Visiting the Delphic Oracle (Day 1)

After about 3 hours on the bus and one journey through the town of Arahova, which has the narrowest streets I have ever seen two tour busses pass on, we arrived in Delphi. You come around a curve in the road and all of a sudden, the ruins are right in front of you. It's an incredible moment, and one I'm very glad I didn't sleep through. The 40 of us schlepped our stuff down to the hotel, worked out room arrangements (I stayed with Kelly, Aubrey, and Katie), set down our stuff, and immediately headed for the balconies. There were at least 15 or 20 of us hanging out the balconies admiring the view and trying to figure out where everyone else's rooms were. After a few minutes, we decided to head out in search of food, since most of us were starving. After wandering through all 3 streets in the town, we decided to try a place called Gigantes (the Greek word for broad/butter beans) that had been mentioned in one of our guidebooks. Unfortunately, the selection was rather limited. I'm not sure if it was because of the time of day or the fact that it was off-season, but of the 50 items on the menu, the owner told us he only had about 10. I had a Greek salad and most of the other girls got souvlaki (the Greek version of a kebab).

We finished our lunch and watched a bit of Greek TV, trying to guess what was going on based on the pictures and emotions of the newscasters. Occasionally, I would hear a word I recognized, which was still very exciting at that point. Eventually, we decided to head back towards the hotel. It seemed like a good idea, but about 30 seconds after we'd left the restaurant, the wind picked up. It was so strong at one point that even though I was lifting my feet up and setting them down again, I wasn't actually moving forwards -- I actually went backwards a little bit! Suddenly thankful for the many tourist-trap stores which lined the street, we began ducking into them and looking around while we waited for the wind to momentarily subside. I did end up buying a few things, but most of the items struck me as either cheesy -- how many cartoon magnets do you really need? or overpriced -- 15 euro ($22) for a little jar of honey from Delphi. There was some beautiful dichromatic glass jewelry in the stores, which I spent a lot of time admiring, as well as amber and silver jewelry -- two things Greece is famous for. I have to say, my favorite stop along the way was the convenience store/movie rental place/internet cafe we ducked into where I spotted this poster. I had to take a picture!

After settling into our room, trying to figure out the tv, and debating whether to nap, we decided to try to find the sweetshop listed in one of the guidebooks as being famous for its honey sweets and coffee. I didn't try the coffee, but I did order my first piece of baklava in Greece and it was delicious. They used almonds and walnuts and sprinkled a ton of cinnamon on top. It was a little too syrupy for my tastes, but that didn't stop me from eating every bite of it. Some of the girls ordered hot chocolate, which came in Loony Tune mugs. We just sat around talking and playing Never Have I Ever and a variation of Two Truths and a Lie for at least an hour or two. Oddly, the next thing I have a memory of doing is going to dinner, but there must have been something in between these two -- it's starting to sound like all we did in Delphi was eat! I think perhaps we all decided to take naps and that some shopping occurred as well.

Once it had reached a time that resembled an appropriate hour for Greeks to eat dinner (8:30 or so), the four of us met up with the girls who were staying in another room (Amanda, Sara, and Chloe) and asked for a dinner recommendation that wouldn't be too expensive at the front desk. The woman named a couple of places, but also mentioned that she didn't really know what prices would be like, as there are two sets -- those for locals and those for tourists. In a town as touristy as Delphi, this made sense, but it didn't stop me from being a little disillusioned -- although it did seem to explain why all the prices are hand-written, not printed. We decided to try finding a taverna that she had mentioned and that was mentioned in multiple guidebooks. After climbing up 3 intense flights of steps in the wind, we found it and walked in. There was only one other group there and I started to get a bit worried. However, my fears were completely misplaced. Everything we ordered was incredible. We got banana peppers stuffed with cheese and herbs to share as a table, and I ordered lamb with lemon sauce as my main. It was very tender and filling, although I did find room to have some of Aubrey's spaghetti as well. The Greeks like to put cinnamon in their tomato sauces, which is a tactic I think I'll be adopting in my cooking -- it sounds a little strange, but is actually delicious. Now I just have to find a place to get Gravieta cheese in the US! We got the rose house wine, which was the only part of the meal that disappointed me. I'm not sure if I just don't like rose wines or if it was a bad one, or if it didn't match well with my food. We all ate pretty slowly and spent a lot of time chatting. It's so relaxing to go out to dinner and know you can take as much time as you like over your meal and no one will rush you out of there, although sometimes it gets annoying not to be able to get more water for 25 minutes because the waiters don't come to the table unless you flag them down. Eventually, we decided we wanted dessert. I was debating whether to get anything or not, and decided I wanted to try another Greek dessert. At this point, my talent for picking items the restaurant doesn't have resurrected itself, and I ended up going with chocolate cake instead. It was, as was the rest of the meal, excellent -- not too sweet or frosting-y, and a much lighter chocolate flavor than I'm used to in the US. I would almost say it was closer to red velvet than chocolate. So good! I still can't get over how reasonably priced many of these tavernas are -- all of the food added up to about 12euro, or less than $20, and I left full and with my tastebuds tingling. We called it a night and headed back to the hotel, planning on waking up early the next morning to visit the ruins and museum in the morning and going to visit Itea, a nearby seaside town, in the afternoon.

