lesvos the fabulous.... kinda.

as i write, i am sitting in the main "lodge" in Vostala hotel in Thermi, Lesvos in Greece. It is amazingly beautiful here. The hotel is right on the beach and the weather had been great, warm but with enough wind to make the heat and sun very livable.

Since I last updated a lot of stuff has been happening. the old new first:

We visited the Acropolis before mom arrived. The picture to the left is Clariece overlooking onto the theater of Dionysus which is on the south slope of the Acropolis. we were all really excited about getting to "perform" i.e. read Lysistrata on the steps of the theater where Aristophanes plays were originally performed. Clariece geeked out over reading there for at least two days prior to actually even being there. She was unbearable to be around...

The Parthenon was amazing. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to come and see the Erectheon and Parthenon. To the far left, there is the Erectheon, in particular the women pillars. And even though we could not get up close, they were amazing. You can see a lot of detail even in my photos. The Parthenon was a spectacular as I'd hoped , partially because I'm pretty sure I built it up in my mind- just like my experience with Stonehenge. However, after hearing a presentation on it by some girls in my class, it became much more interesting. Apparently, there are no straight lines in the vertical construction because otherwise it would be a monstrosity of hugeness.

We also went to the Agora, both the ancient Greek and Roman versions. However the only real piece of architecture left whole and standing was the Temple of Hephaestus which was located near the metal working workshops in the ancient times. Kinda obvious but yeah, there it was. Anyways, some of the objects/artifacts found there are really cool. There was a water clock, a lottery mechanism, and foundations of the (kinda) only temple that is dedicated to more than one god called the temple of the 12 gods and is dedicated to all the gods of the Parthenon.

After taking two finals, one being a push over and the being karavas-ish, everyone rushed home to pack and then, 2 hours later, we hopped the metro to Piraeus and then took a 12 hours ferry (horrible and yet immensely entertaining and enlightening b/c most people were super trashed) and then arrived in Lesbos at 7 AM, only to be ushered without sleep to breakfast and then for a four hour walking tour of Thermi and then a huge barbeque dinner with everyone in all of Thermi invited. this was only our saturday.

Sunday, our professors had planned to make us go on this long 13 ours tour of the entire island, however we convinced them to let us have our first day off in a month. Yesterday was spent, for everyone else, swimming and reading and hanging out. I watched some TV on my computer with a couple other people and then deleted my entire itunes library so i spent a goodly amount of time trying to restore a semblance of order to my music library. 13 hours later i went to bed.

Our classes this month are actually just one. Modern Aegean Culture with excursions to the local towns and Turkey as well. We also are experiencing archaeological digs which although we had high expectations for them, the first day was a real bust, in which Kugler received many complaints. What bothered me the most was when we tried to sit there and talk to him and voice our concerns with the program, we felt like we were being brushed off. He even had the gall to say to us "you can't experience the Greek experience by yourselves." Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's exactly what is supposed to happen. If he honestly felt that way then WHY DID WE NOT SPEND LAST SEMESTER LEARNING ABOUT MODERN GREEK CULTURE! but no- instead we took ancient Greek religions which has been no help at all by the way. All we need here is a cursory knowledge of Greek myths.

anyways, sorry for the rant and long period of no posts. hopefully there'll be another one up soon. but honestly they keep us running around all the time.