On Study Abroad

Since I have returned home from Athens, a lot of people have asked me about studying abroad. They ask me how I liked it, how I'm transitioning back to living in the US, whether I look forward to next semester in Rome, and whether or not the riots ruined my time abroad. The answers are pretty automatic by now- I loved it, the transition is funny but going well, I'm looking forward to next semester very much, and the riots were unfortunate but haven't soured my experience. They also ask if I brought them gifts. I didn't always.

What makes me the most excited, though, is when I meet younger people who ask if they should study abroad.


The answer is, unequivocally, yes. If you have a chance to study abroad, do it. It isn't going to be easy all the time- you'll get lost in strange cities, make cultural gaffes ranging from the silly to the potentially offensive, have to eat food you don't like, and get tired and dirty and sick and homesick far more often than you probably do while at school. You have to wade through mountains of administrative concerns- visas, vaccinations, more tb tests than are probably normal or healthy, whatever applications are required of you by program and college- as well as the more mundane worries about procuring euros, having clothing that is appropriate for the climate you're going to, and purchasing enough ibuprofen to last until December. Study abroad is, in fact, a bit of a pain.

It is also, in my opinion, the best thing I have done yet in my life. I have learned so much in the past semester about both Athens and myself that I would never have learned in California or Boston. There's a lot of bravery involved in uprooting your life, leaving behind your friends and family, and moving to a foreign country where you don't actually speak the language, but once you have done it you feel like there is nothing in the world that you can't do. I met wonderful people, saw beautiful places, learned a really fun language, and generally had a wonderful time.

So yes, I say to all of you who are considering study abroad, I think that you should go. I promise you won't regret it.

Culture Shock!

Whenever I return home from school, I find that I go through some form of reverse culture shock. For winter break, the first shock is generally the cold- while I know perfectly well that Massachusetts is cold in December and January, this is always a fact that I manage to forget about while I am in California or, this year, Greece. Since I usually leave home in August and come back in December, there is always that moment of surprise when I realize that I have gone from lush, green, warm New England summer to the arctic tundra that is home in December. There's usually that first moment when, after having gotten off the plane and collected my luggage, I step outside and think, "Oh dear, this is very cold."

Of course, the shock isn't just about the weather, and this year, it's a bit more severe than usual. I don't usually have a hard time adjusting to new places-when a lot of my fellow students were panicking about the lack of washing machines, about the selections in grocery stores, and Athens in general, I was just sort of quietly making do-but I find that going home again always throws me for a bit of a loop. I think I have an easy time adjusting because I'm pretty good at simply forgetting about things- I find that I forget a lot of the things that I do at home, or a lot of the conveniences that I have, when I am away, and so remembering those things again is always a bit of a shocker. This semester the problem is especially severe, since Greece was a lot more different than California is.

There was the shock with American money, of course, as I had suspected that there would be. Having my computer back, with reliable and quick internet access, was also a pleasant surprise. But it's not just that. I'm in perpetual amazement at the dishwasher, the washing machine, television, the microwave, the fact that everything in stores is in English, the abundance of choices at those stores (who needs quite that many choices when it comes to shampoo? Really?). I'm having a particularly difficult time in stores- for three and a half months, I tried to speak Greek whenever possible, and so going to the store and asking for things in English seems vaguely wrong at this point.

However, I find that I really miss Greece. I miss the ease of going places on the metro, I miss the acropolis, I miss popping in to the grocery store and cooking for myself, I miss living somewhere near my friends and spending time with them. I'm worried that my Greek is going to get rusty, and I feel like a semester, learning Italian, isn't going to be great for it either.

It is also rather tricky to switch gears from Greece to Italy. I was studying some Italian, and had a hard time remembering that there isn't a neuter. Or cases. And that the pronunciation rules aren't the same as those of Latin. Or French. It's going to be an interesting semester.