Will I Make It?!?

This is serving in a lesson as to why I should make sure I update my blog regularly... I'll try my best to think back to three weekends ago and share my (extremely windy and rather cold) adventures in Delphi with all of you (and to keep them brief, although that's even harder than regular updates!) The trip was organized by Arcadia (the program I'm studying abroad with), but none of the staff accompanied us -- they just arranged for a hotel and a charter bus for us and we were on our own in Greece. Most of the people on the program decided to go, since Delphi just seems like one of those places you can't turn down.

The weekend began on Friday morning with me running around the apartment trying to make sure I didn't forget anything (now, I feel like I'm an expert at packing for weekend trips -- my travel shampoo practically lives in my backpack) and realizing it was my day to take out the trash. I was getting a bit worried about missing the bus (always my mother's daughter, I was running later than I would have liked), so the next few minutes involved me dashing madly around the apartment collecting bags of trash, consolidating them, and trying to find plastic bags to replace them with. Finally, everything was safely contained in the kitchen bag. I put on my coat, grabbed my backpack and purse, turned off the lights, and realized I hadn't had anything to eat yet, it was almost 10 AM and I would be on a bus for 3 hours. Back to the kitchen I ran (luckily my apartment is small and neither of my roommates were around to witness my insane departure preparations). Fortified with blood oranges and clementines I purchased at the laiki (weekly outdoor produce market), I headed back to the front door, reached for the handle, and pulled. The door didn't move. Greek doors have these insane locks that require elaborate keys and multiple turns, regardless of whether you're opening the door from inside or outside. Of course, in my packing efforts the night before I had neglected to leave my keys out and they were buried in the bottom of my purse. Now slightly more than panicked about my lateness, I dug through the bag, finally extricated the keys, and went to do battle with the door.

Side note: I haven't posted about this, but during my first weeks here, the doors gave me a HUGE amount of trouble. I couldn't get the front door of the apartment building open on multipe occasions, when I could open it, my key would refuse to come out of the lock, and I often spent 5 minutes trying to lock or unlock the two locks on the door to the apartment. I never thought something as simple as a door could cause so many problems, and my struggles definitely didn't help the feelings of ignorance that tend to accompany arrival in a foreign culture -- I couldn't even open a door, so how was I ever going to survive 4 months here?!? I'm glad to say that I've now mastered the art of Greek door opening and can get in and out of the apartment in under 30 seconds.

A few frustrating moments later, I was on the other side of the re-locked door. I walk-ran up the street, flung the (very heavy) bag of trash into one of the many street-side dumpsters, dodged through Athenian parking jobs (I promise you a post dedicated solely to this topic -- it's incredible!) and traffic (even more incredible), and started the trek up the huge hill, with a full backpack, containing shoes, clothes, school work, and my computer, and wearing my winter coat and a scarf even though it was probably in the mid 50s -- Athenian weather is even less predictable than weather in DC. Panting, slightly sweaty, and I'm sure a bit red in the face, I reached the top of the hill and started to walk down it towards our designated meeting point, praying that the group would be there when I arrived. Of course, when I got there, less than a third of the group was there, and Kim, the Student Services Director who organized the trip, informed us that we would have to wait for everyone to arrive before she called the bus to come pick us up because of rush hour traffic. D'oh! Should have known I could count on other people being later than me... and realized that since I followed Dad's advice, my watch was 5 minutes fast! On the bright side, this delay gave me time to set my stuff down, catch my breath, peel an orange, and attempt to look as though I hadn't spent the last 20 minutes moving at close to a sprint. The bus finally arrived and we piled on -- I sat with Kelly, my new favorite bus buddy, as she loves the aisle and is perfectly content to let me sit by the window and stare at the amazing scenery at all times, and we settled in for the three hour trip to Delphi. Due to my panicked state of mind while these events were occurring, I have no pictures to share with you.

