Attika, agapi mou

It's 6:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, and I'm sitting in my own bed with my laptop and a cup of fresh FILTERED coffee. Mmm.

I pretty much slept for 9 out of the 11 hours during the flight home, had a nice dinner with the fam (vegan meatloaf- haven't had that in a while!) and hit the hay by 9:30. Strangely enough though, I woke up around 4 and couldn't really fall back asleep... must be the time change and such. I figure it will take a while for me to readjust back. Until then, I probably won't be sleeping like a normal human being.

EST - 1, MORGAN - 0. Sweet...

It feels so strange to be back in the states. The snow, for one thing, is a bit of a shocker. There's just so much of it!! And the air is so bitter cold! I thought it was cold our last few days in Athens but this is just horrid! Driving home with my dad from the airport was an interesting ride because I slowly began to absorb the difference in the landscape around me. It feels so strange not to see green fields of orange and olive trees, colorful Mediterranean style buildings with orange tiled roofs, cerulean blue skies, or the limestone silhouette of the Acropolis in the distance. Instead, I see WHITE. White picket fences, white snow, a white bleak sky, white colonial style houses... Almost the complete opposite.

During our farewell dinner at a local taverna, my Greek Art History professor, who is a world-renowned archaeologist living in Greece, told me to contact him if I come back to Greece and he would give me a private tour of any site I wanted to see. For me, it's not a question of if- it's a question of when.

While I was living in Athens, I met many people who- like me- first became acquainted with Greece through a study abroad trip with their university. Each one of them told me how that was the beginning of their "love affair with Greece," because they just continued to come back until they made the decision to move their permanently. I can already see this happening for me. There is something about Greece, almost like an infection that just takes completely over you the longer you stay- and you either get it or you don't. And once you get it, there's no cure besides giving in and going back.

This trip has really extended my knowledge of ancient Greece and it has showed me all the opportunities in careers that Greece has to offer me. I've also discovered a real passion for the Bronze Age period as well as Archaic art and architecture, and I think that this is something that I would really like to get into.

There is so much to do in Athens (let alone Greece) for someone like me who is interested in what I'm most passionate about. I feel like it would be silly not to consider living or at least going back to Greece in the future. We only merely touched upon the surface of what Greece has to offer-- with over 2,000 islands and all of the Peloponnese and mainland Greece, one month is just simply not enough time.

So, I guess my next language to learn will be modern Greek then...

Thanks to all who read my blog and experienced Greece with me. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe even learned a little something too. I had the most amazing time and I've returned home feeling refreshed and missing Greece, agapi mou, already.

Yassus for now :) and polla filakia! (as they say in Greece which means "many kisses")

I hate packing.

It's our last day in Athens and it's raining. Greece is crying for us!

I HATE packing. Hate, hate, HATE it. The only thing worse than packing, in my opinion, is UNPACKING. Bleh.

We took our Greek History final yesterday morning and then went back to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens to finish looking around. It's a huge museum though, unfortunately, much of it is closed off due to a shortage in staff. There are a lot of labor strikes going on right now in Athens- one being the public transportation. We're lucky Pangrati is pretty much within walking distance to everything we truly need.

We just had our Art History final this morning. I got an A+ on the Art History midterm so hopefully I'll do well on this exam too.

Since our plans for the day are somewhat on standby considering the weather (I was gonna go for a nice long run around the stadium, then all of us girls were gonna walk around Pangrati, Plaka, Monasteraki, go shopping, stuff our faces with baklava... ya know), we're going to get some packing done and wait it out. Hopefully things will clear up soon!!!

I am SO sad that it's our last day. I honestly can really see myself living and working here in Athens. There is just so much to do here in Greece, with over 2,000 islands, how could one ever get bored? It's official. After I graduate, and do a bit of traveling, I'm moving to Greece. Sorry Mum, Dad, but you'll just have to come and visit... or move too.

Tonight we have our graduation ceremony at the Athens Centre followed by a farewell dinner at a local Greek Taverna and then possibly staying out until 6 AM in Gazi seeing as we'll have a full 11-hour plane ride to catch up on some sleep.

