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!

Old Friends, New Friends, and Adventure Hiking

Halfway up Mount Parnitha, the tallest mountain in Attica!

Hi everyone!
So it's been awhile. I guess we've been up to things, but not much of interest until the past few days, mostly just the same old stuff. Greece is great but, honestly, the actual city of Athens can get pretty smelly, ugly, mean, and boring after the first week or so there, especially on your own. But anyway, I'm settling in here a bit more. I faced the same problems I had in England as I did here, I'd just forgotten: the first month or so is all exciting and new and you're adjusting to the new country, but around the second month you're over it and all you want to do is go home. Luckily, the third month is when you start to settle in and actually enjoy yourself, and I've finally stepped over my pit of homesickness and have arrived at that point. That and I've been out and about and actually interacting with more people my age, and that's helped immensely; before I was getting so horribly lonely, especially when Tony left on his trips. Anyway, one of the people I met up with here in Athens is Tina Li. That name probably rings a bell with my parents, but for everyone else, she was basically my best friend in middle school. We were seriously inseparable and could fill a book with inside jokes, you get the picture. Anyway, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, we discovered that we would both be in Athens at the same time, and finally arranged to meet last Wednesday.

Tina and Katt do Athens!

We've known each other for 7 years, and if someone walked up to us in Rice Village two years ago when we last met and told us the next time we'd see each other would be in Athens, I don't think we'd believe them. But here we are! Trust me, it's in Greece. See the obvious Greek trees and hobos? Definitely Greece. Anyway, she invited Tony and I to come to a going away dinner with her and her friends the next evening, so we definitely went. It was a bit of an adventure (it was all the way over in Glyfada, on Athens's coast) but it was a great dinner and all of Tina's friends were really sweet and fun. We had Indian food; it was good, but I'm partial to England's Indian food personally. Especially that chicken korma my parents and I had Covent Garden... mmmmmmm.... Oh, but yea anyway. It was there that we discovered curry can cure intestinal cancer. True story.

A hiking group ready to set out! We had a name and everything!

Our next most exciting day was today, when we participated in a mountain hike just outside of the city with people from the Athens Center, a little center that teaches Greek courses and where Tony's been taking his classes with UChicago for the past several weeks. We climbed Mount Parnitha: the highest mountain on the Attic peninsula (1,413 meters, a good place for beginners to start). It was a pretty intense climb in some places, and our trail guides seemed to enjoy picking out the most precarious trails for us to brave. But it was sooo much fun and I met a lot of people, including two girls from Tony's group, a few from another college group, the fun trail guides (one was a real troublemaker; you had to keep your eye on him), and some Brits! Oh, how I miss the Brits. One lived in London for most of his life but moved to Australia and has been there for the past 30 years. I mentioned that not only had I lived in London, but my sister lived in Australia, so between the two of us we know where he's coming from.

Finally at the top! With a great view of Athens in the background. May they bow down to our mightiness! Or... give us free souvlaki? Score.

But the best part of the hike was what was waiting for us at the top. Apparently the local village (I use the term 'local' very loosely) decided to have a party at the top of the mountain, so they brought a bus load of people, music, dancing, and free souvlaki. It was pretty exciting, and I even dabbled in some Greek Line Dancing. Rather poorly, to tell the truth, but at least I tried, and the locals were nice about letting me give it a go. Here's a video of the grand event; I'm wearing a green shirt with jean capris, and I'm second from the end of the line. The guy at the end is our trail guide (the troublemaker!) and the girl next to me is Kristen, a student from UChicago.

And here's how it's really done, by some skilled line dancers:

I think that's all to report; I'll hopefully have more to say soon! It was great to catch up with Tina, meet some new people, and go on a hike. I think the past few days have been the best I've had in Athens, and today was definitely a winner.

Our successful group at the top! (BTW, you can click on any of these pictures to see a larger copy)

Athens at Night

Akropolis

Next stop: the Parthenon

Hi again! I'm taking a lazy day at the moment while Tony is busy with classes to tell you that we've actually been quite active lately. We've walked the 6+ mile journey everyday since that first post about it (except today, because it's a lazy day) and minus the blisters on our feet and our sore legs, we've enjoyed it. We're going to keep it up because we've now designated this summer as the summer we get fit and stay that way, so we're feeling pretty good about it.

