Reporting In, Again

Hi all,

I've been offline for the last four or five days (I forget exactly), so this is just to say that I'm still alive and all. We've been doing large amounts on the Pelopponessos, combined with study for the course test, which had us all thoroughly terrified. On Friday, the evening before, we were so worried that we started writing summary sheets on the sites we'd presented and taping them to our doors, sort of like a modern day Wall of Eponymous Heroes. When Mark and Diana (the lecturers) got back from dinner, they realised what we were doing, said "Look at our babies!" and wrote up short sheets of their own. Yesterday evening immediately after the test, it took me an hour and a half to stop bouncing, I was so happy it was over. Alasdair and I even found somewhere to throw a frisbee around (actually quite hard over here), in the central court of the hotel we were staying at. The name of the hotel is Amallia, but you need to have some passing knowledge of the Bronze Age in the Aegean to know why the fact that it has a central court is funny.

The worst travel day was when we drove from Sparta to Pylos to Bassae to Olympia, all in one day, over terrible terrible roads. There were not a few places on the route where the road had four or five switchbacks, just to get up the hill. The front of the bus was rather more full than usual, as everyone with a tendency to carsickness got chummy with Mark and Diana who had the front seats. Olympia was wonderful, although the lovely, beautiful, clean, exquisite air was bone dry and it hurt to breathe, so I was fairly glum and uncommunicative that day, which is a shame. (Stupid asthma.) There I saw what is now my absolute favourite statue, the one of Hermes holding the baby Dionysos which is totally more fantastic in real life than in pictures, because you can pick out the details, and the three-dimensionality, and the lovely curve of Hermes' back. Just lovely. Delphi was also truly wonderful. There and Olympia were the ancient world's two favourite places to buy splosh pressents for, so there is a significant amount of Really Cool things to look at there.

Anyway, my love to all, I'll be back on the late afternoon of the 20th. Take care.