Purchased In Athens, Assembled in Lawrence

While in one of the museum gift shops in Greece I purchased this...for lack of a better word....paper doll set of the Greek God Poseidon. These can be found in pretty much all of the key museum shops and they have sets for all the main deities.  I never got around to putting mine together and had sort of forgotten about it until I was unpacking our stuff from moving back down to Lawrence.

 

So let's unpack this!  Here is the God of the Sea in only two dimensions. 

 
The square head of the Poseidon. There were no instructions included but it was nearly idiot proof. 

Thank goodness I waited to put this together because I can only imagine the headaches it would have given me in getting it back to America.  I would probably have just found a good home for it in Latvia!  

Our Lock On The Love Bridge

One of the earliest posts I wrote after arriving in Ukraine was about the "Love Bridge" we found exploring Kharkiv.  We decided that we would certainly have to take part in the tradition and leave a lock on the bridge before we left the country.  Tracking down a lock that would work for us was a little bit difficult but we did and with a little added permanent marker we were ready to go.

We picked a place on the north side  of the bridge...

...and I enjoy how our red lock stands out compared with the other ones.  Who knows what it will look like in a year or even whenever we make it back to Kharkiv.  

The tradition that goes along placing the lock on the bridge railing is that you also throw the key into the body of water that the bridge is above.  Well, we really couldn't toss our key down onto the street below so we kept the keys for a more appropriate time and a better location.  

How about off the coast of Mykonos?!

We tossed our keys into the Aegean Sea and hope to one day make our way back to Kharkiv and see if our lock is still there.

A Mykonos Sunset Sped Up

About a month ago I posted a video of the sunset in Santorini and while we were on Mykonos I recorded another beautiful sunset.  If you can tolerate watching six plus minutes of a slow moving sunset you'll notice many posing tourists who stepped in front of the camera while I was recording.

 

Bender From Futurama In Ancient Greece

During my visit to the National Archaeological Museum I came upon this carved tablet and...

...all I could wonder was there ever an episode of Futurama in which Bender went back in time to Ancient Greece?

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens

If you happen to live in a horrible alternate universe in which you can visit Athens but you are allowed to visit just one museum, you must visit the National Archaeological Museum.  For some people, the reason would be the depth of the collection honoring ancient Greek culture.  For me, it is the inclusion of one piece I've always wanted to see, The Mask of Agamemnon.  When archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the mask placed on face of body he thought he had found the burial site of the Greek hero Agamemnon.  The dating of the golden mask has found it is not old enough to be from the same time period attributed to Agamemnon but the story is great nonetheless.  

One of the recent additions to the museum was an exhibit highlighting recovered treasures and statues from sunken Greek ships.  As you can see, having spent centuries in salt water has destroyed much of the marble statues except for the parts that ended up covered by the sand and dirt at the bottom of the sea.

Here are the surviving parts of a bronze statue.

And now a close up of the face.  What a remarkable beard!

One of the largest and most imposing statues was this bronze piece of possibly Zeus or Poseidon.  The question is did the sculptor intend to have him hold a lightening bolt or trident.

One of the most interesting pieces was this sarcophagus which may not seem too remarkable at first... 

...but with a closer look you will notice that the head and the body don't seem to match very well.  This is because as Athenian cemeteries became more and more crowded these sort of tombs had to be reused and as they were the faces of the statues were changed.  Unfortunately, this gentleman had his head placed on the former tomb of a woman. 

Sure, it is missing its head, arms, and legs but the detail that remains on the armor is amazing.  

Now this is what I call a belt buckle.  

And there is no way I can finish a post on ancient Greek statues without posting one last photo.  

Marvel With A Mango: Birthday Dinner Follow-Up

You may remember a few weeks ago I wrote about visiting a nice little Thai restaurant called "Tamarind" on my birthday while we were in Athens.

After continuing on our trip to some of the Greek islands, we returned to Athens briefly before catching our flights home.  The hotel we stayed at was close to the original apartment we stayed at and so in our travels we walked past the Tamarind restaurant again...although this time something seemed to have changed.

All the seating in the class enclosure was gone...

 

...and there was a lock on the front door. 

When we ate there on my birthday we were the only customers in the place and so I wonder if we were possibly the last customers that ever ate there.

Graffiti #15: Graffiti Around Athens

I was expecting the graffiti around Athens to be some of the best I seen on my trip.  After all, some of the earliest examples of "ancient graffiti" are from Greece and Egypt so we're talking centuries of experience.  Plus, I imagined the economic crisis could have provided many empty/abandoned spaces to be drawn on along with many people looking for an outlet of their emotions and passions. Whatever the true motivation, Athens didn't disappoint.  

Athens also had the first store I've seen devoted to graffiti.

You can pick up your favorite brand of paint.

But the graffiti right outside the store was more than a little disappointing.

Park a subway train car in one place long enough and this happens.

And last but not least, a simple yet funny addition to a swimsuit advertisement.