Cliff jumping and Cookouts

At the site Wednesday, I did a bit of work with object photography. It was an interesting experience; there are a lot of different rules and things to take into consideration when photographing artifacts. You want to have as accurate a photo as possible, so you need to use a very long depth of field and play with lighting and shadows in order to represent all of the small details of the piece. I actually found it quite enjoyable. After work, we went to an area along the coast where we could jump off of the small cliffs into the sea. Knowing me, I was pretty nervous about it, but I eventually stopped over thinking and just jumped. It was fun, but I was done after two jumps. Especially when the wind and waves picked up. 

Brittany and I on top of the cliff we jumped from

After risking our lives for the thrill of it, we got all cleaned up and headed over to the home of Tim and Lita, our dig director and his wife, for a small cookout. The food was delicious, and everyone who had been at the site the past few weeks was there. There was also a Greek Archaeologist there who showed us pictures of his work excavating graves along the highways. He showed us some very interesting things, many of which we would've never had access to. We were pretty lucky to get the chance to see them.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

Tuesday. Was. HOT. Like too hot for the beach hot. At least for me, a few of the others decided to go fry at the beach...it was a pretty uneventful day at the site, I did some more scanning and worked on researching and writing up some content for the tour. We ran into some software issues, so we are looking at other platforms, and have pretty much decided I won't be able to finish building it this summer. Which is kind of a bummer, but that's life, I suppose. After working in the hot all day, the only thing I wanted to do was go back to the hotel and sit in the ac. So that is precisely what I did. It was my turn to make dinner for the group, so I made (what else) breakfast for dinner! We had fresh melon, cheesy eggs with green peppers, sausages, and pancakes. The pancakes really were Jon's masterpieces, to give credit where it's due. All of this deliciousness was topped off by a 7 euro bottle of authentic "Vertmont" syrup. No, that's not a typo, in case you were wondering. It was a quite good meal, if I do say so myself. And for only 20 euro total!

my beautiful brinner

Out Here in the Field

Monday was a very exciting day at work because...we actually got to go do work in the field! Unfortunately, Isthmia doesn't have any dig permits this year, so we unfortunately didn't get to do any excavating. But we did get to go out and catalog and draw old pieces of recycled architecture so that Jon can study them more closely. It was pretty neat to kick around and see the different pieces of architecture and try to figure out where they may have come from and what they may have been used for. We even found a few that matched each other, which was kind of exciting. Even though it was super hot out, I appreciated the chance to get out and do a little bit of fieldwork. 

working out in the field

Brittany even found a tiny puppy friend who hung out with us for a little while. She wanted to take her home to the States, but Jon turned that down pretty quickly. We were all hot and cranky after work, so Jon took us to the beach and we cooled off in the sea. It felt incredible. For dinner, we went to this little food stand just down the road from the hotel and got souvlaki, which is basically like delicious Greek shish kabobs. 

Oracles, Mountains, and Monks

Sunday was a very full day. We started it off right with a nutella-laden breakfast at the hotel, and then headed back up the mountains to the site of Delphi. Oh Delphi, what an interesting place. It has a very interesting history; the Greeks believed that it was the center of the entire world, it was one of the four original sites of the Panhellenic games, and people came from everywhere to ask the Oracle their questions. Because of the importance of the site, many interesting archaeological finds have been made there. 

the gang at Delphi

temple to Apollo

The interesting thing is that even though the French have been digging at Delphi for years and years now, and they still have no clue where the Oracle did her thing. Strange, huh? There are a ton of really interesting treasuries and dedications at the site, and the theater and stadium were really neat to see as well. We also met a cat whom we believed to be Apollo. He was laying in the sun outside the temple, so who else could he be?

