The Argolid

We had our first school field trip from Thursday to Saturday. We went to the Argolid and saw quite a few different sets of ruins. I saw some obscure ones, and some that were amazingly cool. First we went to a set of ruins called the Argive Heraion. Those were a lot of fun, despite the rain, because there was no beaten path to see everything. We pretty much climbed over walls and down into valleys up and down a hill to see everything at our own pace. It was a lot of fun, mainly because it was my first real set of ruins. You could see where temples from different periods had been and even some pillars. Among the many other sites I saw on this trip was Mycenae. Mycenae has some amazingly preserved ruins. The gate is the most famous part. It is known as the lion's gate, because of the triangle tile placed over the mantel with big lions carved on it. It is famous, because it is the only gate of its kind with that tile part still preserved. Some of the stones which were dragged up that hill to build Mycenae, including the gate, were so big that it seems impossible that anybody could get them up there even with our modern machinery.

I also went to Epidaurus, which holds quite a lot on the site. One place is the theatre, the best preserved of its kind. They say that if someones stands in the middle and lights a match or drops a coin, someone at the top of the massive seating can hear it all. It is that acoustically sound. I was pretty annoyed when I was there, because my professor leading my group talked so much that I did not have a chance to hear someone drop a coin. I did watch another group doing the experiment, but I did not get the chance. At that site, she talked so much that we did not get the opportunity to really enjoy the site at all. At another place in the same site is an ancient stadium. I watched from above as another group ran a footrace down there, but my group was standing in some ruins of a temple listening to more lecture. It was pretty annoying that I was not even able to go down there, because we ran out of time.

We also visited the Palamides (sp?) which is on the top of a big hill above the town where we were staying. It was pretty cool, and the view was absolutely amazing. I wasn't really interested in the castle I was in, but the view was breathtaking. Once the bus crested the hill to park and let us out, we all saw the view and there was a collective gasp from everybody on the bus. As I got ready to leave on the bus I stopped to buy some oranges from a stand by the castle, and the man just handed me two oranges for free. They were delicious, and probably grown withing 5 miles of where I ate them. There were orange groves everywhere.

By the end of the trip, I was getting sick of looking at rocks piled on top of each other at a bunch of ruins that looked like one another, so a few more sites that we went to made little to no impression on me.

For the two nights we stayed in Nafplio. It really is a tourist town, but it was fun to be there. I also had some adventures there. On the first night I went out most of the evening and into the night with friends. We went out to dinner and I had rabbit for the first time. That was a lot of fun, except that our group grew to about 9 people, and the taverna we went in got taken over by us. You don't really see culture when you travvel in packs. That night we also spent some time in a cafe and I had my first cup of Greek coffee. I actually had two that night, which was a bad idea. I had one before dinner and one 4 hours later after dinner. I discovered my mistake when my heart pounded hard all night. I don't like coffee, but Greek coffee tastes nothing like American coffee, and it is pretty good. I also had some good gelatto. Nafplio is the place in Greece to get gelatto. The perks to it being a tourist town is that I got some good souvenirs, including worry beeds. Greeks walk around playing with worry beeds all the time, and they fascinate me. I always like to do something with my hands, so they are perfect. I bought some that were made of semi precious stones, bandid agate.

I also finally did my assignment for my Orthodox Church class to interview a Greek Orthodox person. I had to walk up to about 5 tables before I found somebody who spoke English, but when I finally did, he was a 34 year old father of young children. I found out that young adult christians in Greece are just like those in America. Very little difference. They think sermons are irrelavent, but they start going back to church when they have families, because they want their kids to know church. They also think that the priests are hypocritical, doing one thing and saying another. It was interesting to listen to him talk, and to see his obvious discomfort at saying anything against the church. But he did say it.

yia sas!