Hey

Hi there, we're in Crete, and new video/pictures/words are forthcoming. But I just wanted to say hello, I'm not dead, we're having an awesome time, and I will give you an actual post that isn't a waste of time in the very near future.


Here, have a picture.

Backstage Pass: Parthenon

As you can tell, this was exciting.

Acropolis

Amazing visit to the Acropoli today...we went INSIDE the Parthenon. Inside. And even got to climb up the medieval tower. Amazing. Here are some pictures, video going up soon. (Am I a vlogger now?)

View of the Philopappos and the sea

column with restoration

Sanjaya lecturing on the Roman temple of Roma and Augustus

view of the Areopagus

Week 1

Yasas! Camped out in Blegen again but I put together a teeny video of some of this week's excursions. See for yourself: the Roman Agora in the Plaka (with a view of the Acropolis), a panorama of Athens as seen from on top of the Areopagus (with a view of the Acropolis), and a panorama (and my windblown face) at the temple of Poseidon at Sounion. The background music is actually from the first clip, a musician was playing in the street by the Agora. Greece so often provides her own background music! Sorry it's so tiny, I filmed with my phone. Just full-screen it.

N.B.: Behind me is NOT the ocean, the Mediterranean is a sea. silly me.




Today was our first swim in the Aegean and tomorrow we finally ascend the Acropolis in the morning...and then board an overnight ferry to Crete in the evening. 

Research

Hi everybody! It's been a busy couple of days, and right now I'm holed up in Blegen Library researching my first site report, so sorry there's no new post! If not tonight, there will be one soon.

Here, have a picture of the Acropolis as seen from the Hephaestion.

My Greek is horrible

I cannot remember how to say "and." Have been replacing it with "um." Looking up some phrases now. Hopefully it will come back to me...

Anyway, I'm here! Staying in a cute hostel between Syntagma Square, the temple of Zeus and the Plaka, where I just ordered too much food for dinner (Joyce, you know what I'm talking about) but managed to eat most of it. Psomi (bread), cucumber and tomato salad, and gemista (tomatoes stuffed with rice, pine nuts and herbs and baked until it falls apart in your mouth and basically digests itself. YUM.)

My roommates are two impressively tanned french girls who chattered away this afternoon while I napped and dreamed about how to talk to them about premature wrinkles and see if they've ever been to Ibiza.

I did an obligatory stroll through the Plaka/around the base of the Acropolis. Do you have an idea of what this might be like? Does it involve the amusingly familiar notes of Zorba the Greek coming from some light-strung terraced taverna that fade as you walk away and are replaced by a cheerful bouzouki medley? Are cats everywhere, languidly stretching in front of blankets laden with fake designer bags? Do you smell cigarettes, roasting meat, flowering trees, dust, and something that smells both musty and cold, like eating gelato inside of a closet filled with coats that have mothballs in the pockets, which is the only way I can think of to describe the smell of marble that is layered under everything else. Because all these sensory imaginations are accurate. 

Greece is not at all boring but a little predictable. The light - the light! Everyone talks about the LIGHT because it is true. It's different here. During the day it is bright and pure, throwing everything into sharp relief, color-saturated. At dusk it softens until it wraps everything in a mild glow. The sunset over the hills ringing Athens takes the sky from ruby to coral to a dusky blue before settling into pitch. 

I am familiar with this neighborhood but I usually stay in Exarchia - the funky area of students and communists and bonfires blasting music in the middle of the night. I didn't stay there this time but I actually miss it - I know where everything is! A gyro place, a bakery, a crepe place, an oh-so-charming taverna. Tomorrow my program starts and I will leave this neighborhood and go over to Kolonaki, a fairly swanky area where most of the foreign archaeological schools are housed, as well as luxury shopping and a hospital and a few museums. 


Until then, 


S

Last night in America

Everything I own is packed up and will be put in my car for storage in the morning, and everything I need for the next 6 (7?) weeks is in a backpack and a small duffel. 


I like to read books about the places I am traveling to while I am traveling there, but picking which books to bring with me to Greece is like picking favorite children. I finally narrowed it down to No-Man's Lands by Scott Huler, and The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller. Can't wait to get them even more dog-eared, windblown, and sea water streaked.


I also went from 6 cameras to just my small digital Nikon, some disposables, and my phone. 
And only 3 pairs of sunglasses. 


Apparently I like multiples. 

Gotta get back to....GREECE

Hi there! In a couple weeks I will be back in my favorite country, traveling all over and learning a lot. And probably getting sunburned. But loving it! So I am reviving this here bloggity blog as a travel blog. So follow now and all summer you'll get pictures of food, ruins, me sweating my face off, and maybe even some sincere vignettes.




καλώς ορίσατε


-Shannon/Dar