Meteora and Metsovo: monasteries, mountains, and meat

I need to come up with new synonyms for awesome, incredible, unbelievable...because once again, my weekend was all of those and more.

(This was an optional trip organized by the program, so there were 40 of us, two professors and one professor/priest)

We started the six hour drive to Meteora, taking a pit stop at Thermopylae, the setting of "300" (Quick history lesson: this was the battle in which three hundred Spartan soldiers--okay and a few thousand other Grecians, but let's be real it was mostly the Spartans--held off as many as 250,000 Persian soldiers for a miraculously long time. And they would have continued doing so if a little shepherd boy hadn't sold them out, and for obscene amounts of bribery told the Persians of a sheep path that would lead them to the back side of the Greek troops. At this point, the Greeks knew they could no longer defend themselves and had no chance of surviving, so the Spartan leader Leonidas told all of the other Greek troops to run while they still could, and the Spartans would hold the Persians off until they were dead. The valiant (and stubborn/proud) Spartans refused to retreat and fought until they all died). Once again, I was lucky enough to not only see an interesting historical site but also had my professor (a walking encyclopedia, expert-on-everything and excellent storyteller) as a guide.

Memorial to Leonidas

           My professor/encyclopedia and a random stray dog,                           
                         on the ancient battlefield.

We made it to Meteora by late afternoon. By far the most unusual landscape I've ever seen--odd rock pillars jutting out of the green plains, with monasteries perched precariously on top of them. Breathtaking.

We stopped by the largest nunnery, and then went to our hotel and had a quiet evening and a good dinner with the specialty of the area: grilled meats!

What I saw when I walked out onto my balcony at the hotel:

Saturday morning we wound up and around the rock formations and visited four monasteries, each one with a more dramatic view than the last.

(At the top of the tower there is a small rope bundle attached to a pulley system, and this used to be the only means of ascent/descent. Apparently my professor was lifted up in this rope bundle when he was seven years old...unsurprisingly he viewed this as a traumatic childhood event. Glad they built the stairs!)

Then we drove a few more hours northward and found ourselves in the quaint mountain town of Metsovo--a very different image of Greece than what's typically presented, with logcabin-like buidlings, cobblestone streets, and little shops that sold either cheeses or woodcarvings. It was the most Fall I've experienced in six years (while I love California weather dearly, it doesn't have a real, satisfying Fall with a capital F), and it was fabulous. The crispness of the evening mountain air, the crunchy leaves on the ground, and the faint everpresent smell of woodsmoke were a welcomed change from Athens. We had a delicious, homey meal next to a roaring fire in a cozy taverna, with Metsovon specialties: fried local cheese, bean soup with fresh bread, succulent veal in a tomato sauce served on handmade pasta, and roasted lamb that tasted like no lamb I've ever had before--incredibly tender, and with something that tasted like lamb-flavored crispy chicken skin? Still trying to work that one out, but it was delicious!

In the morning we went to a Greek Orthodox service (only the last hour or so...the service starts at 7:30 and ends about three hours later) and then had coffee and cookies with the priest. It was an interesting experience, very different from any of the (albeit few) church services I've been to in America. Almost the entire service was conducted through chanting, the mood was very relaxed, with people coming and going throughout the service, children scampering around, and those seated in the seats that ran the lengths of the three basilica aisles seeming to be doing their own thing; there were very few points at which everyone acted in unison. When asked about this, the priest told us that because they were in "their Father's house"--and therefore in their own home--they could behave as they would normally.


Attending the service was a valuable experience considering that (debatably) 97% of Greeks identify as being Greek Orthodox, and the religion is incredibly important to both personal and national identity--and to government and politics. Many of the things the priest said over coffee were interesting (it's always interesting to hear Greeks speak to a group of American students; the conversation almost inevitably leads to comments on the crisis and our duties as Americans):
"We were once an empire like you are now...it is your job to tell your leaders that it is time for them to give the truth...We hope for things to change, but will it be a future of lone shark bankers? Or of Christ and the church?...or whatever else you find in your studies". He made a few other disparaging remarks about bankers as well in the course of the conversation.


