Athens: Day 7

Another slightly dreary day in Athens, but it was still tons of fun. We went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Panathenaic Stadium, and the New Acropolis Museum.

The ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus (not to be confused with the Temple of Zeus at Olympia), are a very visible landmark, especially from above, because of the lush green ground cover contrasted with the pale marble columns. In some ways we found this site much more impressive than the Parthenon. Being of the Corinthian order, these columns are taller, more slender, and have more elaborate capitals than those of the Doric order at the Parthenon.

Steve acting Napoleonic

Big'ol columns

Abby is half as tall as the columns.

There was a pretty lichen or something that gave them this almost rusty look.

We then went on an audio tour of the Panathenaic Stadium. It was very impressive,but we were a little disappointed to learn that only one or two pieces of marble are from the original stadium. It was still very impressive, considering that much of the restoration was funded by benefactor, George Averoff. 

Steve couldn't afford first class seating.

A view of the stadium from the top of the seats. 

After the stadium, we walked through another Christmas village outside of the palace.  These reindeer were pretty cute.

A Christmas tree with cute little houses around it.  Behind, in the tent they had an ice skating rink set up.

They even had some amusement park rides set up.  Steve really wanted to ride the swings.

After the village, we walked over to the new Acropolis museum.  Like so many other sites in Athens, the new building was built on the site of ancient ruins.  They did a great job showing off the archelogical dig that is going on under the museum.  The outside had great open areas where you could look down on the site.

Inside the museum, the floors were made of glass, so you could look straight down onto the site.  There were even glass floors on the second floor so you could see down from even higher.  Not great for anyone who's afraid of heights, that's for sure!  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take cameras in, so no photos of that.

*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*

Catch up on the rest of our adventure:

Athens Day 1 

Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia 

Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation 

Restoring Faith in Traveling 

Playing the Ethics Card 

Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit

Athens: Day 2

Roommate Antics

Athens: Day 3 Part 1

Athens: Day 3 Part 2

Athens: Day 4

Athens: Day 5

Athens: Day 6

Jeddah and Cairo Make the News

I was going to post the next part in our Athens vacation recap, but instead I want to show you a bit more about what's going on near us.  So I'm going to talk about rain again.  It might seem strange that the only weather I talk about here is the rain, but it's because it has a huge impact on the people here in Saudi Arabia.

It rained again on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning here.  It wasn't really worth updating about, because for us, it had little negative impact.  The leaks we had last week had been fixed, and held tight this time, so the only inconvenience was having to ride our bikes home in the rain.

Sadly this was much worse in Jeddah.  Here are two videos of the flooding.  I saw the first one on Facebook from another student on campus, and the second one was posted at Susie's Big Adventure.





As much as I wish I could say this was a one time weather catastrophe, it wasn't.  The same thing happened in November 2009 and left Jeddah in much the same state.  Promises were made to improve the infrastructure, but in Saudi fashion, 14 months later, little has been changed.  What makes this sting even worse is that as part of WEP, a Saudi businessman came to speak.  He talked about how Saudi Arabia has benefited by avoiding investing in foreign countries.  He expressed how much better off Saudi Arabia was because they kept their money working at home.  Clearly there is some disconnect when keeping Saudi Arabia's money in the country can't even provide a safe city for it's people to live in.

In other news, there have been huge riots in Cairo and throughout Egypt about the recent elections.  Considering that we were just there a few months ago, it was shocking to see places we recognized filled with angry protesters.




So that's what's going on in our little part of the world.  We'll be back tomorrow with more pictures from Athens!

Athens: Day 6

We had a lot of fun this day.  The night before we had franticly Facebook messaged with a friend from school who was going to be passing through.  We started off walking through the Ancient Agora, killing time until we headed to the Syntagma metro station where we were going to meet our friend who had a big Athens layover.  Unfortunately, her flight ended up being significantly delayed, and it was absolutely pouring in the afternoon, but despite this, it was still a great day.

Disassembled column in the Agora.

Beautiful little church in the Agora.

Huge pile of stones that were part of the buildings of the Ancient Agora.  I'm guessing that they don't know where they belong, so they store them all together in huge piles.  This was pretty common at many of the archeological sites.

The Agora was an administrative and mercantile center of the city, with many very large buildings. There were public baths, and even a water clock. In the picture below you can see the reddish porous stones that formed a sort of foundations for one of the stoas.

Steve walking through the Agora.

Little church tucked in among the cute houses and lush greenery.

Finally a visit to the Temple of Hephaistos, which we'd seen from above on several occasions. Note the curvature of the columns' profile, called entasis.

Posing in front of the temple

I loved this headless statue.  The details are impressive and the stance is so expressive.

