Archaeology and the Sea

This blog title accurately sums up my time in Greece thus far.

We've been touring some of the world's greatest archaeological sites this past week, and this fresh water girl has fallen in love with the sea.

To sum up the past week:

 Temple of Nike at the gates of the Acropolis

 You guessed it - the Parthenon

Erechtheion, what my professor says is the most important building on top of the Acropolis

Those are all pictures I took on top of the Acropolis. One word of advice - if you ever have the amazing opportunity to tour the Acropolis, bring water and sunscreen and maybe a kiddie pool filled with cold water just in case.

The ruins on top of the Acropolis were amazing but what always seems to strike me the most are smaller artifacts - the vases, the sculptures, the mosaics, the jewelry. The amount of careful detail that one person had to put into a small work of art always blows me away, and the smaller artifacts always seem much more personal to me.

Check out the detailing on this octopus vase - so intricate! This is from the National Archaeology Museum in Athens, which we also visited. The place was filled with amazing artifacts from all over Greece - and let me tell you what, Greece has no shortage of amazing ancient artifacts.

Apart from touring sites in Athens, I've been attending class and working on my Greek. Athenians always appreciate it when I try to speak Greek (key word: try), but my accent is so terrible so I'm always getting laughed at. All in good fun, of course, but I am very obviously an American.

I've also swam in the ocean twice. TWICE! I've been in the ocean before, in South Carolina, and was wholly unimpressed. Why bother with salt when I live an hour away from Lake Michigan, the most beautiful lake in probably the entire world?

Well, let me tell you what, the Aegean sea is nothing like the Atlantic Ocean. It is clear and cold (not freezing but refreshing), and the water is so blue, and being surrounded by the coastal mountains of Greece certainly doesn't hurt either. I can even deal with the saltiness of it all!

Then again, maybe I'm starting to love the sea because of Nafplion. If you've never heard of Nafplion, do yourself a favor and look it up (or just check out the pictures I've posted). It is a breathtaking city, and my amateur photographs pale in comparison to seeing the real thing.

After an early morning hike with a friend to the fortress on a hilltop overlooking Nafplion, I knew I was in love with this place. The town itself is set in the Argolic Gulf, which is part of the Aegean Sea. As one of my friends poignantly put it, after seeing a place so beautiful, you can really understand why the Ancient Greeks were so eager to fight for and die defending their land. Here are some more pictures of the town, along with pictures of the beach and the walk to the beach - a cobblestone sidewalk cut into the side of the mountain.

 Water fortress at Nafplion

 View of the walk to the beach and the high fortress - the beach is directly to the left of the building on the water

Looking out on the ocean from the beach

We had an excursion and we stayed overnight in Nafplion. Not only was it beautiful, but it had a great selection of restaurants with fresh seafood - I tried octopus for the first time! - and the best gelato in all of Greece, or so our professor claims. I have to admit, I can't argue with him on that one. Personally, I loved the coconut flavor. We also got a tour of the Karonis distillery, one of the oldest distilleries in Greece. We tried several types of alcohol, with my personal favorite being Mastika - a liquor distilled from Mastika sap, a type of tree that only grows on an island in the Aegean (on the island of Cyprus, if I remember correctly).

 On our excursion, we toured several archaeological sites - ancient Corinth, Nemea, Mycenae, and Epidaurus. I learned so much from all of these sites, way more than I could ever include in a blog post! Here are a few of my favorite pictures/buildings from these places.

 Walking of Nemea, a site where Panhellenic games took place

 View from Mycenae, an ancient palace and town

Theater at Epidaurus, a healing site

As you can tell, it's been a very busy week here in Greece - today is the first day off since I arrived! It's nice to have a slower morning, but I'm already getting antsy and wanting to walk around and explore Athens! But maybe some coffee (by the way, the coffee in Greece is UH-MAZING) before anything else...

Learn to Love Your Luggage

Reasons Why I Love My Luggage:
It contains the majority of my stuff.
The airline lost it.
I now have it back.

Yep. My luggage was lost. Well, not technically lost - they knew where it was - but I didn’t have it, so it was lost to me.

How did this happen, you might ask?