Apollo in cat form

ancient inscription reads "No drinking wine beyond this point"

theater at Delphi

It was kind of strange to actually see the site and realize that it's REALLY on a mountain. People must have been crazy/really wanted an Oracle in order to climb up that baby. It was a hike. Not to mention that it was HOT. Of course all of us left our water bottles in the van, too, so we were suffering pretty hard for a while. At the bottom of the mountain, in front of the museum was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen: a slushy stand. Best slushy I had ever tasted. Worth every penny of the ridiculously high 4 euro price. Every penny. Inside the museum were a number of very cool artifacts, including a huge sphinx, and the famous bronze statue of the charioteer. The museum was very nicely done, too. 

the charioteer

Jon is not licensed...oops

After we had seen all there was to see, we headed to the little mountain village of Arachova for lunch and some shopping. Oh, and the taverna we ate at had out food delivered via tiny elevator. It was vey exciting. On our way back to Corinth, we stopped at a monastery called Hosios Loukas. We had to change in the parking lot in order to make ourselves monastery-friendly. It was a beautiful place; the inside of the church had tons of beautiful icons and stonework. Not to mention a dead saint or two...

inside the church

candle I lit in the church

I filled up my water bottle at this spring with a mix of the water from Delphi and the Monastery. That water had to have had some sort of magic...

spring at the monastery

After the monastery, we continued on our journey back to Loutra Elenis, and were all absolutely exhausted by the time we returned.

On the Top of the World

On Saturday, I climbed a mountain. Now, let me be clear, in America when we say "I climbed a mountain," it usually means "I walked up a nicely cleared, marked trail to the summit." In Greece, it means something entirely different. For one, there are a lot fewer "trails." Actually, you're usually better off not taking the trails, as they are quite slippery. I have learned that Greece is a very slippery place. It's also very pokey; all of the plants here have either thorns or brambles. It's like the country wants you to be uncomfortable. The number of times I actually thought I was going to die was way too high. But...the view and sense of accomplishment I felt at the top made it all worth it. 

view from the cave

Jon took us up to an old cave, where soldiers used to be posted for lookout. There were inscriptions (basically ancient graffiti) there from the 1600's and earlier. It was amazing. We even found some more bones, which I'm beginning to accept happens with alarming frequency here. Katie identified them as goats. Bones are her thing. 

inscriptions in the cave

Katie and her bones

After the beyond treacherous descent, we sat with Aristides at a small café, and then headed back to the hotel. About an hour later, we all reunited to begin our trip to Itea, where we were staying the night before we visited Delphi on Sunday. It was an extremely long and nervewracking but beautiful drive up through the mountains and back down to the coast. The Greeks don't believe in guardrails, even in the mountains (which is not surprising in the least). Our little hotel was pretty nice and was very near to the water. We spent the night relaxing and enjoying the little town of Itea. 

town of Itea

We all ate together at a place called Pizza House (I'm not kidding), which had a very interesting owner who spoke perfect English. We had a good time chatting with him about all sorts of things.

Adventure and Cheese

Friday was a rather high thrills day at the site. Personally, I was just geeked that I finally put all of the stops of the tour onto the software we are using, so even though we don't have full content, we at least have all the stops. One step at a time, I guess. However, Jon made the day even more exciting when he pulled out a key to the locked door behind the dig house, and told us to go explore some ancient underground reservoirs. 

The doorway to adventure

Naturally, we scurried off, eager to escape scanning for a while in lieu of (semi)epic adventure. Down some creepy stairs, there was a chamber and some more tunnels. Slugs (or "naked snails" as they're called here in Greece) bigger than I've ever seen slugged their slug slime all over the walls, and spindly-legged spiders covered the ceiling. 

Looking out from the tunnels

Over and over in my Intro to Archaeology class, they kept telling us "Archaeology is not like Indiana Jones." They must be doing something very very wrong, because this place was straight out of the Last Crusade...there was even a snake (dead, thankfully). In the evening, we went out to dinner with Jon's friend Aristides, whom we are coming to believe is possibly the most interesting man in the world, to this delicious restaurant by the sea. We had probably some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life. Including this feta in phyllo covered in honey in sesame seeds which made me rethink everything I ever thought about life. 

