Hikers, Questers, Pilgrims, Campers, Drifters, Exiles...maybe not - but yes - travelling by foot and improvised means.  (Excuse the anglicised spelling)
Yeah - here you can relay old journeys and their unpredictable, emotional moments :biggrin: Outside the comfort zone...anything can happen. Who knows, there might be a lesson in one or two of them.
I for one, may be going on a mad walk in the Lake District soon which should be cuddly and wet.  My last trip being a journey through Dorset to Devon, but onto that later. For now! Your stories.
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Hmm. Well, I was hoping to keep feet-related. But, it might be worth a new topic of its own!  Possibly...internal journey's that put Soap Opera to shame.
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Okay, I'll post a few journal entries I had to write when I first went to Greece in 2006.
Travels in Greece
May 22nd-23rd
Well, it was raining in the morning as I went to the airport full of anticipation and excitement. At the Fredericton Airport I met a few people going on the trip whom I’d never met before. It wasn’t long until everyone was there and it was time to go. The flights didn’t seem to take very long, the longevity of the trip seemed to come from the stopovers in Montreal and Frankfurt. But eventually we landed in Athens, and it was absolutely beautiful when we arrived. It was 42° C when we stepped off the plane. Needless to say I had to go from a sweater to a t-shirt very quickly.
At the airport we met up with the other professor and got on our bus and headed to the hotel. On the bus we had a great tour guide point things out as we traveled across the metropolis. I saw the stadium for the 2004 Olympics, which was pretty cool. Anyway, we arrived at our hotel in central Athens, near the shopping district called the Plaka. Our hotel wasn’t top of the class, but it would probably be the best hotel we stayed at the entire trip. After dropping off our luggage, a small group of us wondered up to small café at the bottom of the eastern part of the Acropolis. Then our group got lost in the Plaka for a few hours, and we had our first tastes of Greek culture. Certain things were definitely different, such as shopping and eating. Store and restaurant owners will hound you to shop and eat at their establishments, and I quickly learned to be stern and not to fall into that tourist trap. I didn’t have much to eat the first night.
When we found our way back to the hotel, I think the jetlag began to sit in since it was around 9pm and I had not slept much since I left. However, after a room change, I found out that I had the most completely, utterly annoying roommate in all existence (I’m not exaggerating, not even a little). So after some pointless conversations and arguments with my roommate I did my best to try and sleep.
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May 24th
Sleep, I wish I had. I woke up about 5am, and unfortunately so did my roommate. So I decided to try to read while he started to study, but that did not last long as he had to try to explain to me things about Greek mythology which I knew more about than he did. Then he would change the topic to something completely pointless, and he basically lectured me on the topic of Buddhism and Daoism for half an hour. Thank the good lord breakfast began at 6am. Breakfast wasn’t half bad, it was a buffet, however it was mostly breads and salads with a few other things that I didn’t care for in between.
After breakfast, my roommate complained that he wasn’t feeling well so I let him stay in the room while I sat in the lobby talking to other people on the trip. Soon we were off to our first historic site: the Theater of Dionysos. We took the subway up to the Acropolis and then we simply walked around to the Theater. Well when we entered, I almost wanted to cry. Besides some of the things I’d seen the previous day from a distance, this was the first real ancient place that I saw up close and personal. I had seen many pictures of the Theater before, but like almost everything I saw, it was more spectacular to see it in person. The professor lectured us on the history of the site showing us how it developed by examining the remains. He showed us the original foundations of the old Temple to Dionysos., and he explained up to the Theater as we see it today. I was very fascinated and it was much more interesting being able to actually see the archeological remains, then a picture of a site with labels in a classroom. I even got to sit on seats of the Theater, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I can’t believe Sophocles’ and Euripides’ plays were originally performed right here’ . After the Theater of Dionysos, we walked up to the back of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which was a Roman theater. After a quick look at that, we traveled to the entrance of the Acropolis, but we didn’t go in. We did however go to see the Areopagos, which is a marble mound with some interesting mythological and ancient political connections.
After viewing the Areopagos, we were free to go to lunch. I went with my old school chums Chelsey, Jordan, Erika, Stamatia, and Ryan. We found a nice restaurant in Monastiraki Square. It was shady and the restaurant owner was very friendly. After lunch, and some exploring we headed back to the hotel to catch the bus to the National Archeological Museum. The museum was fun and very interesting. I always found it difficult to identify sculpture by period and design, but after going through the museum it was much easier for me to see the development of sculpture from Archaic to the early Classical period. Plus it was neat for me to see statues which I’ve seen pictures of in classes. After the museum, we were free for the rest of the evening, so my friends and I went around the Plaka. There we ate at a little café, where I had a very strange apple pie. There wasn’t much apple but lots of nuts and something else that I couldn’t identify. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. After eating we toured the shops on our way back to the hotel. Luckily my roommate was still a little under the weather so I didn’t have to interact with him much before I went to bed.
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May 25th
Well, today was finally the day I got to go to the Acropolis, however, our group had to go to the Keremeikos first. During breakfast at the hotel, I was joined by a very good looking Greek woman. She tried to talk to me in Greek, luckily I understood a little of what she said. She asked me if I was enjoying my breakfast and if the juice was good. Anyway, the whole thing became a running joke for the rest of the trip wondering what kind of woman I would pick up next. After breakfast, we took the subway to the Keremeikos. For clarification, the Keremeikos was the area of the front gates of the ancient city, as well as a cemetery road just outside of the ancient walls. It was so neat to see the layers of the fortification wall that surrounded the city, from the earliest walls. We briefly looked at the foundations of the front gates, then we went in to the fountain house inside the gates. It was cool to see the spots in the marble which were eroded by the constant flow of water. We looked at the ancient gymnasium across from the fountain house, which was destroyed by the Romans. Then we walked back up to the gates and looked around the street of the tombs. There were lots of monuments and relief sculpture along the street. The last thing was the small museum at the site, and there wasn’t anything too special there to mention.