Up Next: Visiting the Oracle at Delphi, aka "I hope the wind doesn't blow me off the mountain!"

999 Steps to the Top of Palamidi (Days 2 and 3 in Ναυπλιο)

Today, the majority of our day was occupied by climbing to the top of Palamidi Fortress and exploring the "ruins" on top of the hill. Legend says there are 999 steps, but when we counted on the way down, we only counted 906. Of course, once you get to the entrance of the Fortress, there's still plenty more inside. I won't bore you with the hundreds of pictures I took, but the view was absolutely incredible and I couldn't get over the scale of the fortress. If you're interested in seeing more photos, you can check out my facebook album -- email me if you don't have a facebook account and I'll send you the link.

Here's a view of the old acropolis (in Greek, this just means upper, or fortified, city -- it's not specific to the location in Athens where the Parthenon is located). We never made it up that hill to explore it, but it looked gorgeous. The old part of the town of Naflio is on the right side of the photo. The steps leading up to the fortress were very steep, with a lot of twists and turns -- I guess it makes sense from a defense perspective -- I had to take a couple breaks on my way up, and anyone in the fortress would have a great view of people coming up the steps for a long time before they were in a position to do any damage to the fortress.

Once we made it to the top, it all seemed worth it. I know I seem to say this in every post, but this country is absolutely stunning in its natural beauty. I came to Greece expecting the beauty of the islands, but I didn't really know all that much about the geography of the country. It turns out that 50% of the country is located above 500 m, and about 70% of the terrain is mountainous. The coastline is very rugged, as is the land itself -- mountains rise up almost right next to the sea in many places. Below: Amanda, Katie, and Alayna, in front of what I swear is the real background, no matter how fake it looks.

We spent several hours just wandering around and trying to imagine what the fortress must have looked like when it was in working order. It's very picturesque in its current state, but I can imagine it must have been quite imposing when it housed Venetian soldiers.


After exploring most of the fortress -- there definitely were a few parts I didn't make it to, we had a small lunch on top of the hill and marveled at the hill a little longer. Then, we began the walk back down to town. Kelly and I counted on the way down, getting 906 steps, and by the time we got to the bottom, our legs were visibly shaking, and we decided to stop at a cafe and have a coffee. I had discovered the amazing form of coffee the Greeks call a frappe the day before -- it's a cold coffee with milk-coffee froth on top and you can order it unsweetened, medium, or sweet, with or without additional milk. Yum! I took this picture to show just how steep the hill we climbed up was -- it also captures the little waterfall next to the cafe.


While some of the other girls napped or went shopping, Kelly and I went in search of the Komboloi Museum. Komboloi are Greek worry beads -- they resemble the pray beads that many religions use, but in Greece they are completely non-religious. Men of all ages have them and they fiddle with them whenever they're not really doing something -- night guards at hotels, old men having coffee, even a guy just standing waiting to cross the street. The museum was in a tiny house and the first floor was a workshop. They had some very entertaining literature about how they're on a quest to save the world from the scourge of Komboloi made from "dead" materials because those have none of the warmth or comfort that the traditional ones do. Apparently, they are traditionally made from something that was once alive -- amber, bone, ivory, etc. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was definitely an entertaining little museum, and we got in for free with our student IDs.

At the end of the day, we did a scavenger hunt through the town and were rewarded for our effort with a bar of milk chocolate -- not my favorite! We also found a nice little taverna and had an early dinner. I had a delicious dish called baked eggplant with a tomato sauce, and we got retsina and stuffed grape leaves (dolmades) for the table to share. After returning to the hotel and watching a little bit of American news -- I find I'm very out of touch with events in the world here -- Aubrey, Kelly and I returned to the cafe we'd been at the night before and then headed off to bed.

