Sorry for ignoring my blog for basically an entire month. Oops. I began to get busier with schoolwork after spring break and it will not stop until finals are over this week. So, this blog will be quite long since I have a month to recap. Oof.
Several holidays have passed in the month of March. The 15th was the Ides of March. Of course being a Latin nerd, I always celebrate the holiday. “Et tu, Brute?” Another one of my favorite holidays came just a few days later. Obviously since I’m in Greece, St Patrick’s Day wasn’t a big holiday here, but I still wore my green and drank some Guinness in honor of my Sainted Grandmither. The Greek Independence Day was March 25 and we had no classes. Several of us went downtown in order to watch the parade. We had a good spot and view of the parade. It essentially just had those who serve in the military march down the road. It lasted for probably only 15 minutes or so. In addition to holidays, there were several birthdays that happened in March. My grandmother turned 89 on the 20th; Piper had her 2nd birthday, and my Mum had hers on the 26th.
I finished my Modern Greek language course at the end of March. We had a written final as well as an oral final. I was in a group with Jon and Emily for the oral. It lasted for about 10 minutes and was super easy. I was so relieved that I wasn’t paired with someone that I did not like.
We took several field trips within the past month and all of them were really fun. For John’s class we went to the Benaki Islamic Museum and I really liked it. Islamic art is so colorful and gorgeous. We also took a long trip to the Peloponnese, a day trip to Boeotia, and finally we went to Crete last week.
John accompanied us for our trip to the Peloponnese and our Athens Centre representative was Vassia. We first went to Nemea, which was a Panhellenic site in ancient times. We stopped at Argos along the trip for just a short while then proceeded to Sparta or Sparti. We were not able to see the Mycenaean site of Sparta so I was quite bummed about that. The following day we went to Mystras, a Byzantine site. Mystras had a fortress and the city was considered to be the third major city in the Byzantine Empire, only behind Constantinople and Rome. Pretty cool. Afterwards we went to Methoni, a Venetian fortress close to Pylos. It was built in 1190 and looks out onto the water. So cool. Then we settled at our hotel in Pylos. Our hotel looked out onto the harbor and it was a gorgeous spot. The next day we first stopped at the harbor of Pylos and talked about the island of Sphacteria and the War of Independence. Then we went to Nestor’s palace. It was very well preserved especially the megaron and throne room. After the palace we went to Messene. There we saw a temple dedicated to Artemis, statues of Hercules and Apollo, and a stadium that held gladiatorial games. Pretty cool. After spending quite a while at Messene we were back on the road to Olympia where our hotel was. The next morning we finally went to the ancient site of Olympia! We first went to the museum then the actual site. We walked through the areas where the athletes trained and we saw a shrine that Philip II of Macedon built. Then we saw the remains of the famous temple of Zeus and I wish it was more intact, but thanks to the early Christians, a lot of pagan temples were knocked down and destroyed. That afternoon we left Olympia and made our way to a little village town called Andritsaina. We stayed at a little villa and I shared a room with Teresa, Emily and Kadi. The village was quite quaint and I really enjoyed walking around it. The following day we packed up and headed back to Athens. But first, we stopped at the temple of Apollo at Bassae. It was very much still intact and beautiful.
Our next trip was a day trip to Boeotia. We visited Orchomenos, Gla, and Thebes. We saw a tholos tomb at Orchomenos that had a beautifully decorated ceiling. Gla was a site off the beaten path and we had climb up a huge hill in order to get there. Thebes was probably the most memorable site even though there was only a small portion of remains that we could actually see. The town of Thebes was pretty nice.
I did not go anywhere for Easter so I just stayed in Athens, but it was definitely relaxing. I went to a midnight service at a church close to my apartment. It was really cool. Everyone had candles and right at midnight, the bells began to ring and fireworks were set off. It was very loud, but really cool. It was a fantastic experience. I realized that every time that I have been abroad, it has been during Easter. When I went to Rome, I spent Easter at St. Peter’s and then I got to experience Greek Orthodox Easter here. That’s so cool. I worked on an essay for one of my classes and then just read the entire time. I bought three books at the giant bookstore near Syntagma. I got Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, and Dubliners by James Joyce. I read the first two and I haven’t had to time to read the third one.
