Still Alive

It's been a long time between posts, but really there hasn't been too much to write about. Same old schooltime grind with some trips to ancient sites stuck in the middle. The ancient Greek Agora here in Athens has the best preserved temple, with the original roof still attached. We've also been exploring the city a bit more. We found a Lebanese club/bar that was pretty sweet and a few other places here and there. Culinary experiments are still going down as well. I tried out some Greek seafood that was interesting to say the least. Octopus (suckers still attached), smallfish (whole fried minnows), prawns (the kind with the eyes still attached), stuff like that. I also ate an entire pickled lemon thinking it was a meatball. I made the mistake of going with peer pressure at the table and put the whole thing into my mouth at once (amid debate of what it was). It was tart, to say the least. Tart and gooshy. But not as bad as it could have been.

This weekend we went to the Peloponnese, mostly around Nafplion, the first capital of modern Greece. It had a ton of old Venetian castles and buildings, and felt really Italian. But everything there was totally explorable. We hit up a few sites from ancient times (Lerna, Mycenae, Tiryns, and the Treasury of Atreus for those who are interested). These were really impressive, especially the Atreus thing. It was this huge room dug into a hill and lined with stones, so that it had the whole whisper wall thing going on for it. The entrance was really huge, and makes me want to go to Egypt.

We also got to explore around an ancient temple complex that had a theater built into it. The acoustics still worked pretty well despite the amount of stone missing from the structure. I made the decision to Rocky it, and sprint up all of the stairs in a race. I made it to the top, fell down, and almost lost my cookies. Pretty poor decision, I think. And to top it all off, I lost. But to be fair, Jeff is a runner with longer legs than me. So I'm ok with it.

The coolest contemporary thing we got to do was see some of the burned spots after the fires. It was from the bus, but still. It was pretty devastated, with burned out trees and shrubs dotting the orchards and olive groves. Speaking of which, I hate olives. Satan fruit, if you ask me.

I'll get some pictures up later on, I have to get paper writing. Things are starting to pick up what with the whole "going to school here" thing. It shouldn't be too bad though.

So yea, pictures to come.