The next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early and went in search of some of the other museums that were mentioned in my guidebook. We managed to locate the Folklife Museum, which was supposed to open at 9 AM. When we got there, the sign said they didn't open until 9:30, so we went in search of a pharmacy for one of the girls who had a cold coming on. In Greece, pharmacies aren't open 24/7 like they are in the US, nor do they stock a wide range of health and beauty products. On the weekends, one pharmacy in a neighborhood, or if it's a smaller town, the whole town, is "on call" each day and they're the only one open. To find that one particular pharmacy, you have to find any pharmacy and be able to decipher the Greek which tells you which day which pharmacy is open on, and where it's located. Luckily, one of the girls had a phrasebook, and I had a guide book with a map, so we were able to figure this out. It turned out to be on the other side of town, so we decided to go after the Folklife Museum. We headed back and the building was open. In the lobby was a small and somewhat cluttered exhibit with about 15 different pieces of clothing and some other accessories on display, as well as a selection of jewelry and jewelry boxes. We could see the main entrance to the museum, but it was blocked off, so we spent a while looking at the exhibit in the lobby and then wandered around the gift store. Finally, one of us asked when the main part of the museum would be opening, and we were informed that they were closed for the month of February. It was definitely one of those... "That would have been nice to know in advance..." moments.

A little disappointed at missing out on the opportunity to see traditional Greek costumes and how they've evolved over time, we headed off in search of the pharmacy, making our first journey into the new part of town. This area reminded me a great deal more of Athens and definitely made me appreciate the old section of town more -- there was a huge contrast between the two. After not too much walking, and surprisingly, no wrong turns, we found ourselves at the pharmacy, with a pharmacist who spoke English quite well. Katie explained her symptoms, the woman pulled a packet of lozenges from the shelves behind the counter, and said, "Take one in the morning and one at night," and we were on our way to the branch of the National Gallery that is housed in Nafplio. Again, we couldn't take pictures inside. The collection was fairly small, but they had some incredible pieces, all by Greek artists. One of my favorites was an image from a naval battle -- it was on a large canvas and the light in it was just incredible. Of course, I can't for the life of me remember who it was by or what it was called, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The whole collection is housed in a neoclassical villa. Satisfied with our morning adventures, we headed back to the hotel to wait for the bus home to Athens -- classes started the next morning, and I had to face my first 8 AM class since high school.

A Weekend in Ναυπλιο: Day 1

Ok, so I'm a little behind on my blogging, but I'm going to attempt to catch up this weekend, since I'll actually be in Athens this time and have a little bit more access to internet. The weekend of Feb. 1-3, the whole program took a trip to Ναυπλιο (pronounced NAF-plee-oh) as the end of orientation. It's a very cute seaside town on the Peloponnese and was definitely a nice change of pace from Athens. On the way there, we drove over the canal that cuts through the isthmus -- it was incredibly deep and LONG. I've never really seen anything like it in my life, and I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a ship going through it. The photo I took really doesn't do it justice.


The first night there, we spent the afternoon wandering around the old town (many Greek towns are divided into an old town, where the buildings have been preserved and the streets are narrow, and a modern, new town). It was a names day holiday for the town, so not too many people were around, but we had a lot of fun anyway. Everything was just so beautiful, and the contrast between old and new was very interesting to observe. There were moments when I thought, I wish that car weren't in front of this gorgeous traditional stone home, but then I'd realize that the car is just as much a part of the town of Nafplio as the old buildings are.


The town consisted pretty much of an ancient fortress on top of a hill for quite awhile (the acropolis of Nafplio), and was developed by the Venetians in the late 17th and early 18th century. There's also a fortress on an island in the harbor (the Bourtzi), which allowed them to control the only channel into the harbor which is accessible, and an enormous fortress on the top of the second hill in town (Palamidi fortress - more on that later).