We then walked through the restored house of the wealthiest Metsovon family, and then piled on the bus, regrettably leaving the clear mountain air and quaint homeyness of the town and heading back to the busy metropolitan life of Athens.

sitting at the foot of Zeus's Throne

(I've put off publishing this post because it's not very worthwhile without pictures, but due to some tragic camera mishaps, all the pictures I took on Mary's camera are currently stranded on her camera and not on her memory card...but even so, here's the imageless story:)


It takes no great feat of imagination to understand why the Greeks considered Mount Olympus to be home of the gods.

It was an adventure from the beginning of the bus ride, as Nadia (the head of CYA) made the last of us sign away our lives in a waiver, handed each of us a parting present of a nutella-filled croissant-ring-pastry, closed the bus doors and sent the 25 of us off on our own with not another word of explanation. After about twenty minutes, we stopped at the side of the road and picked up two young-ish Greek men, one wearing a Georgetown shirt, the other wearing a shirt that depicted a sign with two stick figures, one kicking the other, with the words "THIS IS SPARTA" above. At first I thought these were two strangers also hiking Mount Olympus, but then Georgetown man took a roster with our names and phone numbers and put it in his pocket, and I realized they were our guides...or at least, I hoped so.

After an hour, the bus pulled into a gas station/rest stop (side note: this was no average American rest stop; I could buy anything from a Playmobile set, to a package of handmade dried pasta, to a Cyndi Lauper CD here). As the bus was stopping, one of the men announced, "We will have a twenty minute break." Still no further explanation. It wasn't until after we got back on the bus and had driven another fifteen minutes that the man picked up the microphone and began to read off of a piece of paper:

"Hello, my name is Kristos. And this is my friend, Yannis." It carried on in this very formal, scripted manner, as Kristos explained our itinerary: "This is a very dangerous trail. Many people have died...heh heh heh" and let out a sinister laugh. It was worrisome enough that we were on a bus in the middle of nowhere in Greece with two strangers. The fact that one of these men was laughing sinisterly at the prospect of death was not particularly reassuring. Later, I could hear the two of them repeating parts of the speech: " 'My friend, Yannis'...hahaha...'many have died'...hahaha" and chuckling to themselves. It later became clear that Nadia had provided Kristos with a typed-out script, and this was why they had been laughing, but at the time it made me uneasy about who exactly our guides were.

But they turned out to be quite amusing, good-natured guides. We made it up to the refuge--miraculously without any accidents, despite having to navigate a rocky path in darkness--ate dinner, and put our stuff into rooms. Both the dinner and the rooms were much nicer than expected. I spent a good hour wrapped up in every article of clothing I had brought and more that I had borrowed, lying on the ground looking up at the stars, which were unbelievable. I would have stayed out all night if the fog hadn't moved in and slowly erased all of the stars from the sky.

The next morning we set off for Zeus's throne, by far the more stunning half of the hike. I really felt like I was on top of the world when we reached the bottom of the summit--and I suppose, being at the highest peak of Greece, I was on top of the world to some extent. It was a perfectly clear day, with a spectacular view all the way down to the ocean and all the way up to the heavens.

A visit from the Chancellor

After such a weekend, today's events were somewhat jarring.

As my Greek professor put so simply: "Today should have been an ordinary day. But it is not. The German chancellor has made an unexpected visit here."

Another of my professors told us that it was an interesting decision for Chancellor Merkel to come here, seeing as she is about as reviled as Adolph.

We received two emails from the program regarding today:
1)

Dear CYA Faculty and Students,
Tomorrow morning, (Tuesday, 9 October) there will be a country-wide testing of air defense sirens, as part of a normal civil defense exercise called "Alexandros-2012". 

• At 11:00 a.m. the sirens will sound an air-raid warning for 60 seconds (intermittent sound of varying volume)
• At 11:05 a.m.  the sirens will sound the end of the warning for 60 seconds (continuous sound of steady volume).

These country-wide defense exercises are planned well ahead of time and tomorrow's siren testing has nothing to do with the increased security for Chanchellor Merkel's visit to Athens  

This, I assumed, was a routine occurrence. But according to one of my professors, the air sirens have not sounded since...the 1940s (WWII)--when the Germans were occupying Greece.

2)

Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 9, extra security measures and traffic diversions will be in effect in Athens for the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Traffic will be cut-off and/or diverted at various points to accommodate Merkel's visit.  Metro stations in the area will remain closed.   All public gatherings have been banned from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm in certain areas of the city including areas of Pangrati.  Police presence will be very evident throughout Athens.   

