In Which Caroline Finally Goes Near the Acropolis!

After my first full day of classes (which were fabulous, by the way) a bunch of girls from my Ancient Greek class headed out to Varnava Square in Pangrati to get gyros. They were tasty- we all got chicken (or kotopoulo, if you want the Greek word) and the place that we went to also made very good tzatziki. A question, for people who have had Greek gyros before- do they always have French fries in them? We were curious.
Afterwards, we headed back to the academic center, where three of us met up to walk over to the Herodion, where we had tickets to a flamenco show. The walk to the Herodion is very nice, and you get to walk by several monuments of interest- this is Hadrian's arch. Also on the way was the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which I actually did not get a picture of. Don't worry, I'll get one at some point. We walked past some partially excavated Roman baths on the way back as well. This is a picture of Athens taken from the outside of the Herodion Theater (or the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, if you prefer), which is located at the southern side of the Acropolis. It was actually not this dark when I took the picture- I think it was around 8 pm, and at that time of night it's still pretty light out) and the view of Athens was very nice.
Here is a picture of the theatre from the inside- as you can see, it's an open air theater. The front is, I believe, original- it was built some time in the second century A.D., though at moment I can't be bothered to look up an exact date. 160-ish, I think. The seats inside are not original- they were restored somewhat recently. The show was very good, but I think the really cool part was the atmosphere. I mean, where else can you sit in an outdoor theater watching a show and be within sight of the Parthenon?
(Which is, by the way, the blurry triangular thing that is above the lights in this picture. I'm sorry, it was dark.)

This is the closest that I've gotten to the Acropolis since I have gotten here, and it was the first time that I got to see ancient things up close. It's funny- since I'm here for four months, I'm not in such a rush to see all of the archaeological sites and museums as I would be if I was only here for a week or so. Before I left, I would have told you that I was going to see the Acropolis the first day. Not so much.