After leaving the Keremeikos my friends and I returned to the restaurant we ate at the previous day. After eating we went shopping in the Plaka, and unfortunately I was suckered into buying an expensive ring. It was a gold ring, with a silver coin put in it with a carving of Athena on one side and the name Alexander on the other. Let’s just say I learned an important Greek shopping tip: DO NOT ASK THE PRICE OF ANYTHING THAT MAY BE EXPENSIVE! The salesperson will do anything to get you to buy the expensive item. So after emptying my wallet, we moved onward to the Acropolis. It was a long walk, but it was well worth it. On the way up, I was exhilarated to see the Propylea (front gate of the Acropolis). It was just so huge. However, it didn’t measure to when I walked through the gate and got my first close up glimpse of the Parthenon. It was absolutely spectacular. The only thing that disappointed me was that everything on the Acropolis was surrounded by scaffolding, since archeologists are trying to reconstruct the buildings. Walking along the paths was difficult since they were rocky, slippery marble. We walked over the Erectheon and looked all around the odd temple. There are lots of interesting myths about the Erectheon, so I was very fascinated. The Erectheon was a lot larger than I expected. I wish I could have went inside, but it was roped off. Then we walked around to the Parthenon, and we got a lecture on the pediments. After getting a closer look at the massive temple, we went into the museum at the back of the Acropolis. The museum was mostly pottery and sculpture. There was some reconstructions of the pediments that were really interesting.
After the museum, the group left the Acropolis. Some of us returned to the hotel while others went out for drinks. I was tired so I went back to the hotel. Unfortunately I was greeted by my roommate who stayed at the hotel since he was still feeling sick (though he didn’t look sick to me at all). I personally feel that he just wanted attention. I spent most of the evening in the lobby on our floor of the hotel getting to know some of the other people on the trip. Around 10pm I went to bed.
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May 26th
Well, this was a light day. Nothing spectacular happened in the morning before leaving the hotel. Today we went to the Agora, the center of the ancient city of Athens. It was interesting but I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. We saw the place where the objects for the Eleusinian mysteries were kept, which is very important to me since I have done lots of research on the subject of mystery cults. We walked along the Sacred Way and you could still see the ruts in the stone from the carts that went over it 2500 years ago. Most of the site was simply foundations. The best part was the Hephaestion, a temple to Athena and Hephaestos and it is one of the most complete temples in all of Greece. The metopes were still there, which showed 10 labors of Herakles and 8 labors of Theseus. Then we moved on to the museum, which was a reconstructed stoa… pretty cool for us classicists. Some neat things in the museum were bones, sculpture, and ostracism tablets bearing the name of Themistocles, a prominent ancient Athenian politician.
Afterwards, I left with my friends to go to lunch, and unfortunately my stalkerish roommate, Nathan, tagged along without asking or being invited. We in a back alley restaurant which was actually very nice, but Nathan annoyed us to no end. During lunch, Erika made several comical gestures toward Nathan, ie) pretending to stab herself with a knife while he was talking. We all had a good laugh, except Nathan, who was clueless. Also during lunch, a small bird landed on our table next to Jordan. She didn’t see it at first until I pointed it out, then she screamed because it flew at her. After lunch, we went to the Plaka to shop. We unintentionally split up and we lost Stamatia and Nathan. Well, since we had to go back to the hotel anyway, we met back up with them. Stamatia thought we had ditched her with Nathan, but we had to explain that it was purely an accident. Anyway, we got ready, then our group went back to the National Archeological Museum. This time we went into the Mycenaean and pottery section. Since part of the exam was on pottery, it was essential we looked at the development of pottery in the museum. This was educational since I before this, I could not tell pottery from one style or period to the next. Our trip in the museum was short but very informative. Before we left, I went to the gift shop and bought a replica of a theatre mask. My friends and I began to go back to the hotel, but on the way Stamatia had fell and hurt herself. So when we got close to the hotel, she decided to go back to her room, while the rest of us went to dinner. We ate at a little café around the corner from the hotel. Erika and myself were surprised when we looked at the menu and saw the best food item ever: Waffles with ice cream and whip cream. As Erika put it, “These are healing waffles from all the woes of life.” Needless to say, the waffles were good.
After dinner, we simply went back to the hotel, and I sat in lobby on our floor and talked to people. Eventually my roommate came out to join us, and the conversation turned into his boring monologues about things that didn’t have anything to do with what we were talking about. It was so bad that one of the professors just left, only flashing a smile to the rest of us staying. I didn’t stay too much longer, then I went to bed., or at least I tried. My roommate decided to phone his parents I was trying to sleep. Not only that, but he began crying on the phone. I was so uncomfortable at that moment, and if that wasn’t bad enough, after the phone call he decided to read. But he didn’t sit in bed with the light over him, he sat in the chair next to my bed with every light in the room on. Now let me explain something, there were two other chairs in the room where he could have sat. One next to his bed, and one at a desk, but he had to sit in the chair right next to me. I was facing the wall, and I was worried that if I turned over that he would be staring at me. Thank god he didn’t stay long before he went to bed. Ugh, I didn’t like him at all.
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Chasing Horizons