My flight from DTW to AMS was delayed for roughly two hours. My original flight schedule included a two hour and forty minute layover in AMS. If you do the math, you’ll realize I had forty minutes of layover time in Amsterdam. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Yeah well it was. Forty minutes from the time the plane landed, not from the time I stepped off the plane. My layover consisted of me getting stuck in a long line of passengers struggling to exit the plane, a fast walk across half of an airport, a stressful passport and security check, and getting to my next gate as the last couple passengers were getting on.

I know you’re thinking that I should stop complaining because after all I did make my plane. Here’s where things get tricky though: my luggage was not in quite the hurry I was. It did not make the 8:35am flight to Athens.

So here I am, fresh off the plane in a new country, watching the luggage carousel (is that really what it’s called or did I make that up?) spin around and around, poised to grab my suitcase and make a speedy exit. Watching the conveyor belt spin until there were no bags. Watching until the conveyor belt screeched to a halt with no suitcase in my hand.

A quick trip to the booth that deals in luggage tracking confirmed that indeed my bag did not make it to Athens. It was still in Amsterdam. I was assured my luggage would be here by the weekend, and luckily I had thought to pack a bag of travel sized toiletries and some extra clothes in my carry on. However, after two hours of sleep in the past 24 hours (I can’t sleep on planes very well) and the stress of being in a new country with a completely different language, the promise of luggage by the weekend did little to stop the tears I felt pricking at my eyes. Yes, I am one of those unfortunate people who sometimes cries in stressful situations - but I refused to cry in the airport. I took a deep breath, and told myself it would all be okay, that everything would work out even if I never saw my luggage again.

And here it is, Saturday evening, and I have my luggage back in my possession. My suitcase has never looked any better.

Traveling, especially internationally, can be so stressful. I started asking myself if I had made the right decision deciding to come study abroad for a whole three months, if I was ready for this commitment, if I could handle it. After asking myself these questions three or four times, I had to yell at myself (in my head) to stop it. Negativity does nothing but make the situation more stressful. After a couple deep breaths, I put a smile on my face and continued on my way.

I successfully made it to my apartment in outer Athens, and I’m having an absolutely fantastic time. Yesterday we had a lovely dinner at a nearby restaurant (I had lamb and it was delicious!) and a walking tour of the center of Athens today. And the sunset this evening - absolutely phenomenal.

 

I'M GOING TO EUROPE!

Is this real life?

This is the question that has been running continuously through my head the past 24 hours - from the last minute packing last night, to waking up at 7am for one last run in the states, to driving three hours to the airport.

Thankfully, it IS real life. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my (delayed) flight that will take be abroad (eventually) to Athens, Greece! And after 2 1/2 weeks, I'll be flying to Italy to stay for two months.

I’ve spent the last year of my life preparing to study abroad for a semester - from the first meeting with the study abroad consultant at Alma to now. The time flies by, and it never ceases to amaze me!

My mom has asked only about a million times how I’m feeling today. To be honest, I have no idea how to answer. Excited, nervous, bewildered, scared, amazed... I don’t even know where to begin.

This will be by far the longest I’ve ever been away from home (perks of going to a college only an hour and a half away from home!), the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing my family and my dogs, and my first time to Greece and Italy. I know no Greek, and I only know minimal Italian. So yeah, safe to say I’ve been freaking out a little bit.

But I’ve also always wanted to travel. Last May, I took a two and half week class that included traveling all over Germany. After returning, I made the decision that I wanted more than anything to study abroad the following fall semester. After roughly a million pages of paperwork, running around to all of my campus’ offices, and a lot of meetings, I finally decided on Italy and was accepted into the program. I’m so excited that all my hard work paid off and I will be fulfilling a long time travel dream of mine!

Packing has been a bit of a nightmare. As of last night, I had my suitcase all ready to go.

Looks pretty neat, right? Until you see my bed covered in all the stuff I had yet to organize and pack into my carry-on.

Finally, I got everything packed into a backpack, a suitcase, and a purse. I didn’t even need the fancy expando zipper on the backpack! I’m still nervous I forgot something though, but I suppose time will tell. My backpack weighs roughly a million tons, but since it'll only be that full while I'm traveling between places, I can manage it.

My flight has finally started to board, so I'm off! Wish me luck!