Last Weekend in Attika!

On Thursday, we got let out of class early, I went for a nice long run and then afterwards Sami and I went to the “Benaki Museum” in Plaka. The museum was fantastic, the building itself is a beautiful classical style structure made out of white marble. The museum was really unlike any I’ve been to before because it had artwork of all periods starting from Neolithic all the way up to present day, and the most interesting thing was the way they presented everything- they mixed modern pieces amongst the ancient ones so as you were looking through geometric pottery from the 600s BC, suddenly you would come across a modern sculpture that would just kind of make you stop and think. I really enjoyed it.

We stayed there until about 8:30 and then we headed off to downtown Plaka to have some dinner. We ate at the same restaurant we had gone to for lunch the day we saw the acropolis. The taverna itself is literally at the bottom of the acropolis so when you look out the window, you can see the lights from the acropolis and the parthenon glowing in its immensity and glory. We shared the “seafood platter” which was a fairly good size plate of tuna salad, vinegar octopus salad, fried calamari, grilled shrimp, and anchovies. It was absolutely delicious! Probably one of my favorite--if not my favorite--meals I’ve had here thus far. The seafood tasted so fresh and it really hit the spot. After we were finished, the owner of the restaurant offered us a complementary traditional greek dessert, on him, and of course we accepted! He gave us a huge plate of revari which is a honey soaked spice cake and a raisin sorbet with bourbon caramel sauce drizzled all over the plate. Yes, I ate some! It was incredible and the greatest part was after that meal, I didn’t feel yucky or overly full because we had walked so much that day and after dinner we walked around Plaka a bit more and then had to walk back to our apartment. I’m loving the lifestyle here- no wonder everyone is so lean despite the amount of carbs they seem to eat! They walk all the time! After that meal, Sami and I kept saying how we could totally live here. Even though I’m not much of a city girl, I could really see myself living and working in Athens. There’s so much to do in Greece, so much history, it would be almost impossible to run out of things to do!

Friday it rained ALL DAY. It was an awful awful day. It was windy, cold, wet. Sami and I attempted to go out anyways but that just ended up being an awful idea. We got soaked and were miserable. We decided to head back to the apartment and just work on some homework. Boring.

Today seems like it’ll be a little better in terms of the weather. It’s a bit nippy, very cloudy and a little windy but hasn’t started raining yet. I just did 8 miles at the track and now I’m going to meet up with Ally, Julie and Sami at the Acropolis Museum to explore Plaka some more. I’ve decided that Plaka is my favorite section of Athens! It’s gorgeous, quaint and more quiet than other parts of the city.

Unfortunately, I no longer am able to get wifi in my apartment for some reason which totally sucks! So I won’t be able to post as regularly as I have been doing in the past. We won’t be doing a whole lot of sightseeing this last week-- just finishing up classes, writing some papers, final exams, and then we have our graduation ceremony at the Athens Centre on Thursday evening with a ceremonial farewell dinner at a local taverna to follow. Then, we leave for the states! So sad :’(

Saturday night, after us girls shopped around Plaka, Mary, Samanatha, Ally, Julie, Phil, Zach, Sami and I all went out to a club in a district of Athens called Psiri. It’s similar to Gazi in the sense that it has a bunch of clubs and bars except it’s a little less touristy and expensive, and its a bit rougher around the edges and more locals tend to go there.

The club we went to was called “Vega” and in order to get in you either had to be on their list or make friends with the bouncers. Obviously we did the latter. The club was pretty crazy, the bartender was a transvestite, and for once everyone--even the greeks--were dancing! Normally they just kind of stand there, purse their lips, and bob their heads to the music and check you out as you walk by. Us girls just kind of stuck together like we always do and had a good time. We got home around 5, ate hummus in our semi-drunken stupor and passed out. Great night.

