Rhodes!

Γεία σας! (That means "hello you all" in modern Greek!)

So I've been traveling tons here while in Greece and finally I have time to tell you all about my weekend trip to Rhodes, one of the largest islands belonging to Greece. It's, like, the best Greek island ever! It was so amazing. The weather was great, the food was wonderful, and the people were nice. (It was lots of fun surprising the owners of shops and restaurants with my Greek, ha ha!)

This is the Medieval castle in the middle of Old Town inside Rhodes Town. (There's also New Town Rhodes, which is the modern town around it.) Rhodes was used as the final pit-stop before the Holy Land during the Crusades. Knights lived in the fortress and the town. The castle on the left is called the Palace of the Grand Masters. I just like the name. Below is the room that was used for the hospital inside the fortress where the knights lived. Isn't just huge!?

Of course, there were people on Rhodes before the knights. These are ruins from the Temple of Pythian Apollo are on the left side of the picture while the remains of the Temple of Artemis are on the right. I had a blast climbing through the remains of the Artemis temple. There weren't any ropes to keep me out so I went explore. It was loads of fun (of course Erika wasn't around with her camera to take any photos of me; she was off enjoying the view, which was amazing too). That's the view. You can see the sea.

I also went to Lindos, where there was a sanctuary to Athena. There are still parts of the temple left with sections of the original stoa standing. This is the sanctuary-turned-castle at the acropolis of Lindos, which is nearly two hours south of Rhodes Town (the capital of Rhodes island). Also you can see the white buildings below the acropolis. This is stereotypical of Greek islands. Here you can see the pretty water, too. It was so awesome but too cold to go in, at least for me.

I know this picture is a little hard to see but I didn't get to see this famous landmark until right before I fly back to Athens. This is one of the famous deer columns at the entrance to Mandraki Harbor, the main harbor of ancient Rhodes. As you know, the famous Colossus statue was in Rhodes. The two deer columns mark were this huge statue might have stood. This column has a stag on top; the other one has a doe at the top.

Even with all those knights around, I still managed to find some new friends on Rhodes. On the left is Rhodes and on the right is Helios. They agreed to come home with me to the States too.

Isn't that super awesome!?

I'll leave you with one more parting photo. Enjoy! I'll be back soon!

Trip to the Peloponnese

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been on in a while - classes you know and I've been traveling quite a bit, including this five-day school trip to the Peloponnese region south of Athens with my study abroad program. It was amazing! I went to so many awesome places in five days. Here's a list of the places we went (including archaeological places): Corinth, Akrokorinth, Napflion, Epidarous, Mycenae, Sparta, Mystra, Methoni, Messene, Pylos, and Olympia. It was so great. I took 745 pictures and since I obviously can't upload then all, I've selected a few of my favorites for you. Enjoy!

This is the Corinth Canal. It enables ships to safely and quickly pass from the Ionian Sea on the west side of Greece to the Aegean Sea on the east side of the Greece. This is facing west. People actually bungee-jump off this bridge! Isn't that crazy?! The water is an amazing blue too. I'd hate to fall off the walkway were I was standing. It would be a long way down that's for sure.

This is the first gate entrance to Akrokorinth, where the town of Corinth was before its modern location at the bottom of this large hill. It's a large fortress that was used by the ancient Greeks, the modern Greeks, the Turks, and the French (maybe the English too but I don't recall). We drove up the side of the large hill but as far as I'm concerned if anyone could climb that hill with supplies and animals then they were welcome to the fortress. It sure would've been a hike. The walls go almost all the way around the top of the hill; there's a natural outcropping on part of the hill (you can see it on the right side of the picture) where there aren't any walls but the cliffs are hard to scale.

This is the world-famous Lions Gate at Mycenae. Of course, I had to take a picture of it. The stone blocks surrounding the gate and in the walls around Mycenae are absolutely enormous. Some of them weight many tons and are four to six feet high and wide. Crazy big. The ancient Greeks called these huge cyclopean blocks because they thought that cyclopes put them into place they were so big. The lions don't have any heads, and it's unknown of each of them had a head or if the two bodies shared one head. Supposed there was lion figure found at Mycenae or in the area of Mycenae that had a lion head with two bodies. Archaeologists aren't sure which option it is.

Napflion has the best gelato ever. Here's the sign for the gelato place. My advise: have gelato for dinner; it will definitely fill you up and it tastes great. Napflion is a medium-sized town about two hours south of Athens by bus. It's very nice and I'll make an effort to go back while in Greece. To the right, is the floating bastion. A bastion is a fortress where ammunition was stored. Today, it's just s castle where tourists can visit.