Anyway, in addition to walking to Tony's neighborhood on Sunday, we also walked all the way up to the Akropolis to explore what was going on there. Tony showed me around a bit and I was excited to see all the buildings I'd learned about in Dr. Stevens's class; I had to make a map of ancient Athens, in fact, and I still remember some of it. Enough to correct Tony every now and then at least, and that's all I really need it for anyway. ;D Anyway, the Akropolis was highly impressive, what with its massive height above the city and the reconstructed ancient buildings on top.

View of the city in the background.

Of course the most impressive building would be the Parthenon, and before I tell you the most awesome thing about my experience with the Parthenon, I have to explain something. For awesome reasons, some of my friends and I have been inspired to find world famous old objects/buildings and, just to outdue all the tourists who have simply 'seen' these things, to lick them. We licked the oldest Iron Bridge in the world in England and I got a message from Vance that she licked the Colisseum. Not to be behind in the score, I licked the Parthenon. It was legendary.

Sadly, all of the Parthenon was roped off and the closest thing I could reach without being shipped off to a Greek prison was the original column base, but I still count this as a win.

So yea, that was awesome. You might think I'm crazy and be wondering "why would she do that?" to which I respond: How many people do you know who've licked the Parthenon? I'm just trying to blaze new ground here.

Anyway, the Parthenon is also amazing in its own respects, most of which consist of its massive size and the genius and beautiful design of it. I was excited because you could still see some of the friezes in tact. or at least reconstructed:


After admiring the Parthenon, we walked around a bit more and checked out the Erechtheion, the ending point of the Panathenaic festival and the home of the original sea water from Poseidon and olive tree from Athena. Here's a short mythology lesson I learned at Macon (more than once I believe): Athens was trying to decide which god to make their patron god/dess, and the two options were Poseidon and Athena. Both gave gifts to Athens to try and persuade it: Poseidon gave sea water and Athena gave an olive tree. The sea water was useless to Athens; no one could drink it and everything died in it. The olive tree, however, provided the whole city with food, so they picked Athena, celebrated her, and named their city after her. In the Parthenon they erected a giant bronze statue of her where they draped the paplos cloth on the last day of her Panatheniac festival.

Descendant of the first olive tree.

The Erechtheion, the "Porch of the Maidens". While we were there, someone called them the Vestal Virgins. Tony and I barely contained ourselves and burst out laughing. fyi, Vestal Virgins = Roman. Just for future knowledge. If you're going to pretend you know what you're talking about at an archaeological site, at least get the right period. It's right up there with visiting an art museum and saying an obvious depiction of Prometheus having his liver eaten by an eagle is "defintely something from the Old Testament". Seriously, people. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't act like you do.

Anyway, after that we wandered around a bit more and happened upon some other American tourists. There's one consistantly good thing about future American tourists abroad: they are the most reliable people to have take your picture. There's a significantly smaller chance that they'll run away with your camera. So, Tony and I took advantage of the opportunity.

We got a nice shot of some other couple in there, too, but oh well. I'll photoshop them out later.

And that's pretty much all there is to report!

Athens: Walking Tour

Next stop on the kiss tour! At the Olympic Stadium, Akropolis in the background on the far right.

So Tony and I finally got off our butts and braved the 6+ mile walk from my flat to his dorm. The walk was actually GREAT and we're planning on doing it at least one way every day. It's mostly flat and has shade on either side so it should be perfectly comfortable even in the heat of the day (which right now isn't hot at all). We also got to see a plethora of things along our way, including the Archaeological Museum, the old University, the "Academy" (which King Otto randomly decided to erect because the 'real' Plato's Academy was too far out of the center of town), the Library, and the Olympic Stadium by Tony's place. We could have gone to the Akropolis today, but we would've been cutting it close to closing hours so we decided to head out earlier tomorrow to have more time. The whole walk took less than an hour and a half, and that's including the stops we made at the Academy and Starbucks--I was really craving a Mocha Frap.

Being philosophical in front of the Academy. I got to hang with Plato and Sokrates. It was awesome.


Cutting through the National Gardens to get to Tony's dorm.

Training for the Olympics at the old Stadium. I'll beat Statue Man at discus throwing for sure this year!

Changing of the Guards, Athens style. At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

A delightful juggler at the National Gardens.