Arcadia took us all out for dinner. There was a ton of food, including zucchini fritters (I actually LOVED them), cheese pie, french fries, and a chicken dish that tasted like sweet and sour chicken. In this (very candid) photo, are Kelly, Sara, Aubrey, my roommate Caitlin, and Jan, the program director. Afterwards, we headed over to a gelato shop for dessert, and then a few of the girls and I went to a seaside side coffeeshop/bar/lounge and sat and talked for a few hours. One of my favorite discoveries in Greece is these places -- they're not really like anything I've ever seen/heard of in the US. They have super-comfortable couches, propane heaters in the winter, and are open pretty much all day. They serve coffee, juice, tea, some small desserts, amazing hot chocolate, and alcoholic drinks, and the norm is that you sit and order one, maybe two drinks and stay for a few hours. The one we went to in Nafplio had a beautiful view out over the sea that included the Bourtzi. It's so relaxing to just sit and talk and not feel any pressure to leave -- you're truly welcome to stay as long as you'd like. Below: Sara and I enjoying our gelato at the seaside cafe (photo courtesy of Kelly).

Classes, Greek Style

Since classes started yesterday and I've now been to all five of mine, I thought I'd share a picture of the Arcadia Center (it's a converted apartment building) and a few of my thoughts on the courses I'm taking. They're definitely rather different from what I was expecting, but I think it should be an interesting semester. The classes are all very small: my largest is about 12 people.

Introduction to Greek Philosophy: This class meets at 8AM on Mondays and Wednesdays, and somehow that seems even earlier than it normally would when you have to drag yourself out of bed half an hour before you want to shower to turn on the hot water heater. Despite that, the professor seems wonderful so far. His name is Kostas (we call all our professors by their first names here) and he mentioned off-handedly that he has a degree in environmental engineering and hydrology in addition to a Ph.D in philosophy. He's an extremely engaging lecturer and is encouraging us to really engage with the material -- we're only reading primary texts. It does seem like it's going to require a fair amount of reading, and we have to write weekly reflection papers on the material we read, as well as two larger papers.

Greek Key: This class is rather unique and doesn't have all that much structure. We have to choose a project to work on over the course of the semester that helps us to become more familiar with and involved in the city. It can be anything from researching Athenian pop music to adopting a neighborhood and going to observe it regularly to interviewing someone about their life story and placing it in a historical context to volunteering at a non-profit in the city to studying organic farming in Greece. It's extremely varied and I'm torn between trying to choose something to use towards my thesis and taking the opportunity to do something I've always wished I had time for at home but never managed to make time for. In addition, we take walks through various neighborhoods and post our observations, write about any of our first experiences, and learn to be conscious observers of the culture. It's a good excuse to get out into the city, but also seems like a lot of work for how many credits it is (half that of my other courses).

Modern Greek: It's very exciting to be learning Greek, especially when I can actually go out and use just about everything I've learned immediately. We're still working on basic survival phrases at the moment, such as how to order food and coffee, make polite conversation, and do a basic introduction of ourselves. Sometimes, it can be a little frustrating to hear, "we'll talk about that later" almost every time a question is asked that involves grammar, but it's also nice to be learning such useful things. My professor, Apostolos, is on the younger side (he's 32) and is a great resource for interesting things to do in Athens as well as language skills. We're meeting at a coffeeshop in downtown Athens for our next class so we can try out our newly acquired cafe vocabulary.

Nature Conservation in Greece and the EU: This class seems like it will be a lot more interesting than I was expecting. From the syllabus, it seemed rather heavily focused on the "let's save the sea turtles" type of environmental studies, which is very different from the type of environmental studies I focus on at home. However, I'm feeling much more excited about the class after meeting the professor. He has a very interesting story and has worked for NGOs for a number of years, primarily one that focuses on sea turtle rescue. However, in the past year or so, he began working for one of the Greek banks, as part of their environmental department. Hearing him say that definitely made me interested in looking at US banks to see if similar departments exist (and possibly offer internships). Dimitrios is ethincally Greek, but speaks English with an Australian accent because he was born there. I was a bit confused to hear phrases like "When do you knock off?" and the constant ending of sentences with "Yeah?" at first, but now it's just a nice change of pace. We're also going to be talking about global warming and its affects on conservation in the class. I had no idea Greece was such a biological hotspot, but once we talked about how different species tend to evolve when an organism becomes stuck on an island, it began to make a lot of sense. Greece also has a great deal more climatic zones than we typically think of: everything from little sandy islands to tall snowy mountains. This is the class I'm most excited about, especially because he seems very interested in giving us a varied experience and bringing in guest lecturers and such.