Rescuing Rolys

We had a pretty exciting Thursday at the site. In the morning, I did some more scanning and artifact rehousing with Katie. Then, Jon decided that someone needed to do some investigation as to why the stairs at our dig house seem to be the place where roly-polys go to die. Tired of seeing so many poor insects suffer for seemingly no reason, we decided to try and right this wrong. Tyler constructed a ramp for the rolys using electrical tape. Will report back with our findings at a later time.

Tyler's attempt to save the rolies

Later in the day, we got to learn how to draw pottery, which is less artistic and more scientific than I thought. It's a little bit tricky, but a very interesting process. I even got to play with calipers, making all the engineers in my life proud.

Jon teaching us how to draw pottery

Playing with calipers

In the evening, I did some catching up on the blog and enjoyed a delicious dinner. Tyler made us all oven fried chicken with cornflakes and Jon contributed some excellent cheesy pasta and veggies. Anastasia was pretty shocked that we crazy Americans were putting cereal on our chicken, but she must have liked it since she asked for the recipe later in the night...

Treats All Around

Wednesday was another relatively quiet day in Greeceland. At the site, I did some more work with the negatives and did some troubleshooting with the Tourguide program we're using to build the tour. Also, we have finally trained Canela, the site dog, to come barking and bring the guards when we pull up by feeding her copious amounts of treats. She even followed us to the dig house and chilled for a while today. 

Our new best friend Canela

In the afternoon, we all just kind of hung out and relaxed until Anastasia cooked us dinner again (surprise, surprise). It was the spaghetti-like dish she had made us about a week ago, but "much worse" according to her because Jon and Tyler got all the wrong ingredients for her. Apparently bargain brand is frowned upon here in Greece. We were of course joined by our handsome but slightly evil cat friend, whom Jon's children have named Roosevelt. He got a good chunk of Katie's leftover spaghetti and left content. Later that night, she baked us a chocolate cake for the morning and let us watch how she made it. I'm going to have so many delicious recipes for back in the States!

Eating the Kraken

Tuesday was another pretty quiet day. At the site, I continued scanning, but I also got to work on rehousing some of the artifacts. Although it may sound boring, I found it exciting to get to see and touch things that had been around for thousands of years, even if it was just to move them from box to box. Maybe that's just me being a nerd though. When our work day was over, there was a bit of excitement back at the hotel over a chicken who had quite literally flown the coop. Also, Anastasia gave me a pair of shoes that didn't fit her anymore, so now I have some shoes to remember her by, as well as the few extra pounds she's helped me put on in my time here. For dinner, we decided it was time to get a little adventurous and try some seafood. We went to a little fish taverna which was right on the sea. I'm talking RIGHT ON it. Our table was on the beach only a few feet from the water. We had so much delicious food: fried zucchinis, fried cheese cubes, greek salad, tzatziki and bread, and not to mention the sea critters...calamari, tiny fried fishes kind of like smelt, and grilled octopus. Despite looking a bit frightening, it was all incredibly tasty. 

Grilled octopus

Calamari (this one's a shoutout to the Schroeder family)

For dessert, our waiter brought us little dishes of greek yogurt and candied carrots. It was amazing, you could hardly even tell they were carrots because they were so sweet. We didn't even order it, the Greeks are just cool like that.

Greek yogurt and candied carrots for dessert

Just Beachy

Monday was a pretty chill day at the site. I fixed our scanner issues and did some serious work on the negatives. After work, we decided it was definitely a beach kinda day. We went to a new beach, which was nice and shady (nice for the pale folks), but a little bit wavy. We didn't snorkel, because the water was a kind of cloudy, but we still had a nice time relaxing and swimming. Brittany even found a nice collection of cool looking brick ware (half of which she had to put back because it was ancient and that's illegal) to take home. 

