Turkey and Greece: Euromed: Melting Pot or Frying Pan 2013

Today our group excitedly woke up to enjoy our last day not only in Greece but the entire winter term program. After an early departure we headed to the archaeological site of the first ever Olympic Games which began in 776 BC. The only games that were played during these times were discus, chariot racing, horseback racing, running, boxing and wrestling. This seems very slim compared to the hundreds of sports that are played during the summer and Winter Olympics nowadays. Although somethings have remained the same throughout the years, many things differ.
Women were not even allowed to watch the games, let alone participate in them. The only way they could win a medal is if they owned a horse that won a race. The Olympics during the ancient times were like our Sunday football nowadays, just an entire week long. Men from all over Ancient Greece, Rome and other regions were able to come together, put all their political differences aside, and enjoy the games. When a woman did try and sneak in to watch both of her sons compete, she was caught and the rule of everyone having to be naked in stands was enforced. I think it is safe to say that after centuries of Olympics, women are allowed to watch and participate, and everyone is required to wear clothing.
One of the most incredible things we saw at this site though was the race track. Whether students sprinted, jogged, or casually walked, we all can say we made a lap around the first Olympic track.
After making a victorious lap around the track, we headed over to the museum to see some of the original statues of gods and goddesses that used to decorate the landscape of Olympia.
Around noon we grabbed a snack and began our very long yet picturesque journey back to Athens. Tonight we have one last farewell dinner as a group with our professors and guide in a little restaurant on the pedestrian street in the city.
I think I can speak for everyone on this program and say that these past three weeks has been the most incredible experience of our lives. Many of us agree that Turkey wouldn’t be a place we would voluntarily go but we are so happy we got to see it. What we saw and what we learned with stick with us forever. From camel riding to hot air ballooning, jumping off a boat into the Mediterranean Sea to running a lap around the first ever Olympic track, we have done things that the average person has not. It has been such a pleasure getting to know everyone and we were so blessed to have such amazing professors and tour guides come along for the journey with us.

This morning we said goodbye to our favorite little seaside town of Nafplion and made our way to our final destination in Greece: Olympia. But first, we couldn’t leave just yet without visiting a local orange grove to pick some oranges. The crew took the fields as the owners showed us the the right technique to pick an orange from a tree. We gathered hundreds of oranges, and lets just say that when we got back on the bus, all we smelled were oranges. It was quite the experience and we all enjoyed it.

After frolicking through orange fields, we took the road again and headed for Olympia, making a few pit stops. We reached Olympia around lunch time and ate at a lovely little tavern where they served us anything from the typical Greek salad, to delicious gyros. Afterwards, we roamed the streets of the small village where some shopped and others played with the local dogs that trotted down the streets.

We boarded the bus again and climbed up a steep hill to reach our hotel nestled on the side of a cliff. Once everyone checked in, some napped and some played card games. The afternoon was a chance for all of us to catch up on some resting time and prepare for our journey back to Athens the following day.

Today our first stop was the The Fortress of Palamidi, which is situated on the summit of the hill east of the city of Nafplion. It was built between 1711 and 1715. Here we were able to climb up the paths of this significant work of fortification architecture, passing through the killing fortress and killing alley. We even had the opportunity of climbing into a holding cell, which they used as a prison. There are seven bastions, connected with one another by a wall to protect the fortress’s defenders from enemy firing during their movement from one bastion to another.

Next we traveled to Mycenae, the remains of Agamemnon’s Palace with the famous Lions Gate. Mycenae was the main centre of the Mycenaean world Between the 16th and 12th c. BC. The Mycenaen acropolis was uniquely placed to control the communication routes in all directions, to the Peloponnese and to mainland Greece. It was the most appropriate site to house the royal house of the Atreidae and their people. We walked around and saw several different monumenets, the most popular being the grave circle. here was a cemetry of royal tombs dating from the Middle Helladic period, which brought to light some masterpieces of art. After visiting the acropolis we went to see the Treasury of Atreus, which is the most representative and best preserved example of a tholos tomb 1250 BC.