Sunday, Sami and I woke up late (naturally)- I went for a nice long run at the stadium while she did some writing in her travel journal and then we went window shopping in Monasteraki (all the shops close by 5 o’clock on Sundays). we walked around forever, just getting lost in the city, which is really the best way to explore. by seven, we were thirsty so we stopped at a cafe to have some coffee and a little nosh to refuel before heading back home. Once we got home, we took a three hour nap before getting all dressed up for our last night out in Athens! We went to this really cool bar in Plaka that we have walked by in the day time and have always said that we should check it out at night. three of the four walls are lined with shelves holding bottles of house-made liquor in every flavor and color that you could possibly think of- mandarin, raspberry, coffee, lemoncello, chestnut, green apple, banana, pistachio... you name it, they got it. The fourth wall had two large shelving units that were holding huge barrels labeled “ouzo” and “brandy.”

While Sami and I sipped our drinks and chatted, this "lovely" Greek man whom I shall nickname "Eyebrows," due to the fact that he had a unibrow situation going on above his eyes, came over and sat next to us. He and his friends-- who were all about 40 ish-- had been eyeing us since we walked in. He was kind of drunk, didn't speak much english and very creepy. Just another night in Attika for ya!

Delphi

Wednesday, we woke up at the crack of dawn to drive 3 hours to the town of Delphi which houses the Temple of Apollo and the very place where Greeks from all over would come to consult the oracle. Delphi is an amazing archaeological site all in itself. It's nestled along the southwestern slope of Mount Parnassus, and at the top there is even a bit of snow!

From the entrance of the site, continuing up the slope to the Temple of Apollo itself, are numerous remnants of votive statues and treasuries, which were built by the various Greek city-states (mainland Greece and overseas) to commemorate victories and to thank the Delphic oracle for her advice, which was thought to have contributed to those victories.

The most impressive is the reconstructed Treasury of the Athens (shown above), built to commemorate the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in the Persian Wars.

After the Athenian Treasury as you continue along the "sacred way" leading up to the Temple of Apollo, you find the "Sibyl rock," upon which the Sibyl (the first oracle at Delphi) is said to have sat to deliver her prophecies.

Delphi is not only the Greek mythological site of the Delphic oracle- the most important oracle in the ancient Greek world- but it is also the sanctuary of Apollo, a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python (a deity who lived there and protected the "Naval of the Earth"). Shown in the two pictures below is what remains of the Temple of Apollo, a Doric temple in the typical style of Archaic architecture- austere, simple, lacking in ornate decoration.

This sacred precinct of Apollo in Delphi was also a panhellenic sanctuary where every four years athletes from all over the Greek world competed in the Pythian games, one of the four panhellenic games and a precursor of the modern Olympics games. Shown below is the mountain-top stadium where some of these competitions took place. It was quite a hike to get there!

The view from the top was absolutely incredible. Once we made our way back down, we took a short bus ride to the next town Arachova to have a lunch break. It basically looked like a Greek version of Straton- it's a mountain town and there are ski shops galore!

We didn't get home until dinner time on Wednesday, due to the three hour bus ride back. It's Thursday now and I'm sitting in my Greek History class. We just got our midterms back, I got an A! Waahooo!

It's actually a sunny day today (we've been having a fair amount of rain lately here in Athens, and it's supposed to POUR all day tomorrow!). I plan on going for a nice run at the stadium later and then maybe bumming around Athens for the rest of the day.

As I mentioned before in earlier posts, we have this Friday off and about half of our group is actually flying off to Rome tonight for the weekend. The rest of us are staying here and doing some day trips which I'm excited about. Can't believe we only have a week left!!!

Last Day in the Peloponnese

On Sunday, our second day in the Peloponnese, we got up early, had breakfast at the hotel and took a hour-long bus ride to the Mycenaean citadel "Mycenae." I know I keep saying this for just about every site we go to but this was most definitely one of my favorite sites thus far. There was a lot to see at Mycenae. First, we saw the "Treasure of Atreus" which is a tholos ("beehive") tomb. It's name really doesn't pertain to anything in regards to whom the tomb belonged to (no one actually knows since looters took pretty much everything from the tomb shortly after it was built).

Tholoi (pl. of tholos) or "beehive" tombs, as they are accurately called, are deemed as such because of their beehive shape. They are tombs built completely above ground, unlike previous burial methods at the time, and are absolutely fantastic. They are strictly Mycenaean; before the Mycenaeans adopted this unique burial practice, they had been using shaft/circle graves like the Minoans had done before them. These tholoi look like something out of the Lord of the Rings movies. They are made completely out of  local limestone and there originally would have been a large wooden door covering the entranceway as well as wooden columns outside, decorated and painted of course.

