a raised pedestal so you can walk all round them. Lord Elgin took the sixth one,  so her spot is left blank.

See me fangirl!

You can also take pictures on the top floor, where the original metopes and friezes from the Parthenon (the ones that Lord Elgin didn't remove with dubious permission and that the British Museum absolutely refuses to give back)

The pieces are displayed as they were on the Parthenon, in a room lit by natural light during the day but illuminated at night, and surrounded by picture windows that look out at the city, but most particularly at the Parthenon just across the street.

Many of these pieces are damaged because Elgin, even if he didn't want an entire metope or frieze, would chisel out a piece that he did want, an elegant turn of the foot, say, or an enchanting background.

In Greek mythology, centaurs do a lot of raping and murdering. Every time we came across a centaur sculpture, I'd sigh to myself, knowing that the kids were about to get an eyeful.

I love seeing my kids so enthralled.

After the rest of our tour, we ended up back on the Plaka adjacent to the Acropolis, where we ate some gyros--



--petted one of the hundreds of seemingly happily feral cats of Greece--



--and walked around a little more in history before going back to our hotel for a shower and a nap.

And then we went out again and saw even more things!

DIY Spartan Armor from Duct Tape, Paper Bags, and Cardboard

We've been studying the city-states of Ancient Greece, and while I agree more with Athens, come on. Who doesn't actually love Sparta the best?

Well, I should really call it Λακεδαίμων,  because I'm trying to get my Greek phonics up to speed, but Sparta is what we've learned to call it, so let's go with that.

The kids and I read and studied the chapters in Story of the World volume 1 about Athens vs. Sparta and the Greco-Persian Wars. I'm hoping to get through the Peloponnesian War next week. Story of the World isn't a complete curriculum for the older child, of course, but it is an excellent spine, easy to look at and say, "Okay, this chapter is the Greco-Persian Wars, so let me find some more great resources and activities to give that more depth and context."

We found some websites and online videos--

• BBC Ancient Greece: The Greeks at War--has more information on Sparta, the Greco-Persian Wars, and the Peloponnesian War
• British Museum Battle of Salamis Game--you're on a trireme, ramming the other ships.
• Battle of Marathon timeline--this is a GREAT resource for understanding the Battle of Marathon
• Ancient Greece: Persian Wars--an easy-to-read history of the Greco-Persian War
• TED-Ed Lesson: What Did Democracy Really Mean in Athens?--Watch the video and do the reading and follow the links.

--and read and watched some resources from the library--

While Syd was away at a slumber party, Matt and I even ordered pizza and let Will watch 300 with us. It's VERY violent, but the military reenactments are okay--you can see what a phalanx is, although in your head you have to imagine the soldiers as more rangy than ripped. We showed Syd just the iconic "This is Sparta!" scene, because it's in Story of the World, as well.

Our big project for this unit, however, was to make some Spartan armor. I saved some large pieces of cardboard from the box that my new treadmill (yay!) came in, and bought some gold duct tape. To that we added brown paper bags from the grocery store, a couple of Sharpies, scissors, and gold paint.

For the helmet, we followed the suggestions from this tutorial, using gold duct tape to make the helmet bronze, though, and of course my older kids were able to cut out their own helmets themselves:



I showed the kids (yet again, sigh...) how to use string and a pushpin to make a compass for circle drawing, and then the kids made their shields out of cardboard--shields three feet in diameter!!!

The most authentic Spartan shield embellishment would be a giant lambda, but even the Spartans at one point got to design their own shield embellishments, so those hand-me down shields would still have been seen at any battle, and why on earth would I deprive my younger child of the chance to fight with a unicorn on her shield?



We also didn't put on the horsehair crest--it was in vogue for a while, but not always, and the kids didn't really want to add anything else to their helmets.

Besides, don't you think that Syd is fierce enough without it?



We'll be too far north on our travels to see the location of Ancient Sparta, but we ARE going to drive right through modern Thermopylae!

