Global Institutions - Athens, Greece

The half term begun early as I had to bring students to the Model United Nations Conference at the German School of Athens. I am proud to say that my students performed very well in this 3 day conference of intense student debates and simulation of the committees in the United Nations. In addition to that, we had the chance to tour around Athens, soaking the warmth and sunny days, even managing to swim outdoors albeit the lower than average pool temperature. The supervising teachers to the conference were even treated to a free day out to Nemea, where a pre-modern Olympic stadium still stands and attempts to restore a temple to Zeus is still ongoing.

Although this was my second time in Athens (the first time being last Christmas with the family), this city did not fail to impress once more. "Crisis: What Crisis" still played in my mind although I did manage to nerd out and tell my students a little bit about the Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis when we were in Syntagma Square, in front of the Parliament. Revisiting the Acropolis, the Greek Academy, the Acropolis Museum were all still very interesting. A guided tour organised by the conference at the Acropolis museum definitely added more to it this time around, with additional commentary by a few history of art students from my college.

The Greek Academy

A few evening swims in the rooftop of the hotel we stayed in definitely topped this trip off. It was a very cold pool but satisfyingly refreshing. In addition, the sunsets from there were breathtaking, with colours painted beautifully across the Athenian cityscape.

Although Sunday was supposed to be our last day in Athens, a slight cock-up on the flight booking side of things meant that we had one extra day in Athens. Being stuck in a foreign city for an extra day is definitely not something that I would complain about! With Athens having so much more to offer, we had to decide whether we wanted to explore the city further or head to the seaside. The majority wanted the city, so the city it was. We finally made it to the shopping area and had some free time going from shop to shop. It was difficult to leave the city at the end of the day, but we had to. We should have extended the trip to go to Santorini.

View of Athens from our hotel rooftop

A cold foggy night greeted us back in Cambridge and it was bye for a week to the students.

Half term holidays to continue......