Greece comes to an end...

Hey fam! I promised a new blog post soon, so here we go…

I believe I caught y’all up on the trip through Delphi. At Delphi, we saw the site of the ancient oracle, then liked it so much, we decided to stay another day (actually, our reservations in Litochoro got wonky). So, we drove straight from Delphi to Thessaloniki (with a short stop in Dion. No really, we had one hour to see a huge site. Dr. Neumann nearly had to run behind us with a whip to get us to move fast enough).

Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece, and I for one was unprepared for being back in a big city after staying in places like Delphi. Oh yeah, Thessaloniki is also just about as far north as you can get. Remember, we were in Sparta in the far south not five days earlier. We’ve covered a lot of ground (and it doesn’t stop there). We spent four days in Thessaloniki, saw the Macedonian tombs (including that of Philip II, Alexander’s father) at Vergina, saw a museum at Pella (former capital of Macedon; the site was closed due to no money for guards), the archaeological museum at Thessaloniki, and we had a free day. We listened to two lectures from professors at the university in town. One was on Greek theater, and the other on an overview of Greek history in Macedon. From Thessaloniki, we drove all day, stopping in Thermopylae on the way to reenact the movie “300” (Ultimate Frisbee style; no one was too badly hurt), ultimately getting to our hotel in the quiet mountain town of Makrinitsa. This town put all other quaint Greek towns to shame; we couldn’t even drive out bus into town, so we grabbed our backpacks and trekked through town to our hotel. Gotta say, it was worth the effort. We walked around town after nightfall, when a cool mist settled over the town, which was absolutely deserted. It made one feel like the only people in existence, with the clouds obscuring the valley below…very peaceful (and maybe a little frightening, not knowing if the Greek counterpart of Jack the Ripper was gonna jump out of the fog).

The next day we got going early and made it back to Athens. So to recount, we drove from the farthest north Greece to the southern end of Attika in two days. It felt like all we did was drive. Drive. And Drive. Our double-decker bus certainly felt like home, but after that trip down to Athens, we were glad to say goodbye to that bus. For a little over a week now, we’ve hit the high points in Athens: the Acropolis, the Areopagus, the Pnyx, the Agropolis Museum, the agora (with special tour of places no tourist is allowed, given by the director of the excavations), the keraimikos, the island of Aegina, the Piraeus, the Roman agora, the Olympeion and Arch of Hadrian, the Plaka (shopping district)…tired yet? I’m not.

There have been times when I have felt so overwhelmed that it seems I will never be able to remember any singular detail or place. But then there are moments…for instance, at the Acropolis Museum. We were walking through a collection of marble statues, when I saw it. Kritios Boy. Open any art history textbook and this little three foot tall marble statue will attract more attention than you might think any piece of art deserves. Does it sound weird for me to say that I stood there speechless for a full minute, then proceeded to grin and (yes, I’ll admit it) giggle like a little kid for the next 10-15 minutes straight. Ok, yeah, that’s weird. But let me put it this way. Kritios Boy represents one of the most monumental shifts in the history of art, a shift of a few inches of the hips. Here’s what I mean: before Kritios Boy, marble figures of humans show the body in strict vertical frontal stance, or in awkward stances that force a real human being to throw a hip out of joint to replicate. In Kritios Boy, the artist has FOR THE FIRST TIME represented accurate transfer of weight onto one leg, indicated in the tilting hips. Ok, I’ll stop now…

I’ll mercifully spend some time not talking about Classics or art history, and describe how our time in Athens has been. Athens is great. The people are very friendly, especially if you throw in a thank you (efcharisto) or a cheerful hello (yassas) every so often. We’re in a busy tourist district (at least it’ll be busy in the summer), so there are lots of good restaurants and shops. The city is spread out very wide across the plain of Attika, stretching from the water up and onto the mountains, a fact that was easy to appreciate from the Acropolis. There is always something to do, but if you want to be truly Greek, you’ll spend much of your afternoon just hangin’ out in the nearest café. Really. For hours. Just talking. There’s just not the same sense of urgency that is so prevalent in the United States (debt crisis?), which makes living in the city a very nice experience. Athens was the perfect culmination of our time in Greece, both for the subject matter (nice to have the Parthenon be the memory we're left with...by the way, we can see the Parthenon from our hotel...every morning...breakfast on the roof), and for the more relaxed, settled period that transitions into Spring Break.