The Kerameikos

Another part of my last minute sightseeing involved the Kerameikos, an area of the city that was used for centuries as a burial ground for the Athenian dead. I first went there in October, but on that trip forgot to bring my camera- I knew that before I went I wanted to go back and get some photots. So, in ancient times generally the dead were not buried within the city. In prehistoric times, people were buried in the area that is now the agora, but later most burials occurred in the Kerameikos, which is an area that was technically outside of the ancient city.
The Kerameikos is a very nice site to visit- it's not nearly as popular as the Acropolis or even the Agora, so Emma and I had it pretty much to ourselves. There is a nice museum where they have displayed the finds from the site, and then the site itself is nice.
Replicas of many of the grave markers have been laid out, so you get an idea of what it must have been like back in ancient times.
There's a lovely view of the Acropolis!
Of course, the site was not entirely used for burials. This is the tomb of the Lacedaimonians, but it is on the road that once led to Plato's academy. The Kerameikos got its name because it was the potter's quarter, and it also was the place where there were several important gates into the city- the Dipylon gate and the Sacred Gate, for example. Also in this area, you can see large amounts of Athens' old walls.

Last Minute Athens

Shortly before I left Athens, I started to panic in a vaguely irrational manner. "Oh no!" I remember saying. "I only have two weeks left in Athens! There are still so many things I want to see! Oh dear! I'm leaving so soon!" Shortly afterwards, I told myself quite sternly that people manage to see most of the sites of Athens in considerably less than two weeks, and I would have plenty of time to see everything I wanted. (Then the riots started, and my sight seeing was a bit curtailed.) But there were a few days in there when I wandered around Athens snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of the products of that panic.


This is the Temple of Olympian Zeus- I had been there before, but hadn't taken any pictures from up close or from inside the actual enclosure. That's the Zappeion- it is a building that houses conventions and exhibitions and stuff. I walked by it frequently for several months before figuring out what it was. I... still don't really know what it is. Other than in a vague sense.
Signs on Amalias. Note: The centre is less than a kilometer away. Peiraias is about 7, the Acropolis is very nearby. Thessaloniki is... about 6 hours by car, I think.


One of these things is not like the other...
Hadrian's Arch, Athens traffic. I think I was glad that I left Athens when I did- I was getting way too comfortable crossing Athens streets. And that is a bad thing- to quote Harry Potter, Athens street require constant vigilance.
The Choregic Monument of Lysicrates. Back in the day, wealthy Athenians were required to perform public works (leitourgia) sort of like a tax. Some of these works involved financing the navy, (which, for Athens, was obviously a big deal) but some of them were religious in nature. One of these was to be the person who financed productions of drama for the religious festivals- and if your production won, custom was to set up one of these monuments to display your tripod. This is one of the most complete ones extant (possibly the most complete one- certainly the most that I saw.) and it is in Plaka.
Then I went to the Kerameikos- but since there were a lot of pictures from there, I think that one deserves its own separate post.

Sounion

Finally we made our way to Sounion, a site on the south-east tip of the Attic peninsula where there is a temple to Poseidon. It is a very picturesque spot, though extremely windy- that's due to the location on the coast, I think, since all of my friends who went there also reported high winds. Apparently sunset there is quite lovely- my friend Gina has pictures that prove this- but we were there during the middle of the afternoon.
The temple of Sounion! You may notice that this temple is a different color than the temples on the Acropolis- still in the range of white-ish, but not so red or yellow. This temple was made not with Pentelic marble, like the Parthenon was, but was instead made with locally quarried stone. Since this stone had a very low iron content, it did not produce that same hue as it aged.
The view to the west- this is clearly a picturesque spot!
If this picture was considerably larger than it is, you would be able to see something rather exciting on the square column just above the join in the rocks- specifically, you would be able to see Byron's name, which he carved there while visiting the site. Carving one's name into a site is actually a tradition with ancient roots- many of the great monuments of Egypt have the names of Greek sailors carved into them. Sort of like a guestbook, I suppose. They don't let you do that sort of thing nowadays.
And these are the cliffs where Aegeus, the father of Theseus, stood to watch for his son's ship coming back from Crete. I trust that you are all familiar with the story- Theseus told his father that he would put up white sails if he was alive, Theseus forgot and sailed with black sails, Aegeus saw this and, assuming that his son was dead, threw himself off the cliff. That is, according to legend, how the Aegean sea got its name.