Little Greek beach where we spent the afternoon

In the evening, Jon and Robert watched an "epic" ant fight, and Brittany made fajitas for dinner and we all sat around the table and had a nice little meal. Anastasia even came out at the end and (being Anastasia) gave us some Nescafe ice cream which she had handmade. The woman is incredible. All in all, a pretty quiet day in Greeceland. Minus those crazy ants.

Jon getting up close and personal with the warring ants

Ancient Corinth in the Afternoon

Sunday afternoon, we headed over to the site of Ancient Corinth. Corinth is a pretty big deal, historically. Not only is it the second place Pegasus supposedly touched the earth, but it also has ties to Paul from the bible (like the book CORINTHians), and the myth of Jason and Medea (making Mr. Watson proud). There is a lot to see on the site, including numerous roman structures, the spring with ties to BOTH Pegasus and the Medea myth, an ancient fountain, and a temple supposedly to Apollo (no indisputable proof has been found). Unfortunately there were a surprising amount of tourists there (the site is a big deal for a lot of pilgrimage tours of the Mediterranean), and we did arrive a bit later, so we sort of got the short tour. 

Corinthian capitals IN CORINTH!

Overall view of the site

Spring in which Glauce tried to douse herself after Medea poisoned her

"Temple of Apollo"

One interesting feature of the site was the way they tried to integrate technology. They came up with these stand-like things with touch screens inside which just failed miserably. For one, nobody could tell what they were. We listened as a group of about three Americans decided it was probably a trash can and asked themselves why they were even bothering identifying it in the first place. I can't even really discuss whether the technology was adding to the experience or not because the units didn't work and looked like they hadn't in years. It was an interesting study in what not to do with technology on a site.

A sad sad attempt

After we went to the site museum, which had a lot of impressive artifacts which were displayed somewhat haphazardly in what appeared to be china cabinets...but they did have a sphinx I found to be especially rockin'

Sphinx, Oedipus style

We ate a delicious lunch in Corinth on the rooftop of a small restaurant, and then headed back to the hotel. It was then that I had my very first experience handwashing all of my clothes. As much fun as it was, I think I'll give Anastasia a few euro to use her machine next time...Speaking of Anastasia, she must think we're stupid Americans who can't cook, because she decided to teach us how to make a delicious cheese pie for dinner. Not that any of us were complaining; she is an incredible cook and we love learning from her.

The Lions and the Lamb

Saturday was quite the day. We started off relatively early to see Mycenae, which is probably the most famous Greek Bronze Age site. It's famous for it's "cyclopian" masonry, thus named because the stones in the walls are so large that classical Greeks believed only cyclopses could have put them there. There are a lot of impressive things at the site, including the lion gate which marks the entrance, and the grave circles where archaeologists have found tons of famous artifacts such as the (somewhat questionable) "Mask of Agamemnon."

The group in front of the famous lion gates

After stopping to see a few other structures such as the throne room, we went down a spooky (and extremely slippery) staircase which used to lead to an underground water supply. It was pitch black, and the flashlights on our phones served as the only light sources. When we finally reached the bottom, we saw....nothing. Except a little mouse friend who scared Brittany off pretty quickly.

Emerging from the dark tunnel

Next, we headed to the tholos tombs. There  were something like 30 of these tombs discovered around Mycenae, which is very impressive considering their massive size and the amount of resources and manpower which must have gone into making them. They also provided us a much-needed relief from the sun. It was beyond hot out.

Entrance to a Tholos tomb

In an attempt to escape the heat, we headed for the air-conditioned museum. It was a nice little museum, with a huge collection of finds from the site, although to see most of the really famous artifacts, you'd need to go to Athens...then we went on our last Mycenae stop: the Treasury of Artreus. Oooooohhhh fancy. To be fair, it is one of the biggest if not the biggest enclosed bronze-age spaces out there. And it was big. And enclosed. Honestly, it was a lot like all of the other tholos tombs, only on a larger scale. We were lucky enough to get a Greek mythology lesson from Jon while in the tomb, which I thought was interesting (and disturbing, as most Greek mythology is). 