Athens On Site: I'm not sure what to make of this class yet. When I signed up for it, I was very excited about it, as it meets out in Athens rather than in a classroom, and gives the students a chance to visit a number of sites around the city, particularly some of the lesser-known ones. However, after having class today, I'm beginning to realize some of the downfalls of being right there: it's harder to take notes that make sense, a camera is really a necessity, your feet start to get tired, and it's difficult to hear if your professor speaks softly. There is also a huge amount of reading for this course, as well as twice-weekly essays about the site we will be visiting during the class period. To give you an idea, right now I've downloaded 2 36 page "picture-books" with detailed text about the Agora and 9 pages of Pausanias' description of Athens. I still have to get one chapter of one book and 15 chapters of another, and all of this is for class on Thursday, along with a 2 page essay on the role of the Agora in Greek life. Half the reading is online, but the other half is on reserve at the library and there's only one copy for the 12 of us to share. Photocopying is an option, but it's expensive, especially when the excerpts are so long. It definitely makes me miss e-reserve at Georgetown! I haven't really started the reading yet or figured out exactly what the essay expectations are, so I'm trying to keep an open mind, especially because I've heard this is one of the very best courses offered at the Center.

Overall, I'm still excited about my classes, although it's looking like a lot more work than I was expecting. I'm glad a few of my classes force me to get out into the city because I'm not sure how much of that I would manage to do if I wasn't in them: already, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by everything I have to do, especially coming from a semester where I only wrote 2 or 3 extremely short essays that were more along the lines of "share your personal opinion" than "analyze in a scholarly manner."

Religion and the Oldest Part of Athens

The Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church (kind of like the Catholic Pope, although there is one guy above him in Istanbul for all the Orthodox Churches combined, I think) passed away earlier this week, so there were three days of national mourning, ending with a funeral procession through the city on Thursday. Several of us walked over to watch it and I'm very glad I went.

It started with a military marching band, then several groups of the military in different uniforms: from some dressed in camo and toting some seriously scary looking guns to others in traditional dress uniforms carrying swords. The military was followed by important priests of the Greek church -- a girl on the program said they were primarily bishops.

They were all wearing traditional Greek robes, mostly cream colored with heavy embroidery and some very ornate crosses around their necks. It was amazing to see so many priests together at one time. They seemed to get more and more important as the groups passed us, and those surrounding the truck carrying the Archbishop's open casket were wearing some incredibly ornate outfits. There were also a few couples in what looked like regional dress interspersed through the crowd. After the truck came another set of soldiers, followed by hundreds of "ordinary" orthodox priests in their traditional austere black robes (and a few men who looked like Catholic cardinals or bishops) and ordinary Greek people following the procession through the city. As the end of the group reached us, those around us began to duck into the road to join in, eventually reaching the First Cemetery where the Archbishop was buried in an invitation only ceremony.

Afterwards, we headed off into the Plaka, the oldest part of Athens which sits directly below the Acropolis. We saw the Lysikrates Monument, which was built by Lysikrates to display the tripod he won for sponsoring theater in 335 B.C. It's got quite an interesting history, and was even part of a library at one point. We spent the afternoon wandering through narrow, winding streets, exploring small (and fairly touristy) gift shops, and ate lunch outside at a cute taverna, where I tried mousaka for the first time -- delicious, and definitely one of the dishes I want to learn how to make!

As the sun began to drop in the sky and the light turned to an amazing golden color that I don't think I've ever really seen anywhere else in the world, we headed back towards home. On the way, we passed Hadrian's Arch, which is right on a main road, and the Olympian Temple of Zeus, which was closed for the day because of the funeral. It was absolutely beautiful from what I could see, and I'll definitely be going back to explore it thoroughly.


As we were about to leave, I realized you could see the Acropolis through Hadrian's Arch if you got the right angle. I still can't get over seeing all these monuments and ruins that I've read about for so long in person on a daily basis, so of course, I took a picture.
Quite content with the day I'd had, I headed back to my apartment, and on the way, glanced down a side street to see this incredible view as the sun set. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it does begin to capture the golden light, although the colors in the sky are lost.

Coming up next: our weekend trip to Nauplion (NAF-plee-oh), a coastal town on the Peloponnese.