A lot of catching up...

Geia sas! I know that it's been a very very long time since I've posted anything, so I'll try to hit the highlights of our 10 days in the Peloponnese, 5 days in Athens, and 7 days in central and northern Greece. Instead of putting pictures right in the post, I'll just put up a slideshow, so feel free to browse through at your own leisure.

The Peloponnese was a long, hot trip with lots of poorly-A/C-ed bus time, but nevertheless managed to be really enjoyable. Our first couple days were in Corinth, where we met the infamous Guy Sanders, head excavator at the American School's massive project in Corinth. He was all I had heard about: British, debonair, a bit off the deep end, and an impressive chain-smoker (future archaeologists will have no problem dating the site because there will be his cigarette butts left all around). From there we headed to Nafplio, a really adorable seaside resort town that has a great beach and an even better Turkish fortress called the Palamede, which takes over 1000 steps to get to the top of. We went to see Aristophanes' Frogs (or something called that, but was nothing like it at all) at the famed theater at Epidauros, saw Mycenae and the ruins of Agamemnon's palace (if you believe it), and went to Sparta thinking "this is Sparta?!". Our two final stops on the Peloponnese were Pylos (fun sites, fun town, fun late night swimming) and Olympia, which was one of my favorite sites and least favorite cities. We did manage to see the Prime Minister of Greece in Olympia at an overly dramatic youth political rally, but after lots of impressive music, flag-waving, and cheering, he quickly ducked out of the sleepy touristy town after little more than 30 minutes.

Back in Athens, we finished up the Acropolis, National Museum, and Agora excavations, had a day-trip to Marathon and Rhamnous, and a half-day trip to the Piraeus. While we saw a lot of good stuff, I felt more like I was checking things off of the list than going to see stuff I was really excited about, but it was nice to be in the same place for more than 3 nights. A real treat was getting to see two friends from Princeton, Jess and John, who happen to be in town for the next few weeks, and will hopefully be coming to the garden party this week. Usually though, my nights have consisted of beer/wine and euchre, my new favorite card game, and general silliness on the back porch of Loring hall.

Now to the most recent events: our final big trip, up to central and northern Greece, just concluded today, and may have beaten out the other two trips as my favorite. We spent three nights in Delphi, one night in Volos (ancient Iolkos, home of Jason and the Argo), and three nights in Thessaloniki. Delphi was simply amazing, and Apollo really knows how to pick a spot for a temple -- half-way up a mountain, looking down over a fertile valley and the Gulf of Corinth. Although pretty busy, the site was filled with reasonably well-preserved and interesting buildings and inscriptions, and you could really get a sense of just how packed with monuments, statues, and devotees it would have been. Our first afternoon there was the most eventful, as Chris, Timmy, Brendan, and I hiked up to the top of the mountain (the summit was about 3800 ft), and then Timmy and I proceeded to lose Chris, become panicked that he had fallen to a grisly death, woke up a goatherding family from their siesta, called the police, and found out that we had missed Chris by mere minutes and that he was comfortably at the hotel. Luckily, we didn't have to repatriate a body back to Canada, and Timmy and I will now always claim that we saved Chris' life.

Volos was a bit of a bust, so I won't linger on it. Thessaloniki, though, is an amazing city, and everything I heard about it was true -- very lively and sophisticated, with lots of fun things to see and do. We saw the riches of Alexander the Great and his father Philip II of Macedon -- basically, gold, gold, and more gold. I can't get enough of it! I'm hoping that someday I can finagle getting a gold-leaf wreath of some sort, but I doubt that my paltry classicist salary will allow it. Thessaloniki also has some interesting Roman sites from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, a period that I know very little about, so I was glad that I was able to pick up something from that. Best of all, though, Thessaloniki has party boats that have bars and will take you for a turn about the harbor, so last night we went for a ride on the one that was by far the best, the Caribbean/Afro-Cuban themed one; I managed to restrain myself from playing the conga drums, but couldn't stop my hips from a shimmy or two.

So now I'm left with just 5 more days here in Greece. I already can tell that it will be a bittersweet departure. I miss my loved ones at home, but I've grown very comfortable in Greece and I've adjusted to constant travel and activity, and I worry that I'll feel a little lost once I return to the States. While there are plenty of things I won't miss about Greece, I'm sure that as soon as I go I'm going to be planning when I can come back next -- there's so much more I want to see, and so many places I'd like to return to and to take new people around.