The ban on public gatherings is also apparently highly unusual and reminiscent of the bans on public assembly during the Junta (military government from 1967-1974).

Needless to say, there was a great deal of unrest in Athens today. I stayed away from Syntagma and the Parliament building area until after the protestors had been dispersed. It was pretty eerie to walk through the quiet streets, empty of cars, pretty empty of people, just the littered remains of the protesting masses on the ground and remnants of tear gas floating in the air--still enough to cause my nose and eyes to burn. Some of the other kids from the program went during the height of the demonstration, which apparently included re-enactments of the German occupation--full Nazi attire and swastikas and setting fire to a gate.

Merkel's visit here seems to be a major slap in the face to the Greek citizens (they are, at the very least, treating it as such): representing the EU and holding financial power over Greece's head, Merkel is reminding them that, while not technically occupied by, they are once again at the hands of Germany.

ParadHYDRAcal

This weekend's destination: Hydra

An hour and a half away from Athens via "Flying Dolphin" (almost as cool as the name led me to believe--much speedier and more intimate than the massive ferries we took to Crete and Santorini),

one of the Saronic islands, and pretty close to paradise. We got in around 10:30 in the morning, found a little hotel, and then set off for a walk along the coast to the beach.

Drank a beer, laid out in the sun, floated out on the water, and then went home for dinner. Hard life.

Bon Appetit had published an article about Hydra and so I of course insisted we find the restaurant the writer had recommended, Christina's Taverna, which proved to be spectacular. The best meal in Greece I've had so far.

fried zucchini balls- Greeks apparently love fried zucchini--it's featured on almost every taverna menu, and varies in interpretation by region. In Athens they were simple fried slices of zucchini; in Crete, they were like zucchini latkes; in Santorini, they were tempura'd. In Hydra, at least at Christina's they were just...better. The flavors were so much fuller, richer, and melted in your mouth.

This was the trend of the meal: classic food, but taken to the next level. The spanakopita filling was a creamy blend of spinach and artichoke (artichoke was an unusual but excellent addition)--like spinach-artichoke dip encased in layers of flaky filo dough.

The souvlaki chicken was tender, juicy, and had an added, untraditional curry flavoring.

Pastitsio (Greek-style lasagna) had perfectly creamy bechamel, crispy cheese on top, and perfectly flavored bolognese sauce:

But hands down the best dish was my "eggplant Hydra style". Roasted eggplant stuffed with roasted tomato, garlic, and the most delicious, succulent lamb (and fries, of course...they love their fries here!)

Dinners in Greece last for hours after the food has been cleared away, and my eyes, as they're wont to do, started wandering to check out other tables' foods. I was caught in the act by the woman at the table to our left, but rather than giving me any number of looks or ignoring me, she offered me a piece from the heaping plate of beautiful fried calamari that the waiter had just set down. This was beautiful on so many levels--one, to be reminded that there are good, generous, friendly people out there; two, free food is maybe my favorite thing in the world; but most wonderful of all was that this calamari was, no question about it, the best calamari I have ever had in my life. Fresh calamari is so completely different from the usual frozen stuff that restaurants serve up and everyone eats happily enough because, let's face it, you can deep-fry almost anything and it will get eaten. But the fresh calamari is so much more tender, the flavor is so much more delicious--it tasted almost like a scallop! (And mind you, this was all from just one bite of it). Needless to say, I went home stuffed and happy after that dinner.

The next morning we walked the opposite way down the coast, and spent the day lying on another beautiful beach. 

(the water was incredible. It did have a rocky bottom covered in sea urchins which I didn't notice until I had made it all the way out into the water, however...Getting back out was an incredibly stressful process, trying to balance on small slippery rocks as the current pulled at my ankles, looking down to see that I was standing in a sea-urchin-landmine. I ended up crawl-walking on my hands, and miraculously made it out stingless)

 (I think I've found my dream home?)

We watched a spectacular sunset...

...and then went back to Christina's for dinner number two, just as delicious as the first meal. We tried her dolmades this time (wine leaves stuffed with rice and ground beef), which were absolutely fabulous. I got a different roasted eggplant dish, this time with caramelized tomato, onion, and feta. After we had finished everything, the memory of that bite of calamari from the last night was still lingering in my mind, so despite the fact that I was really contentedly full, we ordered the calamari. An excellent decision.

