Thanksgiving!

It was fun giving thanks with the Harrison family in Utah!

As usual no pictures of the food but there was lots of it and it was very good!

Had a new dessert one night called Pumpkin Pie Cake.  Wow, that was yummy!

 Emma is taking yoga in school and she got her sisters doing some of the poses:

 We got to hear all about Julia's experiences so far at BYU:

We played lots of games including: Qwirkle:

Guess Who in the forefront and cooperative game The Captain is Dead in the background:

We also played two new games: Over Under and Think 'N Sync

(which I will be bringing to play as we visit our other families!)

We worked on a puzzle.  After it was finished the girls named all of the owls!

 Got a selfie with Julia!

Helped with outside Christmas decorations...

 ...and inside ones too!

 Tried something I saw online: The Saran Wrap Ball game:

There were lots of prizes involved!

My view when I became The Great Dalmuti:

So thankful for a great visit with a great family!

Mediterranean 3: Mars Hill and The Acropolis!

Mars Hill

"The biblical significance of Mars Hill is that it is the location of one of Paul’s most important gospel presentations at the time of his visit to Athens during his second missionary journey (Acts 17:16–34). It was where he addressed the religious idolatry of the Greeks who even had an altar to the “Unknown God.” It was this altar and their religious idolatry that Paul used as a starting point in proclaiming to them the one true God." 

"Mars Hill is the Roman name for a hill in Athens, Greece, called the Hill of Ares or the Areopagus (Acts 17:19, 22). Ares was the Greek god of war and according to Greek mythology this hill was the place where Ares stood trial before the other gods for the murder of Poseidon’s son Alirrothios. Rising some 377 feet above the land below and not far from the Acropolis and Agora (marketplace), Mars Hill served as the meeting place for the Areopagus Court, the highest court in Greece for civil, criminal, and religious matters. Even under Roman rule in the time of the New Testament, Mars Hill remained an important meeting place where philosophy, religion, and law were discussed."

If the people in the above picture turned around, they would see this view of the Acropolis.  That is how close they are to each other.

These are the very slippery steps leading up to the top of the hill.

They also have other steps that are safer off to the side but these may have been original.

 A view from the Acropolis looking down on Mars Hill:

The Acropolis

"The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon or Temple of Athena." 

 The light parts are restoration and the darker parts are the original:

 Theatre of Dionysus

 From the theatre looking out into Athens:

 The Erechtheum with the Porch of Maidens

 Parthenon

 Artist's rendition of what the Acropolis may have looked like:

I couldn't believe all the people that were there from many different countries.

Can you spot Dan with his camera?

Interesting quote: " It is amazing, if not surprising, to discover just how much of today's society have their origins in Ancient Greek society. The arts, sports, medicine, law, language, science, mathematics, philosophy, buildings and even some inventions, have all been greatly influenced by the Ancient Greeks.

Ancient Greece was one of the first major civilizations of Europe. Ancient Greek culture officially lasted from the eighth century BC to the seventh century AD, but their height was in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, a period that was so influential on Western culture that we call it the Classical era."

It was a thrill for us to be here!

Mediterranean 2: Acropolis Museum!

Our first morning in Athens we went as a group to the Acropolis Museum.

"The Acropolis Museum  is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also lies over the ruins of a part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens."

It is a new and beautiful museum. "It opened to the public on 20 June 2009.  Nearly 4,000 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square metres."

This was our tour guide, Maria, and she was exceptional.

Current excavations going on right under the museum!

Here are some professional photos of the interior of the museum as there were very few areas where photo-taking was allowed. 

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We learned a lot about the Greek gods and goddesses as well as different types of sculptures.

Pediments:

"Pediments are large triangular shaped niches, which contained impressive sculptures, located high up on top of the Parthenon. One pediment is located on the east side of the building and another on the west. The sculptures on the east pediment tell the tale of the birth of the goddess Athena, while those on the west depict a battle between Athena and the god Poseidon to determine who would be the patron deity of Athens. The size of the sculptures varied depending on how close they were to the apex (the highest point) of the triangle."

This is a miniature of of one of the pediments.

Frieze:

A frieze is a decorative band, an architectural ornament usually between the architrave and the cornice

 The Parthenon frieze, depicted the Great Panathenaia, the greatest festival of the city in honor of the Goddess Athena. The festival took place every four years, lasted 12 days. The frieze consisted of 115 blocks. It had a total length of 160 meters and was 1.02 meters high. Some 378 human figures and deities and more than 200 animals, mainly horses, are presented in the process.  From the entire frieze that survives today, 50 meters are in the Acropolis Museum, 80 meters in the British Museum, one block in the Louvre, whilst other fragments are scattered in the museums of Palermo, the Vatican, Würzburg, Vienna, Munich and Copenhagen.

Here is a close up:

This is the view out the top window of the museum to the Parthenon.  

It was awesome to see all of the artifacts found there and then to see the actual building out the window!

Porch of the Maidens

"Since the Roman era, columns shaped like women have been called caryatids.  The Athenians, however, called them korai (maidens).  Each Acropolis caryatid may once have held an offering plate or vessel in her outstretched hand (none of the fragile forearms survive). 

The Porch of the Maidens, as it came to be called, was a closed side chapel of the Erechtheum, a jammed, multilevel amalgam of three small temples named for Erechtheus, an early king of Athens. 

 One of the statues was among the Acropolis sculptures removed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople. Now in the British Museum whose return has been demanded by Greek patriots, that caryatid is in better condition than its five companions, who were eroded by acid pollution in modern Athens. In 1979, they were moved to the Acropolis Museum, with fiberglass replicas put in their place."

It was a thrill to see these statues from approx. 406 B.C.!

A gift from Australia: The Parthenon in Legos!

I was really amazed at the volume of artifacts and artwork that have survived over two thousand years.   We enjoyed our time in the Acropolis Museum so much!!