The week after Easter we went to Crete! We left on Thursday, April 8 at 10pm. We boarded a ferry that was called Festos Palace. I shared a cabin with Teresa, Emily and Kadi. The cabin was incredibly tiny and barely had enough room for our luggage selves. The ferry was very fast and we arrived at Crete at 6 am on Friday. The port was at Heraklion and we had some breakfast at our hotel. Then we went to Knossos! Knossos is the most famous palace on Crete and was the supposed palace of the mythic King Minos. There were a lot of reconstructions of the palace that are very intriguing. I enjoyed my time there and I got a lot of good pictures. After Knossos we went back to Heraklion to see the museum. The museum had one room open and only held certain objects.
On Saturday, we left Heraklion and made our way to my site, Gournia. But first, we stopped at Malia for a short while. We finally got to my site and I presented it. I didn’t have to look at my notes too often, but I kind of failed on knowing my site plan. I hope I did well overall, but I’m not sure. There was a book on my site, but I didn’t have any money, so Professor Killebrew gave me some money. However, it wasn’t 5 euros that she gave me. She gave me Turkish money instead. But, I noticed it quickly and handed it back. I later paid her back for the book, which is very helpful for my paper. After my site we went to Mochlos. It is an island so we got to have a short boat ride over. The weather was gorgeous and it was really cool. We then went to our hotel in Siteia. A bunch of us went to dinner at this place called Gremlins. It was incredibly cheap, but the food portions were huge! It was quite delicious. After dinner, Teresa and I got celebratory gelato because we were done with our site presentations on the trip.
On Sunday we made our way to Palaikastro and Zakros for the day. The weather at Palaikastro was cloudy and slightly rainy. The snails that were on the ground distracted us all and there were probably hundreds of them! We finally made it to Zakros, which is a pretty cool site. The site was very well preserved. After our tour of the site, we had lunch in town and the food was delicious. We had strawberries for dessert and they were really good. I probably ate many of them. Then we went to our hotel in Ierapetra.
We began very early on Monday morning. We had a long bus ride to Gortyn from Ierapetra, but the site was really cool. It was a Roman settlement so were able to see a site from a completely different context and time period. We saw the famous Law Codes of Gortyn and the Odeon. I really liked the site a lot and our presenters did a great job. After Gortyn we made our way to Phaestos, the second largest palace site after Knossos. This was incredibly well preserved and very easy to get around. After Phaestos, we visited our last site, Agia Triada. It was a small villa and had a church nearby. As we made our way back to Heraklion in order to catch our ferry, we stopped at a potter’s workshop and watched the potter throw the clay and create beautiful pots in just a few minutes. And then we went to dinner in Archanes. Penn State so graciously paid our meal and it was very delicious. The food was very filling. We finally arrived at Heraklion and to our ferry. I was in a cabin with the same girls. We had the fast ferry again and we arrived back in Athens on Tuesday morning.
I had my last classes this past week so this means that this upcoming week is finals week. But, I don’t have many finals. I only have two finals and both are on Wednesday. It is open note for one of my finals and I already know what is going to be on the exam, so I can just write in my notes what I am going to write on the exam. But, for the other exam, I have to study very hard because it will be on anything we covered in class, which is a lot of information. I have three papers also due this coming week, but I have already finished two of them. I just need to write my Byzantine paper on Thursday and then I can relax and enjoy the remaining days I have left in Athens.
I can't believe that I will be back in PA in less than a week. Hopefully the volcano will stop spewing and will let me get back home in time. But, my time is nearly up here in Greece and I am beginning to miss my family, friends, and baseball back in America. I will cherish forever my time abroad and the friendships I have made. Greece will always have a special place in my heart and hopefully I will return one day.
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