Thorikos

For lunch we stopped at Thorikos, a site in Attica that was in use for a long time and for many purposes. Mostly, it is famous for the theater that is there- it's a very old theater, and interesting for several reasons that I will point out in a sec- and for mining equipment- this is, after all, in the region of the Laurion silver mines that were so important in Athenian history. So, this is the theater. Most of the theaters that you can think of from the ancient world- the theater of Dionysus in Athens, or the theater at Epidauros- are round in shape. However, theaters weren't always round, and this one at Thorikos is proof of that.
Now, it may look a bit round, when you only look at the edges. However...

When you look only at the middle, there's no curvature at all. How is that?
That's how- the middle of the theater actually is straight, and there are essentially corners where the theater curves around the orchestra. Once upon a time, most theaters were probably a lot more square than their classical counterparts. This is sort of a transitional phase.

At Thorikos there is also some ancient mining equipment, which I saw and did not photograph, and some Mycenaean burials, which are up on the acropolis which we didn't see.

Brauron

One Saturday, we went for a field trip with my archaeology professor to see a variety of sites in Attica. This trip was originally supposed to happen in October- on the same weekend as the trip to Marathon and Rhamnous, in fact- but because my archaeology professor was ill, we ended up putting it off until a later weekend. The first site that we went to was the site of Brauron, the location of one of the oldest bridges in existence and an important site for the worship of Artemis. That building you can see isn't a temple. It's actually a stoa, and the area to the left is some sort of complex where people probably slept.
The remains of the temple- not too well preserved, unfortunately- are up on this hill, in front of the small church. At this site, young Athenian girls would act as she-bears, running races and performing sacrifices.
There are the foundations of the temple. At some point, our professor let us wander the site, which meant that Maddie and Kyrie decided that it was time to climb rocks. Or something.
Also present at the site of Brauron was a cult to Iphigenia (you might remember her- the daughter of Agamemnon who may or may not have been sacrificed so he could go to Troy?) If you believe that she didn't die (Artemis saved her at the last minute), there is a story that she ended up in the region of the Black Sea and was involved with bringing a wooden cult statue of Artemis back to Greece. (The source for this, by the way, would be Euripides' play Iphigenia at Aulis.) The picture below shows the area where the heroon might have been- there was clearly a small shrine there.

Adventures at the Pnyx!

One of the most important bodies of the Athenian democracy was the ekklesia, the assembly of citizens who decided on matters of legislation and made many decisions for Athens. All citizen males over the age of 18- from all four Solonic property classes- could participate in the assembly, and it had a quorum of 6,000, so you can imagine that it was a very large body, and that they needed a pretty big place to meet. That place was the Pnyx. Josh, Christine and I were very excited to be there! We went there for my archaeology class and needed proof that we had been in attendance.
The Pnyx is located pretty near the Acropolis, and consists mostly of a big grassy area and the bema. It affords a nice view of the city- here is the view looking out towards the city of today, with Lycavitos to the right of the picture.
Christine is still excited to be there!
The bema, or speaker's platform. One of the cool things about the Athenian democracy was that anyone could speak at the assembly. (Given that they were a male citizen over the age of 18. You need to get used to that when dealing with the Athenian democracy.)

Merry Christmas!

Dear All,

Merry Christmas! As you probably have guessed by now, I have returned home safely and have risen back into consciousness after several days of being in a semi-catatonic state. In honor of the holiday, here are some photos of Christmas decorations in Athens, both those that still exist and those that haven't made it.


This is the first Christmas tree that they put up in Syntagma square. On the weekend that the riots broke out, I was in Athens, going around and seeing the city. This is the situation as it was on Friday- the tree itself had just gone up, and they were decorating it (with cranes.) That's the Parliament building that you can see in the background. Here is the first Christmas tree as it was on Sunday morning! The riots broke out on Saturday night, but because I didn't get to the internet between Saturday morning and Sunday evening, I actually didn't really know that anything was wrong until later. At this point the tree was decorated, and there were a lot of lights all over the streetlights and trees of Athens.