From afar, it looks like a large mound, but when you go inside you see how complicated the building technique is, especially for this era, considering they used no adhesive or anything- just simply manipulating the force of gravity in order to create a spiral of limestone block after block up to the very top as you can see in the picture below which shoes the ceiling.

This one, the "Treasure of Atreus," is the most well-preserved example of a tholos that we have today. It clearly was built for someone of great wealth and social status. It is so amazing to actually go inside it. The thing is massive, to say the least.

Afterwards, we went inside the citadel walls of Mycenae and went through the famous "Lions Gate," the main entranceway into the citadel. Another example of cyclopian masonry- notice the size of those boulders!

When you walk beyond the city walls and make your way into the citadel itself, you find Grave Circle B, an example of a shaft/circle grave, in which the infamous "Death Mask of Agamemnon" was found along with other gold Mycenaean death masks, ceremonial weaponry and other precious materials.

At the top of the citadel, there is an underground cistern. The corbelled passage is just wide enough for two people to stand side by side and it leads to the underwater cistern, 18 meters below the surface through a steep, descending path paved with stone. The cistern itself at the end of the path is a quadrilateral roofed shaft and collected water through clay pipes from the natural spring that lay outside the citadel walls.

When John, our Art History teacher (and not to mention an attractive, Greek/American, world-renowned archaeologist... don't even get me started), said that we were allowed to go all the way down if we wanted, I was the first to jump up and start heading down. Kurt and I lead the way with a flashlight while the rest of the group went behind us. It was a little scary and kind of insane but definitely SO worth it!! When we finally go to the end, we took a few candids and of course I had to write my name on the wall :) the rest followed suit before making our way back up out of the deep, dark tunnel. The light was blinding when we got out at first.

Afterwards, we got back on the bus and headed back to Nafplion for a quick lunch and then back on the road for Epidaurus where we saw the most amazing ancient Greek theater. See for yourself!

It is completely still in tact and its acoustics are incredible (we tried it out). If you drop a coin in the center of the stage, the people all the way at the very top of the theater can hear it as clear as day.

It started to rain right as we were getting back on the bus for the two-and-a-half hour ride back home to Athens.

It's Monday now, and it is raining again :'( It didn't start until around 3 o'clock this afternoon which was fortunate in my case because I was able to get a nice long run in beforehand. We had our Art History midterm this morning. It was fairly challenging, a lot of information to remember and write down in a short amount of time, but it was all fair game. Most of the class thought it was too hard, but most of them aren't Classics majors as I am.

After class and my run, Sami and I walked into downtown Athens even though it was raining and had some filtered coffee; Sami had fresh, homemade, hot chocolate. Even though the walk back was pretty miserable, it was nice to go out and do something rather than just sit in our apartment for the rest of the day since we don't have anymore studying to do or papers to write at this point in time.

Tomorrow morning we meet at the Athens Centre at 10 to go to the Byzantine Museum. It's supposed to be really great.

That's all for now! Time to get into my jams, do a bit of laundry, and perhaps write my postcard to Meeshi (she specifically asked for one) :-) xoxo

"non licet omnibus adire Corinthum"

The famous Roman poet Horace is quoted as saying, "non licet omnibus adire Corinthum" which translates to "not everyone can go to Corinth" due to the expensive living standards that prevailed the city. But here we are!!

After a crazy night in Gazi, and literally having ONE hour of sleep, we took a 7:30 AM bus ride to the Argolids- more specifically, the city of Corinth. As we crossed the Corinth Canal, the scenery and architecture began to change and I could tell that we weren't in Attika anymore.

Corinth is much more rural but with a beautiful ocean backdrop. It's a narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese to mainland Greece (basically a halfway point between Athens and Sparta). The city has two main ports: one in the Corinthian Gulf and one in the Saronic Gulf. In the Corinthian Gulf lay the ancient road Lechaion, which connected to ancient city to its western colonies and Magna Graecia, while the in the Saronic Gulf the port of Kenchreia served the ships coming in from Athens, Ionia, Cyprus and the rest of Levant. Today, we visited Lechaion (shown below) part of which passes through the Corinthian agora.

