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September 6, 2008
Geia Sas Everyone!!
Sorry for not writing sooner, but it’s been a real whirlwind the past week!!
Here is a quick rundown of how things have been going . . .
Thurs, Aug 28 - Zoom goes under, I have to rebook almost all my flights but I do finally get my passport with my Greecian Visa!!
Fri Aug 29 - packing and relaxing day
Sat Aug 30 - Monday Sept 1 - TRAVEL!! That’s right folks, I was up for 44 hours and flew from Vancouver to London, looked around London for a few hours, slept in the airport, flew to Athens, took the metro into town and found my hotel, and then promptly slept before meeting up with the whole group, including Nicole!! The group is great and we are having a blast so far!! We went for a group dinner that night and Nicole and I stayed out a bit later than everyone else and met some real Greeks and sang some songs and wandered around a bit.
Tues Sept 2 - Aereopagus, Acropolis, Plaka and some shopping: basically day one of our personal guided tour around Athens with Geoffrey, our prof. He is amazingly knowledgeable and it was totally great to learn what all the cool old rocks meant!! Had a wee nap in the afternoon and then a great Greecian dinner on a rooftop terrace with a view of the Acropolis!! (we also have a view of the Acropolis from our hotel)
Wed Sept 3 - Keramikos, Monastraki, Agora: day two of our personal guided tour!! Saw an ancient cemetery and some of the original Athenian city wall, did some shopping in the bazaar-like shopping district, and toured the Agora, or ancient sacred city centre of Athens.
Thurs Sept 4 - Temples of Artemis and Posiden and SWIMMING!!!! After surviving the totally hot Athens for a few days (its been about 36 here all day) we went down the coast and saw the Temple of Artemis, complete with a 5th century BC bridge, and then the Temple of Posiden at Sounioun, which is on a rock that hangs out over the sea, amazing setting look for pics!! And did I mention we went SWIMMING?!?!?! It was in a gross but beautiful harbour, but the amazingly warm water was worth it!!! So refreshing!!!
Fri Sept 5 - Delphi: been there before, it was hot, but fun, learned a bit, and had a relaxing day on a bus. Last night chilled out on the rooftop terrace drinking beer and looking at the Acropolis!
Sat Sept 6 - South Slope of the Acropolis and Temple of Olympian Zeus: got a bit of a lie in today, only started touring at 11 instead of 9 . . . the South Slope is so cool! 3000 + years of history on one slope of a hill!! Bought an Indiana Jones hat for the dig and went to see the Olympian Zeus Temple that took 700+ years to build and was finally finished under Hadrian in Roman times!! Amazing!!
Ok, so a few other tidbits . . .
-it is HOT here!!! no sunburn for me as of yet, yay!!
-the food is so good!! I love gyros, with yummy meat and fresh tomatoes and tzatziki, it’s not the best having to buy most of your meals, but tomorrow we will have our own kitchens so will be able to eat more cheaply.
-Greek men are generally assholes, they look at you with this 'I want you' look that makes you just want to slap them, but alas, that is not socially acceptable, so we usually just keep walking and ignoring them. HOWEVER - today this old greasy Greek guy did tell me that I have the most amazing legs he's seen in 40 years . . . and really, no matter who’s telling you that, it feels pretty good.
I’m sure I’m forgetting about a thousand other cool things right now, but I really am having a great time and will upload pictures as soon as I have a chance!!
Hope everyone is well in Vancouver!!!
Love Michelle
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29673&l=c52e3&id=512804292
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September 14, 2008
Hello Everyone!
Greetings from Poros, on the island of Kefalonia!
Had a great and very relaxing week this week.
Last Saturday (6th) we flew to Kefalonia at night, and got to our accommodation around midnight. We are living in a really beautiful hotel on the side of town that is near the port, which means ferries coming and going at all hours of the day and night, and unlike BC ferries, these bad boys drop anchor every time! Wonderful!!
Sunday (7th) was the first real view we got of the island, and our wee town. It is really lovely!! Very picturesque and although there are lots of tourists here (mostly Brits) they are not still over running the place as they still are in other places with nicer beaches than our town. Sunday night the governor/mayor of the Pronnoi-Elios municipality on the island held a dinner in our honour at a really swanky hotel in the next town over, Skala. The bus picked us all up at 9pm for dinner (Greeks eat LATE), and we arrived to a host of people who had gathered to meet us and dine. Most importantly the main archaeologists from the island were invited to meet us, as we represent the first foreign dig ever to come to Kefalonia!! There have been a few foreign surveys done, but never a dig, so the island as whole is very happy that we are here. The people take a keen interest in Kefalonian archaeology, mostly because the is some hot debate over whether or not modern Ithaki is Odysseus’ ancient Ithaca – if you’re an Ithaki’an you believe that it is; if you’re a Kefalonian you believe that Kefalonia is it! So, what people really want us to find are Mycenean features, which Kefalonia has in spades!! When we start excavating this week, we are hoping to find some good pottery which we can date to the period and hopefully also some inscriptions on tombstones which will give us a better idea of the kinds of people who were living here 3000+ years ago :o) Anyways, back to the dinner . . . the food was absolutely amazing!!!! After being in Athens for a week and always trying to find the cheapest food humanly possible, to be presented with amazing food that we didn’t have to make or pay for we were in heaven!! After our wonderful meal and some drinks made by the very free-pouring bartender, it was back on our bus and home to Poros.
The rest of the week was pretty much filled with school, frappes at the beach cafés, and going to the beach. We had some introductory classes in the history of the island, archaeology and modern Greek, and then would often head down to our favourite restaurant, Pantelis, for some mega good food. There are a few ‘supermarkets’ here, but they are expensive and don’t offer much of a variety of food, so until we discovered the SPAR and the LIDL in Argostoli (an hour away!) on Friday, it was a lot of pasta and eating out for us. Basically, with the prices of food in Poros being what they are, pasta is the only thing we can afford to make that turns out to be cheaper than what we can buy in town with our reduction cards!!
Ah yes, the reduction card. Our welcome to Poros has been outstanding!!! Everyone treats us like gold!! Hettie (the wife of the former governor of the municipality) has been our main contact and liaison here, and she has really gotten us some great deals. We have a reduction in prices at every restaurant in town!! She makes sure that our flats have everything we need and has really helped us feel at home. Pretty much everyone else we meet does the same as well. Vasillis, our bus driver, owns a beach bar we call the Hobbit Bar, and he gave everyone (16 people) free drinks all Friday night as a welcome gesture!!! (and also to ensure our returning patronage); and the owner of one of the supermarkets in town gave us rides in his car back to our flats after our first ‘big shop’ in town!
We are starting our dig this week, and I am super excited to get going on it. After everything that Geoffrey has told us about the island, we all just want to get our hands in the dirt and start finding stuff!!
More next week for sure, and here is the link to the photos from this week:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30417&l=69ee2&id=512804292
Take care everyone!!
-Michelle
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Tokyo
11 years ago
