Election week and more

This past week has been very busy and exciting in many different ways. On Sunday we were invited to do a scavenger hunt of sorts with other HAU students. The scavenger hunt was fun because we were able to mingle with some of the Greek students but it was not truly a scavenger hunt because a good chunk of the things that we had to find was information that most of us went to the Hellenic Union Library to look up online. We did have to go around Athens and find something and takes pictures of different sites which was fun. I rode on a motorbike for the first time which was both fun and terrifying all at the same time. At least this motorbike did not hit a taxi. After the scavenger hunt everyone met up at a taverna in Plaka for lunch.
Monday afternoon for class Ioanna took us to the ancient agora which was really amazing. There was only one significant building that was left standing and much of the site is over grown with shrubs but it was still very fascinating because the details of how the agora was laid out was very clearly defined and there were still statues and pieces of structures left standing. There is a museum as well and everything in the museum was found on site. The most interesting things in the museum were the voting devices including a black balling machine and voting discs to ostracize someone. An other interesting thing about the ancient agora is that some legendary ancient figures met there and spoke there such as Sophocles, Pericles, and Socrates. It was really fascinating to walk in their footsteps and see the places where they spoke and changed the course of history.The highlight of the week here however has to have been the election. Everyone waited up to see Barack Obama elected as the 44th president of the United States. Unfortunately this meant waiting up until the polls on the west coast closed which did not happen until 6 am Athens time and then we waited up to hear the speeches by both McCain and Obama which did not end until 7:30 am. It was fun to stay up and watch the election though. Some of us stayed in the apartment and had pizza and coffee and basically had a party in the living room while we were waiting. The only downside to staying up was classes. Morning class was canceled thankfully, but we still had an afternoon class which no one was very focused for because everyone was so tired.