At the Corinthian agora, there was also the Temple of Apollo which was built around 550 BCE. The Temple of Hera (located at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia) and the Temple of Apollo were the first earliest surviving Greek temples that we have today. These were the models that people used in order to build the Parthenon a century later.

Stylistically, the Temple of Apollo is referred to as "austere" because of the severe aesthetic presentation that it provides. As you can see, it is very simple and yet the columns are not perfect; when you look closely, the fluting is crooked. There is also a complete lack of sculptural decoration, which were too expensive and time-consuming at the time. All the columns are in the Doric order (there are four main temple orders, as they are called- Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Aeolic). Nevertheless, the Temple of Apollo gave way to some of the most fantastic buildings in the world such as the Parthenon.

Afterwards, we hiked all the way up to the acropolis of Corinth, known as the "Acrocorinth," which you can see its fortified walls of the citadel on the top of that mountain above. Yes. I was on the top of that. The VERY top of that.

It is arguably the most impressive of the acropoleis on all of mainland Greece, and the north side overlooks the beautiful, blue Gulf of Corinth.

It was a 30 minute hike to the absolute top. There were a select few of us that actually decided to venture all the way up and when we finally got there, the view made you feel like you were in an airplane, that's how high up were were. Insane!!

Yes, that is my sneaker at the very edge!! Ah!!! And for those of you who happened to read my Facebook status today, yes, I peed here as well. I couldn't help it! When you gotta go, you gotta go! It was a nice view at least :)

It was a little scary descending down because the pathways (when they are present) are cobble and they can get very slippery. Some people ate it on the way down. Slow and steady wins the race, kids.

Afterwards, we took a quick visit to Tiryns, a Mycenaean citdel in Corinth. It's fortification walls are so impressive, 15-20 meters high, 20 feet thick, made of huge boulders. The Greeks call this style of fortification cyclopian because they believed that only Cyclops could have been able to lift these boulders in order to construct these citadel walls! Shown below is one of the galleries within the walls. You can see how they placed each boulder, leaning on one another, in order to form this corbeling technique.

By this point, I was exhausted. After getting no sleep the night before, and having a full day of visiting sites (including an hours worth of intense hiking), I was spent. We travelled from there to the quaint, seaport town of Nafplion where we will be staying in a hotel for the night. Took a nice nap to make up for my lack of sleep, a hot shower (because we all know that those are few and far between here in Greece) and going back out to explore the town!

We're seeing the Mycenae citadel and the Epidaurus theater tomorrow.

"When it rains, it pours."

Had our regular class schedule today, plus our Greek History midterm. I'm feeling pretty confident about it. We shall seeee...

Went to the farmer's market today and bought some fresh veggies for the remaining two weeks (tear!).

It's been raining here on and off all day, and is supposed to rain throughout the night. That won't stop us though. We're going out to Gazi tonight... and then of course we have to be up for a 7:30 bus ride in the AM to Argolis. So, basically, we won't get any sleep tonight. Nap time! :)

We'll be staying in Argolis for one night. We'll be visiting Corinth, Akrocorinth, Tiryns, and staying over in Nauplion Saturday. Then on Sunday we'll be visiting the theatre and museum of Epidaurus and then driving back to Athens by 6 PM. We're supposed to get wifi in the Nauplion hotel lobby, so hopefully I will have a chance to blog Saturday night. If not, I'll update you all on Sunday.

We're more than half way into our stay here in Greece. Makes me wonder where all the time has gone. One month really is not enough to even touch on all the amazing history here in Athens, let alone Greece. I could easily stay here for longer.

After this weekend in Argolis, we have one more weekend which we get free to do whatever. Some people have planned trips to Rome, Santorini, and the rest of us are planning on staying here in Athens- going to some cool sites during the day, and then hitting up Gazi at night. We already have some pretty cool day trips planned... more info to come!