This is a window decoration from Omonia, and I'm reasonably certain that it doesn't exist at the moment, since it was in the center of the riot zone. Athens gets decorated for Christmas a lot these days- since my mother says that this wasn't really the case thirty years ago, I'm going to assume that this is an instance where other countries have influenced Greece. And this is the second Christmas tree in Syntagma Square, which was put up after the first one was burned down. As you can see, the decorations aren't exactly the same as on the old one, but this one was still quite large and festive. It is still around, I think- in the riots they have thrown things at it, but it hasn't been burned down yet.

I hope you are having a lovely Christmas (or other holiday of your choice) and I wish you a happy new year! Expect more posts soon!

Goodbye, Athens!

Sometime on Saturday morning, I'm getting on a plane (well, hopefully- given that there isn't a strike again like there is today) and flying home to Boston. This means that I have about a day and a half left to pack, do any last-minute tourist things, and say goodbye to various people.

While I'm excited about going home, I'm also sad to be leaving Athens- living here has been a great experience, and I'm going to miss Greece a lot.

So, here's the plan for the next month (approximately). I'm going to go home and sleep for a day or two, and then, after I've rested and spoken to my family, I'll probably get around to uploading all the pictures that I have taken in the past month or so. There will be posts concerning those. I also plan to write some things in retrospect about my time in Greece, and there will probably be some of the usual stuff concerning my time in Boston, preparations for Italy, etc. I'm also planning on organizing tags and other exciting things like that, so hopefully the blog will be somewhat easier to navigate next semester.

I hope everyone is doing well. If you want to get in touch with me, you're probably going to need to wait until Sunday sometime- tomorrow will be pretty busy, and on Saturday I'll be in transit for most of the day.

I'm Almost Caught Up! Almost!

Unfortunately, the specter of work has reared its ugly head (again) and until I finish my finals, the blog may be updated on a "when I'm procrastinating" basis. Finals week isn't looking too bad at the moment. We handed in our final for ancient Greek on Wednesday and our Modern Greek final this morning, which means that I am done with Greek of all varieties for the semester. On Saturday, which I'm going to call "the day of doom," I have two finals, Archaeology of Athens and Athenian Democracy, and on Tuesday of next week I have Latin. I then get to pack up, say goodbye to my friends, and fly back to the states on the 20th, which I think is probably Saturday. I then intend to sleep for several days, wake up for Christmas eve and Christmas, and then go back to sleep until mid-January, when I'll be off to Rome.

Ok, I'll probably be conscious for some of winter break. It just doesn't feel like it at the moment.

Anyways, so you might be hearing from me, you might not. If something crazy happens, I will try to be here to offer my view of the situation, but if it's just business as usual, I might not be writing for a few days.

Riots in Athens, Part 3

So, it appears that the riots have calmed down considerably since Monday night, which is a good thing, because to be honest, much of dowtown Athens has been burned/smashed by now and there was a bit too much residual teargas and smoke in the air for my personal comfort. On Tuesday the funeral of the boy was held, and yesterday there was a general strike (which had nothing to do with this whole incident and had actually been announced two weeks ago.) and there was some rioting on both days, but nothing compared to the horror that was Sunday or Monday night. The city is not in great shape, but it seems to be picking itself back up. The streets are no longer deserted. The air has lost the palpable tension and the scent of smoke. Etc.



Many people have asked how this experience has affected my perception of Greece, and there seems to be a lot of concern that this has soured my entire study abroad experience. Honestly, this is not the case. Would I have wished this to happen? No. Of course not. Many people have been injured, many people have lost their livlihoods. There is over 50 million in damages in Athens alone. A boy is dead. They burned the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square, for goodness sake. I mean, it has been awful. But has it soured my entire experience? No. What it has made me (and, I think, many, many other people) do is think about how this sort of thing could ever happen, and what this means for the future.



