Day 11: Epidaurus, Mycenae, Athens

This post was written by Sam and Robert:

Today we started out with a long bus ride to Epidaurus. We spent the majority of the time sleeping with one stop for food and water on the way. Epidaurus was a huge, ancient theater that has great acoustics; you can hear a person talking at normal voice from the top row. It is also able to seat over 20,000 people. Mr. Labonte read a passage from the Illiad with most of the students sitting at the top row and we were able to hear him. We then took a few minutes to look around the temple that was in the area before we departed for Mycenae.

When we got to Mycenae we found out we only had 30 minutes before it closed, which made presenting a challenge. Robert Backer first talked about the history of Mycenae which was very interesting. It was founded in 3000 BC and was overrun by the Dorians in 1100 BC. Then the awesome Sam Ettenson talked about the Lions Gate which is a giant slab of rock that has two lions on it and weighs around 12 tons. Then the cool Robert Backer talked about the Grave Circles and told the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. The awesome Sam then talked about the Palace of Mycenae which was the largest in Greece at the time. Then, the awesome Sam talked about the Cistern which was where they stored water in case of a drought.

Then we left for Athens and the girls had a thumb war over Robert which was very entertaining to watch. On the bus ride we also had to write recomendations for next year's students for their presentations. We then got to the hotel and got settled in our rooms; shortly after that, we went to dinner. Our group consisted of Sam, Robert, Nathan Landau, David Guido, Jordan Reichlin, and Dave Whitson. We had dinner and we tried to see if Sam, Robert, and Nathan could finish the two stuffed burgers we had. We all finished them somehow. We then came back to the hotel and wrote this blog.