Moving... Again

The sun sets on my time alone in Athens...

Well the RMWC group will be here soon, on Sunday in fact, so it's time to start packing up the stuff thrown haphazardly across my apartment and brave moving across Athens again. This will be something attempted over the next two days, as I have a very large and very broken suitcase which I will not be using, and a small duffel bag which can support a few handfuls of clothing per trip. Yep, this should be fun. Anyway, I already know where my next apartment will be, I've walked past it many times in fact, so it's just a matter of getting the keys on Sunday and then going to meet the group at the airport for fun.

There's some stuff I wanted to get done today (laundry, cleaning, lines, etc) but I'm way too exhausted; it's been a busy day. I woke up with Tony at 7 this morning (and again at 7:40... oops) to go on a walking tour of modern Athens with the UChicago group. It mostly consisted of the Academy, Library, and University, with a short jaunt to Schliemann's house, now the Numismatic Museum, for fun.

Athenian Owl coin at the Numismatic Museum

The Numismatic Museum was pretty interesting, and it's a shame that we only got about 10 or so minutes to walk around it. It brought up memories of my Classical Archaeology class with Dr. Stevens, where we were each entrusted with a Roman coin to study and date. They had examples of counterstruck coins--coins that were struck once but were struck again years later for the sake of not wasting the metal--which are a huge help in figuring out the dating of coins, and examples of coin hoards, which are also pretty interesting and helpful.

The recent Athenian graduates in the University building. They're on stage, in the blue; click picture to see them clearer.

After the museum we were supposed to go to the University for a guided tour, but it turns out today was Graduation. Oops! But instead of turning us away at the door, they ushers invited us in and before we knew it we were soon witnessing, by complete accident, a University of Athens graduation ceremony. They had caps and gowns, though their caps were a different (much cooler) design than ours. They were all dressed in blue. The ceremony itself seemed to go a lot like an American one: a few people read, people get announced to get their diploma, and at the end everyone throws their hats in the air. Tony found a copy of one of the diplomas lying around, so now we have a Greek diploma. It was fun to watch, and eerie to think that that's going to be me in a year. Except, you know, not in Greece. And the ceremony will probably be in English. Hopefully.

Somewhere in the stacks, I'm sure you'll find Belle.

Next stop was the Library and Academy, which were both very pretty on the inside but not really all that fascinating. The Library, however, reminded me of the Beauty in the Beast library just a bit, and I took a lot of pictures for a friend back at home who would probably want to move in there.

Anyway, most of the rest of the day was spent with Tony in classes and such, and that evening we got to catch up with Dr. Schwartz, who flew in early for the program beginning on Sunday! It was a lot of fun to see him after a year away and it's gotten me all excited about the group coming in two days! We took him to a taverna we've heard great things about to keep him from falling asleep too early, and it of course turned into a 2 hour affair (as all trips to tavernas normally do), so we achieved that goal. The taverna we went to was actually AMAZING. It was a really cute place with a wonderful owner and the food was incredible. We all got the lamb for an entree, and it was literally falling off the bone; I think it was some of the best meat I've ever tasted. Everything else was good too, and for dessert he brought out some homemade chocolate. Yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. Sadly, no pictures for dinner, but expect tons of pictures soon once the group gets here!

Informational Portion
As for the group goes, let me fill you in on what that actually is. The program is called Practical Wisdom and it's a 3 week long course in Athens with two professors and a handful of students from my home campus in Lynchburg, VA. The course with cover topics in Ancient Greek philosophy and drama, and the highlight is a Greek play which we'll perform at the end of the trip in an Ancient Greek theater. The play is called Alcestis, and it is the Centennial Play, counting from the very first Greek plays put on at Randolph-Macon Woman's College that started in 1909. It's about a wife who, Alcestis, who dies to save her husband, Admetus, from death. Admetus and Apollo had tricked the gods into sparing his life, but in return he had to find someone willing to die in his place, and that turned out to be his wife. I'm playing Admetus. I'm a little daunted about the acting demands this play will have on me, but I'm sure with time in rehearsal I'll be able to do my best to pull it off.

And the super fun part about all of this is that we'll be posting our adventures not only on a blog on the college website, but in Podcasts, too! More news on the Podcasts to come; until then, CLICK HERE for the blog website so you can follow along with mine and the others' adventures during our program.


In other news, I've told Dr. Irwin my story of how I managed to get from London to Crete, and he's proposed that I write a Tales from Reading entry about my opportunity. I'll be doing that soon (hopefully within the next day or so, before Sunday evening) and once it's posted it'll end up here, at the Tales from Reading website. Read the other stories, as well; they're well worth the read!

I don't know how readily I'll have internet connection once I move out of my humble abode here, so I may be saying goodbye for just a few days, or for as long as the next 3 weeks; I guess we'll find out soon!