This is the bastion as Methoni (left). Methoni was by far my favorite place I visited. It was a fortress used in the Medieval times, I think. It was really windy the day we went but that was okay. The professors on the trip just turned all the students loose in the fortress and told us to go play (literally). They let us explore everything in there almost two hours. It was great being able to just run around and explore the buildings, rooms, and tunnels. Methoni was on the sea, as you can see by its bastion. I've took a picture of the causeway that you have to cross to get to the bastion. The water was rather turbulent that day. I got splashed on the causeway, and let me tell you, Mediterranean seawater tastes different than Atlantic seawater.

As we were driving to Olympia through the mountains, there were sheep blocking the road! It was crazy. I managed to get a quick picture before the bus scared them off. It was really funny. And you could hear the bells on the sheep too.

The final day of the trip we went to Olympia. This is just one of the many toppled columns from the Temple of Zeus. This is where one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World was - the statue of Zeus at Olympia. The statue was never found but the molds used to create the statues were found as was the probable workshop. The columns were pulled down by Christians traveling through Greece in order to topple (no pun intended) the "pagan" religion of the ancient Greeks. The archaeological museum at Olympia was really neat too with many sculptures from the Zeus temple and other temples and buildings in the Olympian complex.

As I was heading back to Athens, we passed the coastal city of Patras. This is a picture of one of the most famous bridges in Greece and one of the most revolutionary bridges in Europe: the Rio-Antirrio Bridge. As you can see, it's a cable bridge. It's firmly secured to land on both sides but it's not secured to the sea floor. The pylons are actually merely resting on the bottom to allow the bridge to move naturally with earthquakes.

That's all for now! If you have any questions about any particular places or would like a blog entry with pictures about a particular place, let me know and I'll be happy to oblige!

Clean Monday

Clean Monday is national Greek holiday. It marks the start of the Lent for the Greek Orthodox church. This holiday is celebrated by kite flying on Philopappos Hill, one of the many hills that surround Athens. This is picture of my friends attempting a kite. It was really difficult. We tried for about a hour but we never managed to get it far off the ground. Oh well.

There was a live Greek band there playing on the hill too. They were really good. They used traditional Greek instruments. We could hear the music from a really far distance away.

This the Pynx Hill where we tried to fly our kite. It's a smaller hill next to Philopappos Hill, which was really crowded. The Acropolis is on the right (obviously) and Lykabettus Hill is in the background. Lykabettus Hill the highest hill surrounding Athens.

These are deep fried dough balls covered in melted Nutella or chocolate (I'm not sure what it was, but it was amazing). This is would be the Greek equivalent of the funnel cake in an American fair. In fact, the whole atmosphere of Clean Monday is like a fair or a festival. There are street venders of popcorn, roasted corn, roasted nuts, drinks, souvlaki, and these fried dough balls. Venders also sell kites and balloons. There are also street entertains playing music. It was a wonderful day.

Marathon!

Hey people!

I went to Marathon on a school-sponsored trip. I had a great time even though it was overcast with rain and windy. Here are some of the pictures I took. Enjoy!

Here's the tomb at Marathon of the 192 Athenians killed at Marathon when they fought against the Persian invasion in 480 BCE. As you can see, it's a really large mound of earth. And since it's a tomb, you aren't allowed to walk on it of course. (One of the girls in my group asked why people weren't allowed to walk on it. Really?) Anyways, it was neat. It's located in a grove of olive trees. There's also a marble statue imitation of the original grave stone at the site. Here's what it looks like.

We also saw graves from the Middle Helladic Period. There were seven graves. They all had these nifty plastic windows so the people walking through wouldn't throw trash into them. One of the graves still had bones it it. Cool! There's a foundation of a tomb-like structure in the background.

After we saw the Middle Helladic graves, we saw the Archaeological

Museum of Marathon. Then we went to Ramnous, a small area near Marathon. These are the remains of Temple of Nemesis. There are two buildings placed next to each other that make up the Temple. It overlooks the acropolis of Ramnous and the Mediterranean Sea. The day was rather overcast so there aren't any fantastic pictures of the Mediterranean Sea or of the acropolis I can show you. Not cool.

After eating lunch near the Temple of Nemesis, we went to the beach. It sounds exciting, which it was, but it was really windy and rainy now so it was a little bit of a disappointment. There were kite surfers on the beach as you can see here. These guys were really dedicated because the water was definitely chilly and the wind was very strong.

Overall, it was a great trip to Marathon. You should definitely check it out!

Reporting Live from Athens!

Hey people!

It's been, like, eons since I've written anything. (Stupid faulty internet in IL over winter break). And now I'm pleased to report that I'll be reporting from Greece for the next few months while I'm hanging out with my human while she's studying over here. Anyways, the flights over were fine and I've been chilling out in the Mediterranean sun. Despite that it's the Mediterranean, however, it's been cold (relatively speaking) here. It's only in the 40s F some days, and it's rained a few times. Here are some pictures of fun things I've done while over here though.