Finally we ended our day with a winery tour and tasting at a local winery in the valley of Argos. We first got a tour of the facility and learned about the entire process. Temperature and humidity are very important to control when the wine is fermenting. We learned that fifty percent of their wine is exported to other countries, the two biggest being the United States and Canada. Once we finished the tour we were brought into a beautiful room with an assortment of foods and wines. One of the owners walked us through the specific way to try wines, focusing on the eyes, nose, and mouth. Using your eyes you want to make sure the wine is clean and bright which indicates good fermentation and freshness. With your nose it is important to smell the wine and not sniff it. Finally once you take a sip of the wine you can determine the thickness and acidity. Everyone had an incredible time and walked away very happy with a new appreciation of wine.

As we were driving back to Nafplion we got a every welcomed surprise when our tour guide, Eleni, treated us to the best gelato in Greece!

Today in Athens we saw the Agora, which is the ancient site of the voting grounds.  We learned that this is where the voting would take place in all of ancient Athens.  It is important to remember that women had very little freedom at this time and no power when it comes to voting.  Our current democratic system happens to be modeled off of the Athens Greek government.  We learned that every week each free man in society would cast one vote for the person that they thought best represented the society.  Every free man in society was given six minutes to express his political views, which is why the entire process lasted so long.

A trumpeter rallied everyone together when it was time to vote.  In order to speed the process up, the government had a special police force that would help facilitate the voters.  If you were late or took to long to move through the line, the police would mark you with red paint, which was seen as disgraceful.  Different tribes developed from citizens with different occupations and some of the tribes had more influence than the others.  To counteract this, the Greeks made sure every free male in society had only one vote per person. To protect from tyranny the citizens also voted on who they felt threatened the government the most.  If this person received over 6,000 votes they were ostracized for 10 years (regardless of whether they had committed any crimes or not).

For lunch we went to a nice area that offered a variety of cheap authentic Greek Food.  Some of the different types of food offered include burgers, gyros, and greek sandwiches.  The food was amazing!

After we finished our lunch, we visited the Acropolis Museum. The country of Greece does not let any of its statues or ancient relics remain outside in order to maintain their condition, so this is where many statues of the Acropolis, and other places in Greece are located. An interesting element of the Acropolis Museum is that it is actually built on top of an archaeological site. The building is built on top of pillars in order to preserve the condition of the archaeological site. The floor of the museum allows for you to see the site underneath your feet as you tour the artifacts inside.

Once inside, we discussed many different topics with Eleni, our tour guide. She talked of how it was tradition in Greek households, when the family moved in, to sacrifice a rooster and eat it. We saw plates with rooster bones still intact that had been excavated from the site below our feet.

We talked much about the traditions of marriage between Greek men and women. Women were married off between the ages of 16-18. They never had the chance to fall in love because they did not leave the house much. They were usually married to a man that was quite older, who had fought in many battles and survived. This was to ensure that the dowry that the women’s family paid to the man would not be wasted. This is why men of younger ages didn’t get married, because they had not fought enough battles to prove their worth of marriage.

Archaeologists found many storage pits around the Acropolis when they excavated it filled with statues and ancient items. This is because the items were considered sacred, so the Athenians did not throw them away whenever they were damaged. Rather, they simply stored them in these pits. This is how parts of the Parthenon were found that were thought to have been erased by the Christians and Muslims.

We saw many statues while inside the museum as well. The statues that date back to the 6^th century BC are found to be usually smiling, and the men are depicted with long hair. All of the statues faces are usually depicted as that of the gods and goddesses, but the owners who paid for them usually threw in personal choices of their own like the clothing and hairstyle. The museum even had a statue that had been recreated and painted, as the original would have been. Some symbols that are commonly found on statues are the Olive Tree, the snake, and the owl. These are the three symbols of Athens and of Athena.

The museum had a representation of what the top decorations of the Parthenon looked like. Many of them had been copies because the originals are in London. The Museum offered much insight into the power of Athens in ancient times and the customs it had as well. We departed the museum after this, and had the option to go visit the theater and Zeus’s temple or walk around the Plaka to end our day.