Having said that, I’m ready for Italy, which for me will be tomorrow, the beginning of Spring Break. Mom, Dad, love y'all, see y’all soon, have a safe flight and don’t forget the peanut butter J. Be ready to do some walking!

A Little Taste of Delphi

Hey fam! I'll be posting in depth within a week to catch y'all up on the second half of our trip through Greece, but until then, here's a poetic offering from our time in Delphi...

“Twinkle twinkle little star.”

Never really understood that bar,

Until from ancient Delphi I did peer,

Site once famed for its divine seer.

Where Pythia used to sit on high

And Apollo condescend to pronounce with a sigh,

I in silence stepped out on the deck

And to heaven craned my neck

No need of toxic water or ethylene

Did I employ to observe that gleam,

But with bated breath I merely sat

In silence, I heard not even a crack.

Above me I saw a night sky unknown,

Though the stars I often visited ‘ere I was grown.

Never before had I been so close to each star,

Never before had masking light been so far.

I could hardly call myself learned in their names,

But my! How they danced as if induced by flames,

Like boiling water rippling, leaping out of the pan,

Each jewel of light strained against its allotted span.

Are they resisting their placement in the sky?

Do they want to quit their course and die?

No. They jump to worship the name of the Lord,

Who placed each one on its axis and Life into all poured.

Y'all be good. Talk to ya soon!

A Blitz Through Greece

            So I’ve heard through the grape-vine that I ought to send y’all another shout out. I promise I haven’t been intentionally ignorin’ y’all (I’d be happy to send our syllabus out if you think I’m lyin’). So let me catch y’all up on our little adventure since Egypt (ok, wow, I really have been out of communication, mea culpa).

            First off, the structure of our trip in Greece has been very different from London or Egypt. In London, we were in a culture that is in many ways similar to our own, and spent a lot of time wandering around the city, exploring everything there is to do in London (after spending hours wandering through the British Museum or the Library at the University of London). In Egypt, we were led by the hand (and security personnel) to temples, tombs, pyramids, and museums all day. Greece has been some mix of the two. We have been averaging two archaeological sites per day, with some museums thrown in, but the pace has been much more relaxed (if you can call it relaxed). At each site, we have spent 1 to 2 ½ hours, first led around the site by the students assigned to lead that day, then exploring on our own. This takes the form of a)climbing over ruins like a bunch of sheep, b)running races in any athletic structures, c) scrambling through any caves we can find on the site, and d)contemplating the structural, compositional, intellectual, metaphysical differences between all sorts of columns, statues, temple plans, etc. until our brains felt like mush.

So let’s sum up the journey, and I’ll then provide some highlights. From Egypt, we flew into Athens and met our driver, Spiros, and boarded his double-decker bus. He took us out to Thorikos and Sounion, a couple of sites near Athens (if you’ve never driven through mountains in a double-decker bus, think twice before you choose the top section). Sounion in particular made an impression. At Sounion, the Athenians had built a temple to Poseidon on the headland at the very end of Attica. From there, we could either gaze at the partly reconstructed temple, or at the vast expanse of the Mediterranean Sea and islands interspersed off the coast of Attica (see the poem I wrote in response to this view). From there, we booked it back to Athens, boarded a ferry, and spent the night crossing to Crete. After arriving in Iraklion, Crete at 6:00 AM, we got back on the bus, checked in to our hotel, and went straight to the sites of Agia Triada and Phaistos, two Minoan palaces complexes. Over our time on Crete, we also saw the remains of Minoan sites at Knossos, Mallia, and Gournia. At the end of the week, we focused our free day partly toward exploring the city of Iraklion, but mostly on preparing for/taking our first test, or I should say first set of four tests, one for each course. We finished the test up (partly on the ferry back to Athens) and arrived in Athens early the next morning.