Here's me looking at the map of where I live. I know that the pictures isn't the best, but I'll describe it. (This is as large as I could get it). Do you see the horseshoe shape? That the Athens Stadium, where the first modern Olympic Games were held, and it's completed made of white marble. It's a stone's throw across from the school. By the crease in the middle of the map, there's a street called Stassinou. That's where I live. It's directly south of the light blue square.

Since I'm in Athens, I have to practice my modern Greek. Here are the numbers in the textbook. I've discovered that modern Greek is definitely harder than ancient Greek. That's just what I think (and Erika definitely agrees).

I went on a weekend walking trip with Erika and one of her roommates to Olympian Park. It was only about a half hour walk away so nothing terrible. I'm sitting outside the wall on a large piece of marble. The columns beyond the wall are the tops of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. They are huge! It was amazing that's for sure.

That's all for now. I'll be posting again really soon now that I have a stable internet connection again. I'll have enough fun for everyone while over here, basking in the Mediterranean sun (and making sure that Erika continues to do all her homework). See ya!

Olympeion Trip

Hey everyone! I took some time off from studying and ventured into the city of Athens. It was a beautiful day (60 F, sunny, and blue skies). You wouldn't believe where I went yesterday. I was wandering around Athens with one of my roommates from my program and we went to the Temple of Olympeion (Olympian) Zeus. It was amazing!!! I took a whole bunch of pictures from the trip. Here are some of the best! Enjoy!

Here's Hadrian's Arch that's on outside the Olympeion complex. It's huge! Right behind it, although you can't see it, is the Acropolis (which is only a half hour walk from my school). The medium-sized black dot in upper center of the arch is a large limestone cave to Zeus built into the side of the Acropolis.

To the right is what remains of the Temple of Olympeion Zeus. The Corinthian columns are very tall (right). The tops of the columns are very ornate (below). The entire temple is made of white marble. There are three rows of columns. I stood behind the structure and all the columns are perfectly aligned. You can't even see the columns behind the columns in front.

Here's a close-up of the Corinthian columns at the top of the Temple of Olympeion Zeus. To think that the whole structure was hand carved and put together by hand. It's amazing!

One of the columns of the Temple has fallen over. Here's the base of the column along with some of the pieces. As you can see, the column isn't one large marble piece but many stacked carved, marble rounds. It's hard to estimate but it would take two or three people stretching fingertip to fingertip to encompass the column.

This is the remains of the Temple of Apollo Delphinious. This section of the Olympeion wasn't as crowded. In fact, my roommate and I were the only ones there. We walked very, very close to it and thought about entering where the most grass was since there weren't any Do Not Enter signs but as soon as we stepped in, we both decided it was a bad idea. It's strange to describe, but it felt like someone didn't want us there. It's a very interesting and sacred place; you could just tell by standing there. Beyond these ruins, is a huge grove of extremely large aloe plants. Diameters ranged from only a few inches to over six feet across! The stalks for the aloe blossoms were about ten feet tall. It was crazy! We had to be really careful walking through this area because there are cisterns everywhere, and you can fall into if you aren't careful and watch where you're going.


Here are the ruins of some classical houses. It's difficult to tell where each house was. With my untrained eye, I can't even tell how many there were. I think there are three.

Well, back to studying. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures. I'll be posting more pictures soon about all my adventures in Greece!

Arrival in Greece

Hey everyone! I'm reporting from Greece now. After a layover in Canada and a layover in Germany, I've finally arrived in Greece. The airline lost one of my bags. So are the woos of traveling. Luckily, two days later, the airport dropped it off so now I have all my clothes again. I checked in with my study program, College Year in Athens, and then headed to my apartment, which I share with five other girls. There are four bedrooms, a small kitchen, two bathrooms (one half and one full), and a small living room. It's nice. I'm living in Pangrati, an old Greek neighborhood only a five minute walk from the CYA Academic Center. The weather is lovely here. It's a little chilly since it is January (it's in the 50s probably) but it's sunny and with clear blue skies.

The strangest thing about living in Athens isn't the people but the trees. There are orange trees everywhere! They line the streets, planted into the sidewalks. No one eats the oranges because they're bitter. Even the birds don't touch them unless they're starving. Ha ha! There are quite a few stray dogs and cats around here too. The dogs follow people around, sometimes for blocks. Yesterday, I went on a neighborhood walk with a group of classmates and a professor and the same dog followed us for over and hour as we walked for blocks and blocks. I've also decided that no one can park like the Greeks. They park their cars, mopeds, and motorbikes anywhere there's space. It's really easy to walk into them.

That's all for now! I'll report back later with more Greek news soon! Remember, Greece is the word! :)