It's a bit like in Thucydides, where he gives a lot of immediate reasons why the Peloponnesian War started, and then says that the real reason was that the Spartans and their allies were feeling threatened by the growing power of the Athenians. The death of the boy was a horrible incident (again, the details are still murky to me) but the rioting that has ensued is really the product of a whole lot of other circumstances. The relationship between the people and the police (especially students and the police) is not the same here as it is at home- I would say that I don't generally mistrust policemen at home, but here, that seems to be the norm. I think that this is a big part of the issue- a lot of people don't seem to trust the police force, and so when some tragedy like this occurs, people get really angry. There also are a lot of economic and social issues in Greece. The unemployment rate, especially among young people, is very high, and with the economy the way it is, there is a lot of unrest to go around in the first place. Also, the current government has been wracked by a series of scandals in recent months, and I think that some of the opposing political parties are using this incident as a reason to demand that they step down. This incident has brought back memories of other times as well, especially the times during and right after the military dictatorship, and that's not a good thing. There is a long tradition of demonstrations (especially student demonstrations) in Greece, and I think that that contributes as well.

I can't say that I understand what has happened here in the past few days, and honestly I don't know that many people can really claim that. It is complex, and you get a different view with every person that you talk to. But it has made me think a lot, and I think that that is really the point of studying abroad.

Riots in Athens, Part 2

So, it's day three of the rioting, and Athens continues to have problems. As predicted, it has gotten pretty violent in areas of downtown Athens like Exarhia, Omonia, and Syntagma. The big Christmas tree in Syntagma has been burned down, I guess- there have been a lot of smashed store windows, a lot of burned buildings, a lot of injuries, fire bombs, and tear gas. I can smell the smoke from here, and the teargas from when I was walking back to my apartment.

I would like to repeat that we are safe and sound at the moment. CYA is taking care that we are't put in dangerous positions- classes have been cancelled, both this afternoon and for all day tomorrow, and we are encouraged to stay put rather than get into any potential danger. You may have read that the rioting has spread to Kolonaki- this is true, I hear, but you need to understand that Kolonaki is a reasonably sized place and that the danger is entirely on a different side of the neighborhood.

In any case, we are safe. None of us are stupid, and we're staying away from the rioting. Please don't be too worried- if you don't hear from me for a few days, it is most likely because internet is hard to come by and I might not be at the academic center too much.

I hope that you are all well!

Riots in Athens

Hello, friends, family, and sundry.

You may have heard or read about the events that have been going on in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other cities of Greece in the past few days. For those of you who haven't (I understand that news coverage of Greece is a bit on the spotty side- the items on Boston.com's World news page involved wikipedia and Bianca Jagger, but didn't mention this) a quick update: yesterday, the police killed a teenager (the circumstances seem a bit murky), and on account of this, there has been some pretty violent rioting, mostly involving students and other young people, both here in Athens and elsewhere in Greece. Yesterday evening it was bad, and while this morning was quiet (I was out and about with no issues, though I was avoiding Exarhia) it got nasty and there were some incidents with firebombs and teargas. If you want to read more, I would suggest the BBC coverage of the story- you can find it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7770086.stm or the coverage I found on boston.com: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/12/07/riots_sweep_greece_after_police_shoot_boy_dead_1228646414/

It's definitely not a good situation. As you have heard me say before, demonstrations are pretty common here in Athens- riots like this aren't, and from what I can tell, this is the worse rioting that has happened in years. People have been injured, property destroyed, etc., and it doesn't look like it's going to stop soon.

However, you should know that we are aware of the problem and so far, no one I know has been hurt. The rioting isn't going on throughout the city- the area where I live, Kolonaki, has been quiet all weekend and generally isn't a hot spot of rioting. Neither is Pangrati, the area where I go to school. Assuming that we exercise reasonable amounts of caution (which, sadly, probably means avoiding the National Museum) I think that we should be fine. Please don't be worried about me and my friends, because we are fine. My worries are more for the people who have been affected by this violence.

So, We Have a Bit of a Problem

In trying to upload a new batch of photos, I discovered the sad fact that I actually can't upload any photos past #1450 on my memory card...which is actually the last 150 photos that I have taken, since I'm up to about 1600 pictures. For future adventures (like my exciting adventures this weekend!) I'm going to switch to a different card, and it should be fine. However, my adventures which happened between Delphi and now are not going to be photo-documented until I get home and can get on my computer. I'm terribly sorry.

E?

