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Wednesday, October 24th
Lord Byron set a terrible example
Last Friday, Oct. 19th, I had a day field trip to Brauron and Sounion for my archaeology class. i didn't know much about either place, especially Brauron because even archaeologists aren't certain about what ritualistic activities went on there. Sounion is famous because the Temple of Poseidon sits there on top of the highest peak on that peninsula, and can be seen by passing ships sailing in the Aegean. because the temple is so visible and elevated, even Lord Byron admired it and wrote a poem about it. except he started a bad trend that i'll explain later. so first about Brauron, the sanctuary dedicated to Artemis where Athenian women would leave their bloody childbirth rags to seek Artemis's blessing.
jessica on 10.24.07 @ 08:32 PM GMT [more..]
Tuesday, October 23rd
Argolid...without Argos
I've been trying to type up this entry for a while, but glitches on my computer keep deleting my entry and so now out of frustration, this entry may be a lot shorter than intended, but picture-filled. I realized that i needed to type this one up before I leave for Turkey for Thursday for fall break, because when i come back, i may never catch up with my entries! so here is a long, week-late entry:
Two weekends ago (October 12-14), CYA took all of us on a trip to the Argolid in the Peloponnese. just like on Crete, they separated us into different groups and busses, and our professors acted as tour guides at the archaeological sites. we stayed in hotels in Nafplio, the port city in the Argolid that was once the first capital of modern Greece. on Friday, we left from Athens early in the morning and most of us went to see Mycenae first. we went to see four of the nine tholoi in Mycenae and its surrounding area, including the famous Treasury of Atreus and the Tomb of Clymnestra. while we do not know who were actually buried in each tholos, the grandeur of each tomb indicates that they were clearly meant for the wealthy.
jessica on 10.23.07 @ 01:56 AM GMT [more..]
Friday, October 12th
reflection on Crete...finally
I know it has taken me a long time to share my experiences on Crete, but it's finally here! Although Crete certainly deserves multiple entries, I'm going to have to condense it to one because I'm off to the Argolid this weekend with CYA to see Mycenae, Epidaurus, and Tiryns.
on the last week of September, CYA took all 120+ of us to Crete. we left on an overnight ferry on Monday night, Sept. 24th. surprisingly, i didn't get motion sickness and aside from the 5:30AM wake-up call, i slept fairly well in our four-bed cabin. we docked in Heraklion early Tuesday morning, and immediately went to Knossos in our separate classes/groups. we were hoping to beat the tourist rush by getting there right when it opened at 8am, and honestly, if we came only an hour later, the crowds would have been hectic to fight through. literally thousands of tourists flood through Knossos per day, and i can't imagine what it must be like to come during high season. Knossos wasn't as great as i thought it would be. from this picture, you can see how the reconstruction by Sir Arthur Evans really looks...gaudy. i can't explain it, but Knossos was sort of anti-climatic because while the complex is fascinating, the knowledge that Evans moved things around and reconstructed the palace with a very biased British view makes the palace seem less real. in one sense, it was nice to see how the palace might have looked like, but knowing that a lot of the reconstruction that we see today is ambiguous kind of diminished the experience for me.
jessica on 10.12.07 @ 01:37 AM GMT [more..]
Tuesday, October 9th
monday mornings
mood: sleepy
I have yet to format and load my pictures from Crete, but I promise that will be my next entry before I leave for the Argolid this weekend.
my Monday and Wednesday mornings are free usually because I don't have class until 1:30 to 2:30, and I'm free thereafter. you'd think that with so much time off, I'd be taking advantage and going all over Athens, or even down to Piraeus to the beach in the morning. but alas, no, I have been lazy and only taken advantage of my mornings a couple of times. one of those mornings, i walked to Kerameikos down on Ermou behind the Acropolis and the Agora. yesterday morning, i made a postcard run at Plaka, and on the way back, decided to stop by the Temple of Olympian Zeus since it was right along the way back to Kallimarmaron and Pangrati. the picture you see here shows the toppled column from 1852, which I found to be pretty neat since I could finally see how the columns were pieced together. don't blame me for my dusty photograph, the smog was unbearable today in addition to the unusual humidity.
jessica on 10.09.07 @ 12:30 AM GMT [more..]
Monday, October 1st
rant about the euro
mood: unfortunate
a break from the travel blog thing.
Buying Euros Will Prove Hazardous as Charts Say Sell (Update2)
By Bo Nielsen
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The euro's record-setting rally may not extend through the end of October, according to analysts who rely on market patterns for their predictions.
No fewer than half a dozen indicators that measure the speed and slope of a currency's rise and foreshadowed the euro's three biggest slumps of the past year show the best may be over after it strengthened 4.7 percent in the past month to its all- time high of $1.4283. Citigroup Inc., the largest U.S. bank, says the euro may drop to below $1.37 unless the currency maintains its momentum.
``We are a little more cautious,'' said Tom Fitzpatrick, Citigroup's global head of currency strategy in New York. ``Whenever you see acceleration'' of this magnitude, ``it's a sign we may have a correction,'' he said.
The euro's appreciation is putting pressure on the European Central Bank to find a way to curb the gains. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Fiat SpA Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo complain that the rise in the currency shared by 13 European nations is hurting their economies.
Shipments from Germany, the region's largest exporter, fell 0.1 percent in July as the stronger currency damped demand from Asia and the U.S., the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said last month. Reports last week that showed declining business confidence in Germany, France and Italy failed to dent the euro.
jessica on 10.01.07 @ 11:59 PM GMT [more..]