Jon pointing in the Treasury of Atreus

After we had seen about all there was to see in Mycenae, we piled back into the van and headed to the coastal town of Nafplion. It was a beautiful town, with lots of 19th century architecture. They even had this ironic "trendy" grill. Apparently, I will never understand the Greeks' fascination with comic sans...Jon took us to eat at a place called Goody's, which is basically like a Greek McDonalds. It was quite an interesting experience. After lunch, Tyler and Robert decided they wanted to climb up the mountain in town and see the castle. However Brittany, Katie, and I had had enough mountain climbing for a hot second and decided to spent the afternoon enjoying the town, its shops, and its gelato. Eventually, we made our way down to the water, where we enjoyed the view of this beautiful little castle-island.

Castle in the Sea

Nafplion charm

We were all pretty exhausted by that time, so we headed back to Loutro Elenis to rest up before Jon's friend Aristides' birthday dinner that night. Due to some circumstances, the party actually got moved to our hotel, along with the entire lamb they had roasted. The party was full of good food and good wine, and we all had a great time. Except maybe the lamb...

Our poor (but delicious) lamb

Grillin' it Up Greek Style

Today we learned a new skill: taking elevations! It's all of the fun it sounds like and more. Actually though, it was pretty cool and involved playing with some fun and exciting tools. After we got it completely level, Tyler and I took turns looking through the viewfinder thing at the pole Jon was holding and we figured out the elevations of a few of the structures by the bath. 

Tyler and Jon take elevations (Brittany and Robert paint the gate in the distance)

After that, I began on my task of scanning and archiving a bunch of old negatives of coins into the computer. When it was time for us to skedaddle, we went to the store to pick up ingredients for our first-ever fully self-prepared meal. Quite a landmark achievement for us. We decided to repay Anastasia for all of the delicious foods she has cooked us in our time here by cooking for her as well. Katie and Brittany did most of the work preparing the kebobs. They were quite impressive

Brittany shows off the food

However, when it came time to grill, Anastasia saw the tiny grill-like thing we had bought at the supermarket and put her foot down. Instead, she pulled out her Greek-style grill and bag of charcoal, and we lit 'er up. 

Robert, Katie, and Brittany work on getting the grill going

The food was delicious, and we even managed to impress Anastasia (I think, at least...)

Tidying Temples

Today was clean up day at the site. We all headed down to the bath to cut (not pull) weeds. The reason behind the cutting is if you pull the roots of the weeds, you could pull up tiles and seriously damage the mosaic floor. We pretty much spent the entire morning doing that and cleaning off the mosaic with water and brooms. Tyler and I even cut down a fig tree that was growing in the wall (go FIGure. Ha. Ha.) As mundane as the work was, it was still a bit exciting to do some restoration and get the place looking shiny and new a (ok, not really) again. After the heavy labor was done, Jon and I went out to walk the site and talk about the tour. We did a lot of trouble shooting and came up with a rough idea of the different stops. 

Map of proposed stops on site

When we were all done at the site, we ran home to change and then headed out to the beach down the road. Even though the water was a bit cold, we didn't let that stop us. We were determined to do some snorkeling, so we put on our gear and got in the sea. After the initial shock, the water was quite refreshing, and we were able to see not only some interesting sea creatures, but old foundations of some sort on the bottom. That's the interesting thing about Greece; when you go to the beach, you're just as likely to be sitting on ancient pottery as you are to be sitting on rocks. The stuff's everywhere. When we got back to the hotel, Anastasia asked us what we were doing for dinner, and was so appalled that we were going to cook frozen things that she insisted on cooking for us and teaching us how to make an easy sort of quiche. Our cat friend joined us, of course, and even let Katie pet him a bit. I'm sensing a breakthrough. Also, Jon realized that we had accidentally left the hose at the site on for about 7 hours...oops. We'll do better with that next time.