Beautiful beaches, walks along the coast, great food, and great company...nothing could be finer.

Spread everywhere the light of knowledge

In Greek today, we learned the Greek birthday song:

Να ζήσεις (name) και χρόνια πολλά
μεγάλος να γίνεις με άσπρα μαλλιά
παντού να σκορπίζεις της γνώσης το φως
και όλοι να λένε να ένας σοφός

Translation:
May you live (name) and happy birthday
may you grow up and your hair turn white
may you spread everywhere the light of knowlwdge
so everyone will say : he (she) is a wise man (woman)

The American birthday song looks downright pathetic in comparison to that...I never really thought about it before, but our song couldn't possibly be any less creative.

A few other tidbits of what's going on right now:

For an ethnography assignment, we had to go to a university and interview students about their experiences/opinions. Along with everything else going on in Greece, there have been measures enacted for school reform--causing, unsurprisingly a great deal of upset. Because most people looking at my blog aren't looking for an essay about this, I'll just bullet a few interesting things I learned:

-Greek higher education has always been free for students--and now due to budget cuts, students are outraged by the fact that they now have to pay for their textbooks
-It has been criticized for lagging behind the universities elsewhere in the world, hence reform...
-An international committee to look into reformation was headed by the chancellor of UC Davis...opponents of this reform view this as "neocolonialism" and imposing a corporate, capitalistic agenda for higher education. The fear is that this will lead to the privatization universities, going against Greek values.
-Faculty strikes and student occupations from the past year were so extensive that the students I spoke with didn't finish their exams until July 29th and had to start back September 1st

And the one that really blows me away:

-Unemployment for people under the age of 30 is over 50%.

Santorini

After a crack-of-dawn wake up Friday morning, a 7-hour ferry ride, and a half-hour bus ride, we arrived in Fira and the darling King Thiras Hotel. 

We hopped on a different bus which took us to the northern tip of the island, where the ritzier town of Oia and the best view of the sunset was.

Gorgeous, and once the sun went down all of the towns along the cliffs lit up like a fairyland.



On Saturday we took a pirate-ship-style boat to the volcanic island of Nea Kameni (the middle island on the tablecloth-map picture) and climbed to the top of the still-active volcano which was responsible for burying an ancient city (similar to Pompeii)

It was really incredible to see the piles of obsidian and pumice, to walk along the edges of craters and to put your hand down into a hole in the ground and feel the heat coming from the inside of the Earth. The experience was only slightly dampered when I happened to look down at my arm, which I had mildly burned on an oven a few days prior, to find that it had blistered up pretty badly. Luckily I had some toilet paper, three bandaids from the first aid kit on the boat, the ingenuity of Jenny who stuck them together to form a longer bandaid, and a plastic bag which I made into a water-proof covering so that I could still swim (albeit gimpily) in the hot springs...

(...and look really, really cool)

 The hot springs were very nice, and we got some really cool views sailing back into port:

We made it back just in time to catch a bus to Akrotiri, the prehistoric city buried under layers of ash and then excavated, perfectly preserved (...by one of my professors, in fact, no big deal...). It was really amazing to see the whole city laid out in front of us. Interestingly enough, not a single human skeleton was found within these ruins, indicating that for one reason or another, the Thirans abandoned the city prior to the eruption. While one theory posits that the Thirans became aware of the dangers of being in an area prone to severe earthquakes and volcanos and decided to split, my Art and Archaeology professor cheerily pointed out that "millions of people live in Southern California despite the absolute certainty that in the next 20 years there will be a 9.0 earthquake that will most likely destroy the greater LA area and perhaps cause it to break apart from the continental US; humanity does not act rationally when it comes to threats of natural disaster."

..Making me feel great about the future...

 (Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do the site any justice whatsoever, just trust me, it was awesome)

We spent Sunday just walking through the streets of Fira until we had to catch a bus to the port and then be herded like cattle for the next hours...first into a waiting area (the ferry was a good hour late) and then on to the boat. Luckily for us, we had strategized beforehand and positioned ourselves to be in the front of the pack so as to secure comfortable chairs and a table on the boat--it was so crowded on the boat that many poor souls had to spend the eight hours crumpled in hard desk chairs.

Two days was not nearly enough time here, and it was sad to say goodbye to such a beautiful place...

(So many donkeys!)