By the Way...

I should have mentioned this before, but Mark, one of our lecturers has been posting photos in his blog, if anyone is interested. I have photos, but I won't be putting them up until I get home.

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.

Still Alive...

Today we went to Epidauros (or Epidavros if you speak Modern vs Ancient Greek). This should be on everyone's must-see lists for Greece. The Theatre has the best acoustics I've ever heard in my life. One of the girls on this trip, Alissa, has a very beautiful singing voice, and was bullied into singing for us as we headed out into the far reaches of the audience seating. No change in volume, and just lovely sound quality. Also the two people presenting the site performed a short extract from the Aristophanes play Wealth, with cross dressing, a fake and very long penis, and lots of jokes about members of the audience. The other main site there is the Sanctuary to Aesclepius, which has a very different feel. Walking in, surrounded by pine trees, in a slightly damp morning, we could almost have been in NZ, although the sheep over the fence had long ears and tails, and there were bells on the minder dogs. I walked around in there by myself after we'd been let loose to wander about, and it's a very calming, tranquil place. There's a guy called Henry Miller who talked about hearing the heart of the world beating, in the great calm and stillness. I so totally get what he meant.

Take care all.

Christ, O Thou Pelican

I just saw a Pelican!!! It was so cute and pink and fluffy and, and, and...

I'm currently in Sitia, which is quite small, about 9,000 people but has a nice waterfront. Not much to say apart from that this morning in Aghios Nicholaos (ie St Nicholas) was a public holiday to celebrate the Feast of St Nicholas. The other Steffany and I walked up to the town cathedral to see if we were in time for the procession (we weren't) but the people clustered outside were so friendly (they gave us bread tied with purple ribbons, even) that we asked if we could go inside, and lit candles for the people back at home. It was lovely inside, and I'm very glad I went.

Back in the land of Nod

Well, back in the land of cheap internet access. Against my expectation Kolimbari did in fact have some terminals available for hire, just quite expensive ones. Ah Freshness Cafe... you made a lot of money out of us. (We went there for food quite frequently as well.)

The trip is going well, particularly as we had a couple of days off in the last week in which I slept much and am feeling considerably happier about life, the universe and everything. Yesterday we went olive picking, which actually consists of hitting a tree with a big stick.

I am gutted that I couldn't make the finale Mordavia game. Ah, well, people can tell me all about it at the After Larp.

Going Off Line

Hi all,

Tomorrow the lot of us CLAS320/420ers are shifting to Kolibari for six days. It's on the western tip of Crete, and is quite small, so I doubt there'll be internet access. So this is to say to those who've been checking for regular updates that I'm just fine, and have not been hit by a tidal wave, or a rogue riot, or kidnapped by a wandering drunken centaur, or worse, a libidinous Greek deity.

This morning we wandered around a Minoan cemetery. The site presenter, Steffany, who is a goth, made a point of climbing into one of the Mycenean stone paved graves and did a zombie impersonation. Diana, our chief lecturer, says that we have an unnatural and disturbingly recurring interest in zombies and cannibalism.

Take care,

Steph

(See you on the flip side.)

Not much to say ...

... except we've moved to Heraklion (on the tickets) or Iraklion (on the street signs). This place is so much nicer than Athens, you wouldn't believe it. The air tastes so good. I can walk around at night without rousting out someone to walk with me. (Not actually that difficult, the women in the group developed an unspoken agreement that we didn't have to go out by ourselves, because we found the solid clusters of young men standing around staring at us, combined with the almost compete lack of local women on the streets after five somewhat unnerving.) It's nice to go for a walk by myself again.

Today we went to Knossos, which was much coolness, particularly as one of the archaologists working on the site came out and gave us a very in depth tour of it.

I am feeling very homesick.

Take care all.

