I'm back : midterms, Delphi, Olympia, and Thessaloniki

Sorry I haven't written in awhile. It has been an overly hectic couple of weeks. First we had midterms week (good and bad came of that), then we had a school trip, then we had a long break for Greek Independence Day when I went on my own trip and wrote a paper.

The school trip was to Olympia and Delphi, and a few small sites. We started out by going to some small ruins of a temple dedicated to something to do with the after life. This was when I discovered how miserable my weekend was going to be. My professor was terrible. She took us in, talked for a few minutes, then said, take five minutes and come back to the bus. Next we went to a monastery. She wasn't so bad there. It was cool to go into a church when there was nobody there and poke around a bit. I could see parts of the church that are normally closed on Sunday to all except the priest and other people in robes. Then we went to lower Delphi. She took us to the temple to Athena in lower Delphi, talked for about 10 minutes, and said "ok, let's go". We were given no time to take pictures or poke around. We got to our hotel 2 1/2 hours early because we did not spend the scheduled time at the sites. Luckily, the hotel was within walking distance of lower Delphi, so a few of us headed back and poked around.

The second day we got to the hotel only 2 hours early. We looked at the Delphi site and museum that day. She led us through about half the site (yelling at us for taking pictures while she was talking because we "would have time at the end"). Then, she gave us 20 minutes. It took us 15 just to get from where she said that to the top of the site. We then ran back down the hill and managed to get to the meeting point after 35 minutes. I was not happy. Once we left the site, we could not re-enter without paying. She took us over to the museum and led us through, then gave us an hour to look through a tiny museum, when we had seen everything in there. During her tour of the museum, she gave us wrong information (I counted twice, but there might have been more). On the site she gave us wrong information at least once that somebody caught. By this time nobody on the bus is happy. She read from a guidebook half the time and gave wrong info half the rest of the time.

The third day we visited Olympia. We saw the site and museum in the morning and were given the rest of the day to ourselves in Olympia. There is nothing to do in Olympia. Finally, the 4th day we got on a bus and headed back to Athens. We stopped at a museum for water power. We spent 15 minutes there. None of us could understand why we stopped there. It was the kind of place we do not enjoy because we are educated enough to already know everything we were told there. It is the kind of place they would take you in elementary school for a field trip, but it is not cool anymore when you have seen that kind of thing or read about that kind of thing for so long. Finally, we returned to Athens and we were free of this professor.

Then last week we had only a 2 day school week because Wednesday was Greek Independence Day. There was a military parade through the city. I went to see it. When they say military parade, they MEAN military parade. They basically paraded in front of us jeeps, tanks, helicopters, boats, guns, and the various branches marching. The only music was a band at the very end playing what I assume was the Greek National Anthem. The only colors were green, blue and white. I got bored, but the people around me were going wild with excitement.

That afternoon I hopped on a 6 hour train ride to Thessaloniki (in my pursuit of following Paul to as many places as possible). It was nice, but it was not exactly a thrilling place. There were some ruins and some museums, but everything closed at three. I went into one museum, in a tower built by the Turks. It was a whole history of Thessaloniki. Everything written was in Greek, but they gave me a listening device which basically read it all to me. That was pretty cool. I now know a lot about Thessaloniki history. And the top of the tower had an amazing view. And it was nice, because I did not have to pay to get in anywhere. The sites were free and the museums were free to students. In many ways, it was very like Athens. The food was a little more expensive (where I was), but it mostly had the feel of Athens.

Funny story, I was on the train on the way back to Athens studying my modern Greek terms. I was reviewing colors and there was one word I could not figure out at all. So I leaned across to the lady across from me and said in Greek Excuse me, what is green? Apparently she did not speak English, because she could not figure out how to answer me. She looked at me like I had lost my mind then started looking around confused. Finally somebody leaned forward and said "green". So think about that... how would you respond if somebody came up to you (who obviously speaks little English) and asks, "what is green?"

So, now I am back in school for a full week, for the first time since midterms. We have two full weeks then Spring break. I have gotten busy fast. I don't know where I will be spending time this weekend, but you can bet I will be making the most of my remaining time in Greece.

By the way, Greek coffee is difficult to make, but quite good once you get a hang of it. I doubt I make it very well, but I don't really know the difference :).