Today we met our tour guide, Eleni, which is Greek for Helen.  We began the day by walking to the Acropolis, which is the city center of Athens.  In Greek, Acropolis means “top of the city,” and it is built on a large cliff that is still the center in present day Athens.  The Plaka, a historic pedestrian neighborhood, was created to unify all the ancient buildings and beautify the city.  After hiking up the Acropolis, we were able to get wonderful views of an Audion, or theater and music hall.

View of the Audion from atop the Acropolis

We then walked through the gates of the Acropolis, which is where visitors would come and relax after their journey, and drink wine before entering the temple areas.  We learned that in ancient Athens, most men had careers as sailers, businessmen, and merchants and that they were the middlemen of the ancient world.  We also learned everything that men did, such as becoming warriors at age 20, performing in the Audion, participating in democracy, were all considered public duties and not jobs as they are today.

A view of Athens from atop the Acropolis

The most interesting thing we saw on the Acropolis was the Parthenon, an ancient temple built to honor Athena, the goddess of war, wisdom, courage, and many more things.  The Parthenon broke two records when it was built; it was built in fifteen years and it was the largest temple ever built by the Greeks.  It required 100,000 blocks of marble to build, and was financed by jewels found on the swords of Persian soldiers killed at the battle of Marathon.  Today in the U.S. that would be $80 million.  One of the most interesting things about it is that the columns are all tilted inwards to give the optical illusion that it is straight, from far away.

Group photo in front of the Parthenon

After our arrival in Athens from Izmir, Turkey, we met our guide for the day, Thalia, who escorted us to our hotel, the Heredion, located in the Plaka (a historic pedestrian zone beneath the Acropolis). Getting started right away, we headed to the Bank of Greece to listen to a lecture on the financial crisis from a economic analyst named George Stubos. We had a quick lunch of spinach and cheese pies outside the bank to tide over our hungry belles (already a big change from the kebabs and pide of Turkey!).

Mr. Stubos explained to us the factors that led up to the 2009 economic crisis in Greece. There was an oversized and ineffective state sector, a lack of capital, and problems with lending on the international money markets that all contributed to the crisis. Mr. Stubos also explained the memorandums set by the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the Eurpoean Central Bank and how these funds were aimed at filing in the holes in the Greek economy. He expressed that there is optimism that the deficit, GDP and unemployment will all improve in the coming year.  After the lecture, I personally felt much more educated concerning the Greek economic crisis and also learned about the political ramifications of Greek’s place within the EU.

After the lecture, we toured the museum of the Bank of Greece (founded in 1938). We were able to see various coins and paper money through the Greek antiquity and modern Greece. It was interesting to learn how different coin decorations have remained constant throughout history; one of the first coins in ancient Greece featured an owl on one side and the same design can now be seen on the one Euro coin of Greece.

After leaving Antalya, we set off for the ancient Lycian city of Myra. During the Hellenistic period, Myra was one of the six most powerful cities of the Lycian federation.

The present day archeological site of Myra consists of an amphitheater, which can hold up to 10,000 people, and the rock cut-tombs. These tombs are what make the site so unique. It’s the only Roman city to have the necropolis, or cemetery, in the same area as the acropolis; the living and dead together.

Next, we headed to the grave of Saint Nicholas, or as we like to call him Santa Claus. The patron saint of children was born in 300 AD and was elected as the archbishop of Myra. This site was thought to be the grave of Saint Nicholas, until historians discovered that Italian merchants had robbed the grave centuries before. However acting as the patron saint of Russia and England, people from all over the world come to visit the grave of Saint Nicholas.

We then went on a glass bottom boat tour of Kekova and the ruins of an ancient underwater city. Again, some students braved the cold by jumping off the boat into the Mediterranean Sea.

Our last stop on the way to Fethiye was to the ancient city of Patara. We climbed up rocks to see the Assembly Hall of the Lycian League before it is open to the public. The senate house was a meeting place for elected officials from 23 cities. The first assembly meeting was held in 205 BC. This is the first example of a federation and stood as a model for the US Constitution. The structure of the building itself also provided the model for the shape of the House of Congress.

Group picture near the stunning waterfalls of Duden Park.

All of the girls at the city center, the Agora, of the ancient city of Perge.

The whole group at the ancient amphitheater of Aspendos.

Brave group of swimmers in the Mediterranean Sea.