Siteseeing

Another day at the dig! Today started off just like yesterday except Anastasia made us french toast with honey (yum) for breakfast. She later insisted she made it wrong and that she had to try again tomorrow. No complaints from me. When Tim arrived at the dig this morning, he took us out to see the rest of the site. Because of it's location, Isthmia plays a very interesting role in Greek history. Not only does it fall on the connection between North and South Greece, but also on the connection between the Aegean and the Mediterranean, essentially the Eastern world and the Western world. Besides all of that, it was also another of the sites of the Panhellenic games, the other three sites being Nemea, Delphi, and of course Olympia. One of the main features of the site is the Temple to Poseidon. Along with the temple, there is a huge altar about 100 ft long where people used to sacrifice animals to the gods. 

Temple of Poseidon, from the side

The other main sights are the stadium, the temple to Palaimon, the theater, and the Roman Bath. After Tim's tour part II, Tyler and I were given the task of putting new plastic on the old tables...I promptly jammed both staple guns.

Guess we can't staple things for a while...

Then, I headed out to the field with my trusty sidekick Tyler to map out places the tour app might take you. We had a lot of good discussion about the flow of traffic, main points, and logical paths. The site needs a lot of work on the tourist-friendly end for sure, but I'm very excited to help solve the problem. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and napped for a bit before dinner. Ever since Anastasia found out about the concept of student loans and debt, she has felt so bad for us that she insists on feeding us all of the time. So we were lucky enough to have a delicious dinner of chicken and potatoes, which we watched and learned how to prepare. At dinner, our cat frenemy who lives around the hotel. He is a handsome devil who comes out for our scraps when we eat, but he also has a temper. He already drew blood from two of us. Vicious beast.

Don't trust

New Kids on the Block

Tuesday was our first day on the site at Isthmia! Yay! We were all excited to finally see what we had come to work on. Once again, we got up early and had another delicious Greek breakfast prepared by Anastasia, then went to the store to get some lunch, and headed to the dig. In order to get the guards to let us in, Jon stood at the gate and whistled until Canela, the stray dog who has adopted the site, barked enough that the guards got annoyed and came down to open the gate. Once inside, we saw the different buildings where they store artifacts and records from the site and do research. When Tim, the director of the dig, arrived, he took us on a tour and showed us the sights. We went down to the Roman Baths and were shocked to see a beautiful mosaic on the floor. Apparently it is the largest of its kind in all of Greece. After explaining about the mosaic, we got our first taste of work when he pulled out 5 brooms and a hose and told us to clean off the floor. It was actually strangely exciting to see the mosaic wet, as it was meant to be seen. 

The mosaic on the floor of the Roman Bath (I'll take a better picture soon)

The heating system under the floor of the bath

After a quick lunch, we had to pack up and leave for the day. In Greece, most archaeological sites close at 3:00, as dictated by the government, so we have to make sure we get out before then every day, or we'll get in big trouble with the guards. We stopped at the supermarket on the way home and stocked up. I even got myself a briki, a type of pot they use to make Greek coffee, for five euro so I can impress my friends and family back in the states with my oh so cultured ways. Also so I won't go into withdrawal without the amazing coffee they have here. In the late afternoon, we headed down to the small beach at our hotel. The sea is an absolutely beautiful shade of blue, and if you add in the mountains, it's really quite the view. I even found a ton of sea glass.

Sea glass I found at the beach

The water was still a bit too cold for swimming, but we walked along the shore a bit and saw the different sea critters like urchins and anemones. Then it was back up to the hotel for ratatouille and sausage prepared by Jon, and what is becoming our tradition of sitting on the patio and talking about life and Archaeology.