Day 12: Athens to Athens (Dust to Dust)

We made it to most of sacrament meeting today. (It was extremely hard to find and then we had to park 3 or 4 blocks away.) The mission president and his wife -- who sounded like they're leaving after having completed their 3 years -- both spoke. She's from Australia and spoke in English, he's a native Greek (though I don't think they lived in Greece before their mission) and he spoke in Greek -- with translation). Next, we climbed the Acropolis and surveyed the birthplace of democracy. The Parthenon isn't as "intact" as they make it look in pictures, but it's still breathtaking (and it's in pretty good shape for being built in the 5th century BC). We also pondered Paul's speech about the "Unknown God" (in Acts 17:22-32) as we gazed down on Mars Hill. Alice says that sometimes one "ruin" doesn't seem any different than any other, but for me, it's an exhilarating feeling to stand where Socrates, Aristotle, and the Apostle Paul once stood. We had an early dinner -- I had souvlaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souvlaki) and Alice had spaghetti (we had the same thing yesterday in a little "down-home" cafe on the outskirts of Corinth that was much tastier) -- then we went back to our room to rest up (and COOL OFF) before our boat trip tomorrow. We'll be on a cruise of the Greek islands our last 4 days. There's supposed to be internet service on board, so I hope to be able to update the blog each day. Picture 1: Late last night, I discovered that there's a pool and restaurant on top of our hotel -- this is a view of the Acropolis from there; Picture 2: A view of Alice and the Parthenon (and scaffolding) from the east; Picture 3: A view of the Parthenon (and me) from the west; Picture 4: Mars Hill (in the foreground with people on it).