Athens and Attica, Part 2

Upon returning from Crete, I realized that I had left my cell phone in my cabin on the ferry, which was a bit of a financial blow, but took more of a psychological toll than I could have guessed. For someone who loves to be able to call her loved ones whenever the fancy strikes her, I felt really alone, utterly exhausted from the trip, and in disbelief that I still had over a month left to go. Luckily, a good nap always fixes me up, and after I realized that Skype was much cheaper than that cell phone ever was, I perked right up and was ready to enjoy a few days in Athens back at Loring Hall. We had a 4th of July cook-out in the garden behind the Blegen Library, with a bucket of tzatziki, burgers, lamb, salad, fresh fruit, and lots of beer. It was a great chance to unwind, and also to meet some of the people who are digging at the Agora this summer, and with whom we have since spent a couple fun evenings. The community at the American School creates a wonderful atmosphere, and there are always scholars in and out of Loring for meals, tea, and ouzo.
This stint in Athens was devoted in large part to museum trips -- a few trips to the National Archaeological Museum, and one to the Epigraphical Museum -- which are generally interesting, but always cause a terrible case of "museum legs". The other major downside to the National Museum is the street that borders it, which is filled with heroin addicts and crackheads, and the smells and sights cannot fail to make you feel ill. It's so shocking that a country that prides itself on its antiquities and their preservation wouldn't also take care of the neighborhood around those antiquities.
On Sunday, Bob Bridges took us for a tour of "post-antique Athens" and guided us through the architectural phases of the city that are usually beyond our scope. Before the tour, I mainly viewed the modern buildings of Athens as getting in the way of the ancient sites I was interested in, but once I had learned the architectural history and could place buildings in time, I came to appreciate the current form of the city much more. At the end of the tour, Brendan, Colleen, and I went to mass at the Cathedral of St. Dionysus the Areopagite, the seat of the Athenian Roman Catholic Diocese, and a beautiful French-style church. The mass was standing room only, and we were by far the minority ethnicity -- the cathedral was packed with Filipinos and other Pacific Islanders, and Africans, and was a really vibrant community that sang cheerfully, loudly, and mostly out of tune. In short, it was wonderful, and we can't wait for our next Sunday in Athens so that we can go back to St. Dionysus.
Our main site-visits were back to the Agora, where John Camp gave us a study tour of the site as a whole, another journey to the Acropolis (where the dog from our last trip there found us again and joined our group!), and a day trip to Eleusis, the site of one of the most popular religious cults in the ancient world, the mystery cult of Demeter and Persephone. Although the modern town of Eleusis is something like a Greek Scranton, PA, the ancient site is fantastic, and you are able to chart with your eyes the expansion of the cult from archaic through Roman Imperial times. Even though you try to sit and imagine what initiates must have experienced, most of it is just speculation, as all of our sources have kept the cult's secrets.
This post's pictures:
1. Phrasiklea, an Archaic Kore statue
2. Demosthenes, puzzling out his arguments and holding marbles in his mouth
3. The theatral area at Eleusis, where initiates would have undergone the secret rites
4. David and Timmy at the beach near Aigosthena, Bay of Corinth

Crete

Hi! I've been absolutely terrible about putting pictures up and keeping the blog updated, so much so that I'm writing about Crete now while I'm already starting our second trip to the Peloponnese. Crete was an odd trip. I love the island, which seems to be made entirely of rugged mountains, beautiful beaches, and olive groves -- but the site I was most excited about, the Minoan palace at Knossos, was a huge disappointment, and I was thoroughly sick of seeing Minoan palaces by our third day there. Some of the smaller sites were really wonderful though, like the Minoan harbor-town of Kommos, with its ship-galleries fully preserved. The highlights of the trip were Adventure Day (riding up in the back of pick-up trucks to a site, followed by taking a tiny boat to another site), Fun Beach in Mallia (a tourist trap, sure, but a great beach nevertheless), the museum at Iraklio (all of the finest Minoan artifacts), and just watching the constant ride through the mountains. I really can't stress how beautiful the landscape of Crete is, and I wish that we had more time devoted to hiking and swimming, but although our bus says "American Holidays Session 2" we actually do need to learn about stuff.
Here's the run-down of the pictures on this post:
1: Colleen, Timmy, and I at Fun Beach in Mallia
2: The Throne Room at Knossos
3: Mountains, olives, and the sea
4: Chris in the Roman Cemetery/Hippie Haven at Matala
5: Our boat to the site of Mochlos

Athens and Attica, Week 1

Tonight we leave for the island of Crete, so I thought I should try to unload my camera's and my own memory banks of my first week in Athens and Attica. First, my environs: the American School is located in the Evangalismos area of Athens, next door to the British Academy. The neighborhood is a bit ritzy, but not touristy, so prices are reasonable and cafes are plentiful. I'll have pictures of my room, the buildings, and the gardens, but take my word for it, this is no less than an all-inclusive resort crawling with really smart people. My group is a mix of teachers, grad students, and undergrads, with varying knowledge of Greek and Greece, and so far has a great synergy; again, more on people as they come up.

Arrival day was reasonably relaxed, and after everyone had arrived, we took a walk/hike up Mt. Lykavettos to get a topographical intro to the city. One of the pictures attached is a view of the harbor of Piraeus from the top of the hill (with World Cup Sailing going on), and another is the Acropolis.

