Athens

Today was very busy. We woke up bright and early and had a big breakfast in order to prepare for our three concerts. First, we were off to the First Evangelical Church of Athens to play during their church service. In order to follow along during service in Greek, we were given headsets that played an English translation. From there, we were off to the Church of Christ. This was a very special church that holds four services every Sunday, one each in Greek, English, Bulgarian, and Russian. We played after the Bulgarian service at 12:30, enjoyed a lunch of sandwiches and coke, and then played again around 4:30 before the Russian service. The audience was very appreciative of our music. At the end of our performance, the minister blessed our group and then gave a red rose to each of the ringers. It was very touching.

For dinner, we walked to a local pizzeria. Many ringers liked Greek pizza more then Italian pizza because it is more filling since the crust is much thicker. We then came back to the Bible School and relaxed for the rest of the evening. Some of the ringers went to the local coffee house to watch the final of the World Cup soccer game. While most of the Greeks rooted for Italy, they were much, much, much less enthusiastic than the Italians we joined for the semi-finals, but I guess that is understandable. Other ringers hung out around the school and relaxed from the long day. Tomorrow however, we will be able to sleep in a lot because our first scheduled event, the Greek acropolis tour, is not until 1:30.

Some views of Athens

The morning began with an 11:00 a.m. brunch of toast, sausage, cheese, olives and bread. From there, we toured our housing accommodations at the Bible School and then off to the Acropolis. While climbing up the hill to see the Parthenon, the views of Athens were breathtaking. The tour was guided by Dino, our hosting minister from the day before. He kept us entertained with his widespread knowledge of Christian and Greek history.

Afterwards, a celebration for Suzanne's 18th birthday occurred with singing and 2 delicious cakes made by Samantha Reid and Ben Rothschild. Just to let everyone know, the cakes were supposed to be made within 15 minutes but it took about 15 minutes to get the English translation. We then headed to a summer church camp for children between the ages of 6 and 15 years old. The children were enthused and excited by the performance before them. It was pleasing to see 8 year old boys ringing along to the songs and wanting to ring/mallet the bells as our team members did. The night ended with much needed sleep and dreams of the next day being spent in Athens.

Group photo by the cow that can read (Charles)

Again we decided that a late breakfast would be the best thing for our team of high school teens. We then had some free time to walk around the town or do anything that needed to be done, time to find public transportation tickets (we had to beg and borrow from friends at the Bible School) and time for Mr. Carr to find more coffee.

Around 2:00 we left on public transportation and went into the city of Athens. The metro was by far the cleanest one we've seen in our travels. When we arrived in downtown Athens, we saw a giant McDonalds sign and lots of shops for everyone to explore. We then split off into groups to see the different parts of Athens and get some souvenirs. When we had time for food we were finally able to experience some of the Greek classics, like more gyros and some amazing baklava.

Our concert was unique for the ones that we have played thus far. We set up the tables on the side of a street outside the First Evangelical Church and simply played for the tourists and passersby. Fortunately, the local police received no complaints, so we were allowed to continue playing even though we had no official permit. Everyone seemed thoroughly entertained and many people came up to us to tell us how much they enjoyed it. Not many people seem to have experienced handbells and they all say that they have a "magical sound".

Our evening ended with some authentic Kabobs at a restaurant around the corner and lots of good company.