A tripod pillar, which is so different than all of the other columns and pillars we saw in Athens.

In the afternoon, we spent some time hanging out in the metro station watching the umbrella sellers avoid the metro security, and then ducked into a little cafe for some excellent drinks when it decided to absolutely start pouring.

*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*

Catch up on the rest of our adventure:

Athens Day 1 

Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia 

Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation 

Restoring Faith in Traveling 

Playing the Ethics Card 

Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit

Athens: Day 2

Roommate Antics

Athens: Day 3 Part 1

Athens: Day 3 Part 2

Athens: Day 4

Athens: Day 5

Not Throwing Good Money After Bad

Have you ever gotten a gift that turned out being a big money suck?  Well I think I've gotten one of those: my cell phone!  When we arrived on campus back in August, the university was kind enough to have Mobiliy SIM cards ready and waiting for us.  They were even preloaded with 100 SAR ($27) worth of credit; all we needed to do was go out and purchase a phone.

This has been a really good solution as we don't make many calls here and our apartment also has a land line phone which is free for local calls.  Fast forward three months and now we're running into problems.  It turns out that credit purchased for pre-paid phones has an expiration date.  This alone doesn't make sense, as it's not something that can physically spoil or go bad, it's simply a tool used by Mobiliy and other cell phone providers to increase profits for low end users.

Initially we thought purchasing more credit would be a good solution, but the amount of time the new credits will extend phone service is lack luster.  To get an additional two months of service, we would need to add 60 SAR ($16) of credit.  While this seems like an inconsequential amount of money, especially when compared to the $100+ monthly cellphone plans that aren't uncommon in the US, it is still spending money that we know won't be used.

It took me 3 months to use 40 SAR worth of credit, so why would I spend an additional 60 SAR for only two months of service?  When it comes down to it, I'm just not willing to send money to a company that won't offer the level of service I need.  And I certainly won't pay extra for what I know I won't use.

So, it looks like I'll be abandoning my cell phone in favor of the land line.  Don't worry, if it doesn't work out, the phone has two months of inactive status where the it can be reactivated for free.

Anyone else have terrible cell phone stories to share?

Almost Didn't Get to Snorkel the Red Sea

Steve and I have only been out on the Red Sea once since we got here.  That was in October during Eid.  Last week, I got another chance to go out on the Red Sea, this time as part of a WEP class I was taking about Marine Science.

Unlike the first cruise, which went very smoothly, this snorkel trip resulted in a very long wait at the Coastguard station while the inefficiencies of work flow showed themselves once again.  So, why did we get stuck waiting over an hour just to get permission to go out in the open water?  Lack of paperwork.  Boating here isn't quite the same as it is back home.  Everyone who wants to go on a trip must be pre-approved, including a passport/iqama check.  While this isn't suppose to prevent anyone from going boating at school, apparently it's become a greater problem in the last few months.

From what I've heard, the problem they've been having stems from the fact that single women aren't permitted to go boating as it would require non-familial mixed company.  Again, this isn't supposed to be an issue here on campus, but apparently the Coastguard didn't get that memo.

As a result, we ended up eating snacks and tanning, hoping that somehow all the necessary paperwork would manage to move quickly enough so we would actually have time to get in the water.  However, we did manage to have a funny/awkward moment while waiting; sitting in the harbor with "When a Man loves a Woman" just feels awkward knowing there are a bunch of Saudi men inside the office determining the direction the boat will go.

By 11 or so we finally got permission to continue our trip.  On the way out, I even saw a dolphin surfacing in the distance.  By the time we got to the dive site, we got about 30 minutes of snorkel time, for what ended up being a 4 1/2 hour trip.  Go figure.

However, the snorkeling we did get to do was awesome.  I saw parrot fish, clown fish, angel fish, big groupers, a dog faced puffer fish, two sting rays, and much more.  Sadly, most of the coral where we were ended up being dead.  The summer bleaching was apparently especially harsh across the Red Sea, and the Pacific areas so the instructors thought that might have killed the coral.  Despite it being dead, we still got to see a wide variety of corals such as brain coral, branching coral, mushroom corals, and more.

A Red Sea nemo! We saw a lot of clownfish while we were snorkeling.  Did you know that male clownfish turn into females? (source)

Angel fish, although ones I saw were much more blue than yellow. (source)

Surgeon fish, which actually have a small blade near their back fin that is pretty sharp. (source)

A large clam, we saw so many like this.  They were definitely my favorite part.  The colors were pretty varied too.  Lots of purple, blue, and green clams all with different patterns.  The clams would actually snap shut if you got too close! (source)

The school runs snorkeling trips every Thursday which are six hour trips, so maybe that will give us more time to snorkel in the future.