Tuesday was orientation to all of the facilities of the American School, including two amazing libraries, archives, and an archaeological science lab. The afternoon was a long walk punctuated with many sites, including the Pnyx (where the Athenian assembly met), a temple of Meilichian Zeus, and the Philopappos monument.

Wednesday we were lead to the Agora, and the director of the excavations there, John Camp, gave us an amazingly detailed and informative introduction to Greek architecture by way of the Hephaesteion. We also toured the excavation offices, including the archives and bone lab, all of which are housing in the Stoa of Attalos, an ancient building that was something between a strip mall and a park pavilion. In the afternoon Glen Bugh, a member of the School, gave us a lecture about Greece in the Middle Ages, which filled in probably the biggest gap in my knowledge of the Greek people and state.

Our first trip out of the city was yesterday, when we were lead by Bob Bridges, Secretary of the School, to the SE part of Attica. Brauron was the first site, with beautiful ruins of a temple to Artemis, but a frustrating site because it has never been, and will likely never be, published. After Brauron, we continued on the bus to Thorikos and investigated some Mycenean (approximately 4,000 year old) grave sites, the earliest stone theater in Greece (which was rectilinear, not curved!), and part of the mining site of the Laurion silver mines, the financial lifeline of Athens. In the afternoon we went to the tip of the Attic peninsula to Sounion, which I had been to last summer, and toured the grounds of the temple of Poseidon and a temple to Athena. By far, though, the most memorable parts of the day were the swimming at Sounion, which was not just lovely, but practically necessary, and the intense North winds we encountered everywhere.

Today was a lighter load, but nevertheless eventful. We had our first trip to the Acropolis, and John Younger lectured us on the Parthenon and the Erechtheion. Seeing the Parthenon is the goal of every tourist in Athens, but we (for a short time) were IN the Parthenon -- that is, before the Greek officials got very upset and kicked us out, and gave our director, Gerry Lalonde, a real scolding. We also managed to pick up a dog into our group, who we later named Cecrops (his "tomb" is in the Erechtheion), and who found us again at a souvlaketeria in Plaka! Of course, I also learned a phenomenal amount about the two mammoth buildings, but it would be impossible and/or tedious to relate it all here. But two fun facts: the Parthenon was a treasury, not a temple; and the Erechtheion housed sacred snakes in its basement, along with a huge golden palm tree that came through the roof of the temple itself.

Overall, I can't even imagine all of the stuff I will have seen in 5 more weeks. Even the first day seemed like enough to fill a whole semester-long course, but yet it never seems to end. What makes it even better is that I'm with people who are just as or even more excited than I am about this, whose interests overlap and complement mine in so many ways, and who are simply laugh-out-loud funny and so easy to get along with.

It seems I should try to update these more often, so as not to be so long winded, but we'll see how I do. The pictures go along day by day, and I'll have many more tales and photos when I'm home. Tonight we leave for 6 days in Crete, and hopefully I'll be able to update once or twice while I'm there, since I'm sure I'll have more pictures of blue-monkeys and bull-jumpers than is healthy.

London and Brighton

I know I'm a few days behind, but I've just set up my internet here in Loring Hall at the American School for Classical Studies in Athens, so this post will be a sum-up of my UK times, and hopefully this evening I'll have another post about my first few days here in Athens.

It's always such a treat to get to visit Kelly, and this time was no different. I arrived Friday at Heathrow after a lovely Air India flight (I can't say enough about this airline, so I won't even try here), got settled into Kel's flat in Hammersmith, and then we had a really nice day walking and shopping along the King's Road. Obviously, most things were well out of our price-range, but I did end up getting a sun-hat, and in a stroke of genius and jet-lag, decided that I should and could teach Kel to knit that evening. Apparently knitting really isn't hard, or I'm an okay teacher, because it sounds like I have now created a knitting monster who will hopefully making knitting cool for young UK women to do again, just as the trend in the States is now.

Saturday we took a day trip to Brighton, and no, we did not see the Regiment, but it was a great trip nevertheless. The pebbly shoreline was a perfect place to sit, knit, people-watch, and breathe in the luscious sea-air, and the town also boasts the Royal Pavilion, a bizarre Oriental-style Royal palace built in the early 19th century by King George IV, and a free art and design museum. The shops along the boardwalk have many kitchy souvenirs, but also many artists, and I purchased a small oil painting of a white jellyfish on a black background, which I hope to put in a marine-themed bathroom in my new apartment. Also, as you will see in the photos, I found Buster! Well, a white-chocolate version of Buster, but a remarkable likeness that made me miss him even more than I already do. Overall, it was just great to have time to chat and catch-up with Kel, and see a new part of England that I hadn't yet been to.

Sunday we left bright and early so that I could get to Stansted on time for my Aegean Air flight, which went just as smoothly as my first flight, and is where I will leave off this post.

Pre-Odyssey

Geia sas! I've set up this blog so that I can keep everyone up-to-date on my doings in Greece this summer. Hopefully I'll post something once or twice a week, and I'll be including pictures. Please feel free to respond with comments!