Coming Home!

Attention everyone in Houston: Tony and I were talking last night and we started reminiscing about people and places in Houston we haven't seen in forever, and how much longer it was going to be until we were going to be home, and how miserable and homesick I was going to be while camping in the English elements by the time Silchester rolled around in late June and we made an important decision: we're coming home. I've been out of my home country since August and I've had enough of it; I want a big bag of kettle korn, a super large serving of Lai Lai's General Tso's Chicken, a burger and seasoned fries at Red Robin, and a Whataburger. BAD. Yep, when S&G's Homeward Bound goes from making me nostalgic to making me cry uncontrollably, it's time to go home. That's the sign.

Anyway, we remembered that we had 2 weeks in June between programs that we didn't know what to do with and going home to see our families and our hometown sounded a LOT better than hitchhiking and homelessness in Europe. So we sat up at 4 in the morning in Athens to start researching plane tickets from Athens to Houston, just for kicks, and found out to our surprise that we could both fly home and back to London in mid June for a combined price less than what I spent on my first single round trip ticket bought last summer. So a few plane searches and less than $1500 later (I had to search for the '$' sign on my keyboard because it'd been so long since I've used it that I forgot where it was), we had round trip tickets booked home. Here's our itenerary:

Sun 14-Jun-09 Athens (ATH) Depart 6:55 am to Paris (CDG) Arrive 9:20 am Terminal AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL D 1,306 mi (2,102 km) Duration: 3hr 25mn DL Delta Flight: 9333 Operated by: AIR FRANCE 3Economy/Coach Class ( 00, 00 ), Breakfast, Airbus A320 Please check in with Air France. If checking in at a kiosk, use your name rather than confirmation number. Paris (CDG) Depart 10:30 am Terminal AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL E to Houston (IAH) Arrive 1:55 pm Terminal D INTERNATIONAL 5,028 mi (8,092 km) Duration: 10hr 25mn DL Delta Flight: 8314 Operated by: AIR FRANCE 3Economy/Coach Class ( 00, 00 ), Lunch, 77W Total distance: 6,334 mi (10,194 km) Total duration: 13hr 50mn (15hr 0mn with connections) Sat 27-Jun-09 Houston (IAH) Depart 8:05 am Terminal A to New York (JFK) Arrive 12:44 pm Terminal 3 1,415 mi (2,277 km) Duration: 3hr 39mn DL Delta Flight: 6822 Operated by: COMAIR INC 3Economy/Coach Class ( 19A, 19B ), CR9 Please check in with Comair. If checking in at a kiosk, use your name rather than confirmation number. New York (JFK) Depart 6:00 pm Terminal 3 to London (LHR) Arrive 7:05 am +1 day Terminal 4 3,458 mi (5,565 km) Duration: 8hr 5mn DL Delta Flight: 3 3Economy/Coach Class ( 41A, 41B ), Dinner, Boeing 767 Total distance: 4,873 mi (7,842 km) Total duration: 11hr 44mn (17hr 0mn with connections)

Relaxing in Athens

My humble Athenian abode

Hello from Athens!

So far nothing too exciting has happened. I've signed the lease for my very first apartment and have been enjoying it at great length. This week was Tony's (second -humph-) Spring Break, so we've spent a majority of the time lounging about in the flat doing absolutely nothing, and it's been great. Traveling is all well and good, but I've been sight seeing and adjusting to new cultures since August and it's starting to get me down, so I really, really needed a breather. It's probably done me a lot more good than going out to brave the hills of Athens every day would've done at this point. Tomorrow, we're going to take our first big trip out and try to walk from my flat to Tony's dorm. It's about 6 km, so it should be a bit of a journey, but we have the promise of a farmer's market at the end of the line to keep us motivated, and it should be interesting. So far the most exciting thing to happen to me here was the breaking of my clothesline and the resulting loss of my towel and pajama pants. That was a sad day, and I seem to have bad luck when it comes to leaving things on clotheslines to dry in Greece; while in Crete I left 3 shirts out to dry and came home to discover they'd all flown away. I spent 15 minutes looking for them on the beach and had to retrieve 2 from the roof and gutter of the taverna in front of my room... the third one magically showed up at my door about 2 days later. There's a story there, I'm sure of it...