Lindsay’s World Championships Diary – Athens, Greece

HELLO from Greece! We finally made it here yesterday after a long, long trip with four different planes!! It was a very long trip and yesterday was horrible, I went to bed at eight and slept the entire night. It is really nice here, besides the smoke. Everyone smokes and I am not used to it, but it is a very pretty city. Everywhere you look there is an apartment building or some type of place to live it is crazy. It is also very hilly, which I didn't expect, which makes the city even more beautiful. The city itself is rather crowded with about three million people. Everyone drives, which makes the traffic and smog bad, but we get police escorts and I live in LA, nothing has changed!! It is hard for me to imagine an Olympics being held here, in 2004, but I am sure things will change between now and then. And there is so much history, which makes it cool. The pool is actually nice, (I wasn't expecting it to be) it is very big and very clean. However, the only problem seams to be that we can only be able to find one bathroom. It makes things a little difficult.

We were able to do some sight seeing today, we went to the acropolis. It is beautiful. I was so amazed that it has been there for almost three thousand years. It was gigantic, I can't believe people actually built it so long ago without the technology we have today. Needless to say I was in awe. It is so hard to describe in words, but it was remarkable. I sent some pictures, I hope you can get some idea of how pretty it was and how much history there is. We had a tour guide who explained all the history of the acropolis, it was so mind-blowing. We also were able to see the first modern Olympic stadium. Which was another wonderful site. I am going to run out of adjectives trying to describe how fantastic all these places are. I can't believe how much history in this town, I remember studying about all these places and now I am actually here, it is crazy. On our tour yesterday the guide told us that they are building a subway system in Athens to get ready for the 2004 Olympics. As they were digging down they discovered the first school of Aristotle now that doesn't happen everyday!!

Okay, enough about he fun sight seeing, we are here for a meet that starts in a day. So today we get to sit in the hotel room and rest. I am glad for the rest and for the extra days I am spending here to see the rest of Greece. I am looking forward to racing internationally again. It is always fun to compare yourself to the best in the world. All of us here will be looking at the NCAA results to check on our teammates and compare times. I have never rested for a short course meter meet, like many Americans, so it will be interesting to see how we do.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use