the going ons

So the past two weeks here, everyone has been going to archaeological sites. The first week and a half I was in Mytillini (the big port town) working at different restoration sites as well as a "rescue site". This is a picture of Gussi, McKenzie, and Wendy (the three other members of my group) at the pottery restoration site. We got to put together a vase. We worked here for the first two days of our excursions. Day one was really boring because they had no idea as to what to have us do, so we spent five hours washing pottery fragments. The next two days were spent in the metal restoration workshop. This was really interesting on the first day because we got to clean metal objects with a scalpel. However, when we found out that those items were still going to be worked on on day two, that meant day two was infinitely boring. The days at the rescue site were the days I was sick, and it's too bed because I heard that that one was the most fun out of the workshops.

Last Tuesday was Wendy's 22nd birthday, so we threw here a Lesbian bash. hehehe. We went to downtown Mytillini to this bar called the Monkey (it's funny b/c a famous Cycladic wall painting has a picture of a blue monkey). The bar was fun and played a lot of American music. We all went and had a bunch of drinks and hung out. As the night wore on we knew that we were never going to be able to stay awake until 3AM when the dance club opened so we turned the bar into a mock dance club. I think the locals were amused and even a few of them joined our dancing in the middle of the bar.

(Pictures from left to right: Wendy surrounded by most of the guys on the trip; Clariece and her "tower 'o shots; Carolyn the "cake eater")















The weekend was amazing. Sophia, our professor for Modern Aegean Culture, took us on a roaming bus tour of the island. On Saturday we went to a monastery, an old mansion, another monastery overlooking a village, this really cool market street and then we stopped at this church with a famous icon which legend says the last surviving monk of a pirate raid built using only the bloodied sand of his fallen brothers. Apparently, sometime the face is smiling other times it's frowning, and its face can also be either brown or red. however, at the time, there was a wedding procession heading towards the church so we didn't stay long. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Sunday was spent almost entirely at this amazing ranch. Everyone cooked lunch, with different groups preparing a different dish. We made souvlaki, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, potatoes, fresh bread, tsatsiki, greek salad and then Sophia brought us baklava for desert. While waiting for lunch to cook, we took off for the nearby town and toured the local church. After lunch, there was a dance instructor who taught us many traditional greek dances. My favorite was the on that local pirates danced.

that's all for now. and no complaining that I don't update!

midterm done, presentation done... but the paper still remains

I took Karavas' midterm on Monday and it wasn't too bad. he said he wanted us to have a gist of what the main themes and events were and I dare say that I have a very frim grasp of these topics. For his midterm he gave us six questions and then gave us 2 hours to answer them. I chose to write about why Constantine espoused Christianity and why did it spread so fast as well as answering what made the western roman empire fall and what kept the eastern roman empire from falling.

I just gave my presentation on Women and Deomcracy in class with Emma and I'm really gald to have it done. with the test and presentation done all I have left to focus on is my paper due monday and washing my clothes.

today is Gussi's (my room mate's) 21st birthday, so Carolyn and I bought her one of her favorite pastries and woke her up singing "happy birthday" and presented it to her on a plate with a candle in it.

making dinner for people has been a lot of fun. they also don't pressure em to cook which is a good thing because somedays i don't have time. but tonight I am making Shepard's (retarded little brother) pie. why the retarded little brother? well, it's just the ingredients and i'm not twice baking it. oh well.

a week ago i made hamburgers but could n't find buns so we put them on pita and my room mates had feta with it. then we listened to the "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. we decided that this was the perfect combination of Greek and American cultures. we're nerds at my house.

a semester's worth of two classes within a month

arg. I am kinda burned out from my classes.

I have Art and Archaeology from 8:30AM - 12:00PM and then Power and Religion: History of the Byzantine Empire from 2:00PM - 5:00PM, with lunch somewhere inbetween. Although neither on of these classes are particularly hard it's the time spent walking to and from the school as well as the time spent in transit to the many museums and sites within the city on top of all the reading assigned, making our own food, studying for our midterm and writing and researching for our papers.

By the way, our midterm exam is on Monday and our paper due a week after that. Then there are two more papers due when we get back from Lesbos... the question is: how do we write these papers while we're in Lesbos with no computers, internet access, or library access? ... I have no idea either.

The worst part about the classes is that they are supposed to be air conditioned- but I don't feel a thing. It's too hot here.

Niccola Wardle teches Art and Archaeology. She is a portly English woman with a quirky sense of humor, often delighting in the most random of archaelogical finds, in which she credits its creation for the amusement of children (toys or dollhouses). Not surprising seeing as she has two small children, five and 16 months. I was in her group for the taverna dinner and found myself laughing for the majority of the evening. Her eldest is going to be trouble, especially because Niccola keeps positively reinforcing her for interrupting lectures at the museum, often stopping to pick her up or give her something to play with. She was married to an Arab muslim and is recently divorced because of his midlife crisis of faith. Her parents and god-mother are all prominent archaeologists themselves and she was raised on digs (often bored out of her skull).

John Karavas is a completely different story. A greek man schooled at Oxford in England, his accent is very difficult to place. He specialized in knowledge of the Early Roman Emprie's Army, but is teaching Byzantine history- no idea why. He is very good looking, but insecure I think as shown by his nervous pacing before evey class. According to the gossip around here he's either recently divorced (again) or recently married. Probably divorced since there is no ring on his finger nor any tan line suggesting one. He wears tight pants and shirts, smoke cigarettes and is damn sexy. A few days ago he came back form the weekned with a couple of days worth of facial hair- the joke has been he was either coming down from a heroin high or was binge drinking and bar hopping all weekend. He finally shaved yesterday. He looks much better clean shaven.

Funny thing is the Kugler also shaved off his beard. I don't really know what to make of him without the beard...

**EDIT*** It turns out Karavas is married (he takes off his ring before class- odd) and his wife was out of town this past weekend so he was out having fun. Apparently she got two days ago and now he's in the dog house. ***END EDIT***