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.