A Children's Bedroom Update: Work in Progress

While the kids were at camp, you might think that I'd be in high gear prepping for our Greece trip, or perhaps whittling down my note-book-sized to-do list, or maybe even chilling out in bed with Netflix and ice cream.

Yeah... no. Instead, I decided that it was the perfect time for another bedroom revamp. The last time I've done anything with the kids' bedroom was when they were at camp two years ago and I ripped out the giant closet in their room to make a nook the perfect size for their bunk bed.

It was a big improvement at the time, but even then it sorely needed painting, and the walls were uneven and unappealing, and two years' worth of clutter and treasures and candy wrappers have since built up and been stuffed into drawers and bins and behind bookshelves every time the kids "clean."

So that's where I spent much of my five days--moving furniture, sorting stuff (so many candy wrappers. So many rocks!), spackling things, taping off, painting walls, visiting Menard's, visiting Menard's again, moving the furniture back, hanging all the kids' pretty treasures, and vacuuming about every five minutes.

The bedroom is by no means finished--Matt is right this second on his way to Menard's yet again to buy the materials to make a platform that will loft the bunk beds a little, and I need to sew curtains, and then after the bed is lofted we have a whole slew of other pretty things to display, and then we can figure out the outlets--but it was finished enough that we could pick up the kids from camp this morning, bring them home, and surprise them with what is practically a brand-new bedroom:



I'm surprised every time I do it by what a world of difference a fresh coat of paint makes. The kids' room, like the rest of the house, hadn't been painted since before we'd bought it, but while the rest of the house still looks okay, their walls had gotten pretty bad. Inspired by Will's collections of dragons and swords and Syd's collection of magical ponies, we were going for a vaguely medieval castle look, and so chose to repaint their room in grey. I've heard that grey is the worst for looking different in different lighting, and that's true, because this grey actually looks lavender in the morning sunlight, but lavender is also a lovely color, so there you go.



Will has been longing for a place to display her sword collection ever since she got that first one, so this was a priority. She's got a couple of kid-made swords (including this Minecraft one!), to add, but she'll have plenty of room on this wall to expand her collection.



This top shelf had been crowded with just everything--treasure boxes, more boxes filled with rocks, a couple of canisters filled with more rocks, fancy hats, tons of empty wine and beer bottles (fun fact: the kids collect interesting wine and beer bottles; Matt and I basically let them choose our alcohol based on the bottles that they like), and some old candy wrappers. You couldn't see or appreciate anything, and there was nothing on the walls.

I moved everything around, severely edited that bottle collection (they can surely get more!), and chose to display here just a few favorite things: Will's fencing mask, a couple of souvenirs from a past trip to France, Syd's crown from her first Trashion/Refashion Show, a dragon from Will's vast collection, two fancy masks, and a perfectly preserved butterfly that Syd found lying dead in the grass one day.



I gave this stained glass dragon to Will for Christmas, and only now found a place to hang it for her.



This is Syd's side of the dresser, and the shelves where I removed hundreds of candy wrappers and neatly rearranged the remaining treasures. Now Will has a full shelf for her dragon figurines, Syd has a full shelf for her treasure boxes, and there's still room for Will's Waldorf doll, her horseback riding trophy, and a few more containers of rocks.

Syd has her photo album, camera, bush knife, and ballerina doll in her basket, her solar lantern next to it, and her Nutcracker posters above it. The kids need to help me put some of the stuff back on their shelves, because I forgot who many of the little figurines and random bits and bobs belonged to, and you can tell that we deeply need those curtains that are on my to-do list.

There are still other plans to come--I'm refinishing their light switch cover and a couple more picture frames, and after the bed is lofted Matt is going to add shelves, and wire the room for more outlets, and we can mount the artwork that the kids want next to their beds--but an hour after arriving home from camp, the room makeover has already had one big payoff:



Toys that had been forgotten about are once again revealed!