Going Somewhere?

By now you must be wondering how I seem to be getting to all of these wonderful places here in Greece (and if you aren't, I'm just going to tell you anyways). We use the handy dandy public transportation system! 

Parliament building where the changing of the
guards takes place. 

It's really quite amazing. If you want to go somewhere, sayy, downtown to Monastaraki where all the tourist shops are, all you have to do is hop on a bus to get to the station, then take the metro to whichever stop you need to get to. Okay, it may be just a little bit more complicated than that, but still, it's super convenient, especially for someone who doesn't have a car (this girl). 

Here's a fun fact about the metro that I bet you didn't know. The reason it took Greece so long to first build up (or down in this case) the metro is mainly because every time they started digging, they would run into some kind of ancient ruins, and everyone knows that you can't just throw this kind of stuff aside, it's got to be examined and handled with care. So nowadays if you take the metro, you will be pleasantly surprised every once in a while with complimentary ancient art on display (no museum entrance fee!). 

The only not so good thing about the metro is that is does take a little bit longer than it would by car, there's not always A/C, and during certain times it can get rrreeealllllyyy crowded to the point where there are lots of people sandwiches being formed. Now that may seem like a lot, but it's much better that having to worry about keeping up with a car (aka, paying for gas, insurance, maintenance, parking, and any fender benders), it's a cleaner alternate, and you could maybe even make some new friends on your way to work...okay probably not that great of an idea but you never know!

Cool overhanging vines down at the Gardens!

Anyways since we don't have a car here (thank goodness, traffic is insane!), I've been taking full advantage of the metro system here, almost on a daily basis! Today, before class, a few friends and I went down to Syntagma where we checked out the National Gardens (perfect weather for it today), did some shopping (can you say discounts?!), and we got to see the changing of the guards in front of one of the parliment buildings (cool stuff!), all before class! 

Unfortunately tomorrow, we will most likely not be able to go anywhere before class because we have our final to study for, but by 4:30 we will be forever done with that class and free for the rest of the weekend, yayyyy! Come to think of it, that means we can go downtown after class! Thank goodness we've got the metro so we can go whenever we want :D Any who, I gotta go study for my exam tomorrow, we've got to know a bunch of history and the significance of all the Greek art that we've visited here in Athens (those field trips are coming back to haunt us), wish me luck!