Then we went to the Delphi Archaeological Museum, which is another one of those museums where every room is filled with priceless cultural artifacts. This, for example, is the charioteer of Delphi. You may well have seen pictures of this statue before- it's quite famous. The French found it after the earthquake of the late 1890s, because he had been buried before that. It is made of bronze, and you can tell from the style (the facial features, the fact that he is clothed, etc.) that it is from the early classical period.
This inscription is really really cool, my music friends! Can you see how there are lines of text, and the occasional letters between those lines of text? Yes? Those are notations of music of some sort. What they actually mean in turns of tune, I am not entirely sure- I'm not, by any means, an expert on ancient musical notation- but it's pretty cool. It's like ancient sheet music! Only on rocks.
This is the omphalos! I did say that Delphi was the center of the universe, right? This is the stone that marks the center of the center of the universe.

To my science friends- no, you aren't allowed to say anything. If I choose to believe that Delphi is the center of the universe, in spite of a semester of astronomy, nothing you say is going to dissuade me. NOTHING.
This is a part of the pediment sculpture of the treasury of the Athenians. I'm not entirely sure if we were supposed to be in this room- there were ropes blocking off the entryways, but the guard let us in happily enough when we said that we were archaeology students. It depicts one of the labors of Theseus- he's killing an Amazon woman in this part. According to my archaeology professor, he has also just realized that he loves this person. I think that this is indicative of a somewhat dysfunctional relationship. There are lots of those in ancient Greek mythology- see "Atreus, House of".
This one is really cool, guys. That face is part of a statue- want to hazard a guess what materials it is made of?

If you guessed gold for the shiny gold metal, good job! The black part, however, is interesting- that's ivory. You might be thinking that black is an awfully interesting color for ivory to be- that's because it was damaged by fire at some point in time. This statue is "chryselephantine"- literally, gold and ivory, though the term also refers to a specific sort of cult statue. At some point in time, this statue (and some others) was buried, leading to this impressive state of preservation. I think we think that this statue is of Artemis, Apollo's twin sister.

ΕΓΓΥΑ ΠΑΡΑ Δ'ΑΤΗ

Delphi was an important site where the god Apollo was worshipped. That picture below is of the temple of Apollo, which is an exciting place because it is where, I believe, the Pythia (that's the priestess who gave oracles at Delphi) would have sat on her tripod, answering people's questions in hexameter verse. Now, the subject of the Pythia and her temple is a very interesting one- some people believe that the priestess did not write verses so much as make a bunch of funny noises that other people interpreted. Some accounts of the temple record a smell there. The question is, does this mean that the air was full of some sort of fumes? Delphi is located on a fault line, and higher than usual amounts of some chemicals, like ethylene, have been found in nearby springs. Was the Pythia hallucinating? Obviously we can't say, but it's interesting to think about.
Me with an inscriptions. This is a late inscription- you can tell because of the style of some of the letters (like the omegas- note how they are written like curly ws, rather than the Ω that you're probably used to seeing.) No, I'm not going to translate it.
The theatre at Delphi! It's a late addition to the site- 4th century BC, I think- but is quite the theater- from this spot on the mountain, you can get a lovely view of the rest of the site. It must have been really neat back in the day, when all of the treasuries were still intact.
The treasury of the Athenians! Reconstructed, clearly- when they excavated it, the French archaeologists found enough of this treasury that they could put it back together. The friezes from the building are inside the archaeological museum at Delphi, and depict the labors of Theseus, an important Athenian hero. At the treasury, the Athenians would have displayed war trophies- for example, the arms captured from the Persians during the Persian Wars. The road up to the temple of Apollo was lined with treasuries like this from different cities- near the Tholos, there is a treasury from the city which is modern day Marseilles.
Looking back over the nearby mountains!

ΜΗΔΕΝ ΑΓΑΝ

The tholos again! The original building had a bunch of columns, but only three of them have been restored. According to wikipedia, a source that I reference far too often, this is the most photographed building at the site.

Well, add me to the list of photographers, ok? It's cool looking.
After that we went to the modern city of Delphi, which was a very exciting place to spend time. Really. There are about three roads, it was cold, and we had nothing to do. So, we first checked into our hotel, which, as we discovered, had a very nice view.


And then we discovered that Molly and Stefanie were staying in the room right below us, which was very exciting.