The Rains Have Come

Yesterday night, a good solid soaking into dry ground. This wasn't a complete surprise to the locals, the weather had been overcast all day, and spitting a little, and it's the time of year when they expect rains. According to one of the books I read for my site presentation, the growing season for grain here is autumn and winter, when there's enough water to keep it alive, which is appropriate, as I gave my site presentation yesterday (on Eleusis, the site of a cult to Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture). It went pretty well, with one hasty rearrangement of material when we thought it might rain earlier in the day that turned out to be a false alarm, and I was feeling a little spaced out at the time due to the beginnings of a cold. I thought of John often, and fondly, becauce a random handkerchief he'd lent me some time ago had turned out to be in my jacket pocket just when I really really needed it. The site itself was fantastic, although I didn't have nearly enough time to look at it properly because we had to get on the bus for the next site. Who cares about stupid old graveyards, anyway. One of the things I almost missed was walking down a pathway along the excavations of one of the old retaining walls and realising the sheer amount of earth that was brought on to the site, so that they could have a bigger temple on severely sloping ground, because it was the sacred spot associated with Demeter.

Today is our last day in Athens, we fly to Crete at midday, and I'm finding it very relaxing not having a 9am (or 8am or 7.30am) morning call for once.

Take care all.

I'm Still Alive

(But don't have much time to post.)

Yesterday we went to the Island of Aigina, which fits, I think, most people's image of what Greece is like: hot sun, blue mellow sea, white houses and narrow streets. It was incredibly laidback, and there was a lot of fish, and many people selling pistachio nuts. The Best Bit was clambering around in a neolithic village on the Hill of the Colonna (Hill of the Column) which I enjoyed greatly until someone said "Hey, we might see snakes!" (We didn't.)

Today we see more museums. Take care all.

There was a riot yesterday.

This is not as bad as it sounds.

Every year on November 17 there is a big protest march in memory of a bunch of students who were killed protesting the Junta way back in the 70s (?) (I can't remember the exact date.) It also tends to be protesting whatever it is that America has done lately to piss people off, in this case the Iraq War, as America was the main supporter of the Junta government. The early part of the march is quite civilised, and by evening the hooligan element descends into open battle. The gent holding down the desk at the hotel told Hamish that a certain part of it is simply young Greek men wanting to go out and cause a ruckus, and this is a legitimate excuse to do so.

We were careful, however. Yesterday was spent in the British School which has nice thick walls, although, unfortunately, the reason for this is because its right next to the American School in the Embassy district where all the trouble happens. Walking there, there were a few less people than usual, coming home at about 3 the streets were dead. That's right, the day of the riot is the one day of the year you can walk along the big 8 lane boulevards when they're empty of traffic. I think we went home through the eye of the storm, if it had been noisier we would have gone along back roads and that, but the opportunity to be in the middle of Athens when its quiet is too rare to be missed. There were police everywhere, in the quiet parts where I was mostly lounging around in clumps of about 10 chatting, snacking or fiddling with their cellphones. It wasn't all quiet though, we watched the news on TV that night, and the area around the American Embassy (and up north in Thessaloniki) was a huge roiling mass of people hitting each other with 2x4s that had started out as the poles for their flags. There was tear gas, and the huge black police buses we'd seen earlier probably came into good use. I'll just repeat however that I stayed well away from the trouble areas and was absolutely fine.

In other news, today we're going out to three sites on the Attic peninsula, Brauron, Thorikos (?) and Sounion. I'm really looking forward to this, partly because we've spent the last three days in libraries and museums and I could do with the exercise, partly because the air will be a lot clearer and the smog and asthma is really getting me down.

Anyway, take care all,

Stephanie

Just a quick one.

Thanks for the heads up about the hacking, guys. The internet cafe I was in kicked me automatically kicked me off the system before I could log out properly, I'll be more careful about that now.

Today I'm up and wandering around at 7 in the morning, due to having woken up at 3 and there being a limit to how much time I can spend dozing and eating breakfast. Athens is quite nice this early, actually. The air is very crisp and clear and there's hardly any traffic.

Yesterday was the promised library, which answers the question about where to go in the event of a zombie attack. It has very high solid walls and quite strict security requirements (apparently because they're attached to the American School which has had bomb threats). The library itself is one of those old fashioned libraries that you hear about in Oxford and that, creaky ladders heading into the high shelves, big tables and subdued lighting. It wasn't a huge help to me for research, as most of the books that weren't available in NZ or precursors of the ones I'd read were in Greek, although I did read a fascinating text on mushroom cults and the hallucinogenic properties of ergot.

Take care all.

