travel tuesday | the acropolis of athens

I explored Athens, Greece with my eyes trained upward. You can see the Acropolis nearly anywhere you are in Athens. That's the first thing that captured my attention about it. Confusedly wandering down city streets the night we arrived, passing by a sandwich shop and stepping on uneven cobblestones, my girlfriend Callie and I stopped to consult our map and our gaze moved upward toward street signs, and we looked right into the illuminated facade of the Parthenon, sitting high atop a hill not too far from where we stood. For the next four days, everything we did in Athens, I stopped en route to gawk at the Acropolis, sitting there in in all its ancient grandeur, calmly and confidently saying, "I've been here for 2,500 years. What about you?"

As a student, I was always a nerd for social studies. To this day, I cry indiscriminately at displays of democracy - seeing the White House (even after 3 years in DC), a candidate winning from a grassroots campaign (even when I disagree with his/her entire platform), the President shaking hands with a reporter, The West Wing. It all gets me. In Athens, I was moved to tears when I saw the Acropolis up close and personal. The Parthenon, the very structure and architecture of it, represents democracy, the birth of western civilization, classical ideas, the ancient roots of the country in which I now live and thrive. Standing on top of the Acropolis, I experienced a small part of the birth of democracy, and it felt bigger than me, far, far bigger than any of us, it felt like freedom. 

It's all for Athena. The most iconic image of the Acropolis is the Parthenon, dedicated to Athena, the goddess of Athens. It's so perfect that even in 30 years of renovations, architects still admire how they got the lines curved just so to make them appear perfectly straight. But nearly every structure and temple on the Acropolis is dedicated to Athena in one way or another. My favorite structure is the Erechtheion - dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon, although we know who really won that battle... 

Olives matter even on the Acropolis. Callie, Jess, and I swapped Greek mythology stories while we walked around the Acropolis. My favorite: Poseidon and Athena both wanted control of the city, so they challenged each other to a battle for it. They met at the top of the Acropolis, and instead of fighting, each had a chance to present a gift to the Athenians in the hopes of winning them over. Poseidon, god of the sea, gave them water, but it was salty, and the people couldn't drink it. Athena, wonderful goddess she is, grew an olive tree that could sustain the people, give them a specialty crop that could produce oils coveted by every other city around. Athena won. (As though Poseidon stood a chance.)

The view is astounding. I didn't expect to like Athens, truth be told. When Callie and I planned our trip to Turkey and Greece, we only planned to stay in Athens for a few days and figured we'd do day trips to other notable sites. But when we got there, with that first sighting of the Acropolis, and the first friendly Greek greeting we received, and the first overflowing Greek salad we ate, and the first restaurant owner who shared carafe wine with us and welcomed us to Athens, and the first time I wandered down a stupendously steep hill to a bustling market (and heaved back up it), and the first time I sounded out the name of a Greek word - finding the alphabet some old place in my memory, I was head over heels. And when I stood on top of the Acropolis, taking in the entire city beneath me, standing on the very highest point built by an ancient civilization to be closer to the gods, I had to fight every urge in my body never to go home.