Once back in Athens (which was much colder than Crete, I actually had to wear a jacket), we went to Eleusis, the site of the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the most important and longest lasting cults of the ancient world. From there, we bussed to Nauplion, our first stop in the Peloponnese, just through the isthmus on the other side of Corinth. During our four days in Nauplion, we went to the site of ancient Korinth, Epidauros (site of ancient healing center and wicked cool theater), Lerna, Nemea, Tiryns, and Mycenae. After Nauplion, we drove through the mountains to Sparti (Sparta) in the southern Peloponnese, a drive which should have taken 2 hours took us 6, due to the unfortunate arrival of a snowstorm while we were crossing the mountains. Eventually we made it to Sparta, saw the remains there (not much), and the next morning left for Pylos, on the western coast. Before reaching Pylos, we spent nearly 3 hours at a Byzantine fortress/monastery/town complex that spanned an entire mountain. Then we saw the ancient site of Messene, and Pylos the next day. We also climbed high into the mountains to see the temple of Apollo at Bassai (in the middle of nowhere, more below), and then went on to Olympia. At Olympia, we saw the ancient complex made famous for the festival and athletic contests begun in 776 BC. Today, we left the Peloponnese, traveling 5 hours north, and are now in Delphi, site of the ancient oracle of Apollo.

Whew! It’s a lot to catch y’all up on, so I’ll condense it into some highlights. When at Sounion on the mainland, it was humbling to sit atop the summit and a gaze out at the Mediterranean Sea as a storm system came rolling in. It really was breathtaking to see the sheer rock faces give way to the grey-green-blue waves rolling up to the horizon pierced by sharp, glaring rays of the sun as it set into the sea. On Crete, we got to see the palace at Knossos, which Sir Arthur Evans excavated around the turn of the 20^th century. He did a fair amount of (sometimes incorrect) reconstruction, so it was very enlightening to see a picture of what some of these sites would have actually looked like, beyond the pile of rocks we see most of the time. Also, in a moment that reminded me why I love being on this trip, we got into a very lively debate about the use of stairs as liminal space at the ruins of Mallia. It was just one instance of how we have been applying what we’ve been reading at actual ruins, speculating as to the function of walls and rooms. In fact, we’ve often found that we have ideas just as plausible as the original excavator.

My love of art history has been getting fed in a big way. We’ve seen the Cyclopean construction at Mycenae (rocks used in construction there weigh upwards of 100 tons), where we saw the Lions Gate and the Treasury of Atreus. It made me shiver a little to stand beneath those huge blocks, a picture of which I remember studying in Humanities as a freshman in high school. We saw the Bull Jumping fresco that was found at Knossos, and an Octopus Vase that stands as a perfect example of Minoan maritime motif. At Mistras, the Byzantine monastery, we saw a bunch of late-Byzantine frescoes, still clinging to the chapel and apsidal walls, depicting any number of saints, martyrs, and apostles. We’ve seen Greek-style theaters built into existing hillsides (with perfect acoustics), and stadiums at Olympia, Nemea, and Messene that would have held nearly 40,000 people. We ran off the starting blocks at Nemea in the same fashion athletes did 2500 years ago. At Olympia, we tried to start up a game of Ultimate Frisbee, but got yelled at, even though we were the only ones there. Also at Olympia we also saw a famous Roman marble copy of a bronze statue of Hermes by Praxiteles, as well as the pediments of the massive Temple of Zeus containing the myth of Pelops (the mythical founder of the Games) competing in (and winning) a chariot race for the right to marry Hippodomia.

Probably my favorite afternoon of the trip so far was our time spent at Bassai. The Doric structure itself is impressive, and boasts a unique door in the side of the temple, to allow for sun to shine on the cult statue in the uncommon north-south oriented temple. It was nice to finally see the temple after reading about it and experiencing the sculpture frieze from the cella, now arranged in the British Museum. But that wasn’t even the good part. After we saw the temple, we hiked up to the top of the mountain, where there used to be two Archaic temples. There are no longer any remains of those temples, but the view was spectacular. From nearly 1300 meters up, we could see the snow-capped mountains in the middle of the peninsula, all the way to the coast, and everything in between. We had been at the seashore that morning, and then were standing in snow at the peak of the height. What an incredible experience!

Ok, that’s about what I can offer right now. I’ve been typing a while, and the view out the balcony from Delphi, overlooking a small town at the base of the mountain, with the sun setting over the mountains of the Peloponnese across the channel, is calling my name. Arrivederci!

Here are some pictures from Mallia and Gournia (Crete)...

Eleusis (on the mainland, near Athens)

Cactus is an unusual sight when accompanied by 40 degree weather and rain...

Epidauros (sight of famous medical center)

Corinth

 Our esteemed leader...

Nemea

Mycenae

Lerna (this is the only picture I have from Lerna...honestly, unless you're into Neolithic floor plans, the oranges were the only interesting part of this site)

Tiryns