Reporting In

Hi all,

I have made it to Greece all safe and sound, although we spent 30 odd hours in transit and we were all feeling trashed by the time we got to the hotel yesterday morning. Driving in to Athens was awesome - it's a white city with the hills covered with greygreen olive trees. Right up close the buildings show up more as slightly grey or slightly brown, and the district we're in is fairly seedy with very narrow streets. This is a city of tenement buildings, usually 4 to 6 stories, and also of dogs, randomly mooching around or curled up on the middle of the footpath catching a nap. Nobody has gardens as such, but there are trees, sometimes citrus, planted on a lot of the streets, and potted bushes on balconies are very common. Marble is a very common building material here. It's not as ubiquitous as concrete, but they'll use it for doorstops and balconies and other commonplace objects that we wouldn't because, well, it's marble. Yesterday was our jetlag day and we mostly spent it walking around Athens and having impromptu room parties trying to stay awake until 7 o'clock. This morning, however, we went up to the Acropolis and it was absolutely amazingly cool. The weather is quite warm without being excessively hot. It's autumn, though, and we stand out from all the locals who are wandering around in thick jerseys and heavy coats. Everything you've heard about smog here is true, the air is a visible haze and yesterday I had a scarybad asthma attack having tried to walk up a hill at the same pace as our group leader who always hurries everywhere. From now on I intend to be unstaunch and amble and suspect I will find life a lot easier. It's also a city full of cigarette smoke, everywhere you go there is an undertone smell of petrol and nicotine, such as the internet cafe where I am which is also full of young Greek men playing first person shoot'em ups. We've been doing lots of walking this past two days, but tomorrow we get to hang out at a nice quiet library and do research, which will be good for our feet.

Take care everyone,

Stephanie

Up, up and away...

I'm off tomorrow morning. Will update occasionally (and do that email thing) but probably not everyday.

Fingers crossed etc. (John gave me a Chthulu plushie as a going away present. It's so cute!)

Update

Because I realised I haven't posted for a while.

I am well except for this stupid two and a half week cough, which today I went to see a doctor about. He gave me some pills, which I suppose is the point of doctors. Also, I got my ears syringed, which is a very odd sensation, and since then a lot of sounds have been both louder and much crisper, like the sounds of the keys as I'm typing right now, for instance. I wonder how long I'll notice the difference for. What I'm also thinking about is the fascination we have with the gross bits of our own bodies - I made a point of checking out the huge lumps of wax pulled out of my ears; several years ago when my Mum had abdominable surgery she got great joy showing people pictures of her insides despite all protestations to the contrary; people who've had appendices removed sometimes keep them in jars on mantelpieces... Why do we care so much?

I've been trying to learn basic Greek - the modern kind I mean, which Victoria University doesn't teach, although it has a thriving department for the 2000 year old variety. So far I've been watching some video tapes called "The Greek Language and People", but the only word I can remember when I'm not watching the video sounds something like "parakalos" (thank you), so I'm not entirely sure how much good this is going to do me.

Also, today I got some new stripy pyjamas because my old stripy pyjamas have developed a whole in one knee and you can't have that.

No More Exams For Me...

La la la.
(Well, for this term, anyway.)

I also got confirmation of the site that I'm going to study in Greece: Eleusis, otherwise known as that place wot Theseus came from in The King Must Die. I guess I'm going to have to do some more serious reading than an historical adventure novel. ;-) (Although, the lists of sites says that I'm sharing the site, but doesn't say with whom I'm sharing it. Go figure.)

EDIT:
And now I'm back at home having my first cup of tea since 7am this morning. O Tea, how I love thee, let me count the ways...
I spent the afternoon bouncing around the campus (and town) playing Change-Of-Course Hopscotch and making sure that Babe has enough food for while I'm away. On the plus side, this meant some interesting conversations with Robert Easting and Matthew Trundle about a) travelling through Greece and b) what courses are good to take for an easy A. Matthew thought that Salient should run an article on the latter, but declined to comment on his picks for the shortlist. Probably wise of him.

EDIT^2:
Ah, the irony. I was putting off getting changes signed off in the hopes that I'd be accepted into CREW255 and could do it all in one fell swoop. I had to give up on that idea, eventually, because the professor running the Greek Field Trip was complaining about people not setting up their enrolments properly. What just arrived? My acceptance into CREW255. (Which, incidentally, I'm very happy about.)

And in other news...

I've been accepted into the Classics Department's Greek Field Trip for this summer. Much Joy.