Island Exodus

Sorry for the length of time between this post and the last. Here in Lesvos we have internet, but I haven't had the time since I've been here to be on the computer at all.

So last Friday we had our final exams for the two classes that we were taking in Athens, Art and Archeology, and Byzantine History, which seem to have gone well enough. That evening the whole group met at a metro station and headed out to Pireus, the port town of Athens, where we caught our ferry to the Isle of Lesvos. The ferry ride was 12 hours long, and generally uneventful, except that they played the movie "Titanic" on the main deck. Seriously, who's idea was it to play a movie about a ship sinking ON A SHIP. Then again, the Aegean certainly isn't the Arctic.

So we arrived at Mytilini (the largets city on Lesvos, with 45,000 inhabitants) and were driven in cars by the staff of Hotel Votsala, where we are staying, to the hotel. That first day we had a bunch of meetings, were introduced to our General Culture professor, Sophia, and had a walking tour of Thermi (the town we are staying in) with Iannis (owner of the Hotel). Thermi is a little fishing village on the Eastern side of Lesvos with about 1,000 residents. Our hotel is on the beach, with a jetty out into the sea with a diving board, a bunch of kyaks, a peddle boat with a slide on top of it, and a lot of lounge chairs out in the sun. On the first day between engagements, Hilary and Chris and I went swimming. We took the paddle boat out to where the water was deep enough and had lots of fun jumping off the slide. The water is perfectly clear and you can see all of the fish and seaweed at the bottom. It is also really warm, at least compared to the water off of the Oregon coast.

All of us are in two person hotel rooms here, and my roomate is Rianna, who is the only other ancient Greek student on the trip, so the arrangement works out nicely. Our room is on the second floor and we have a balconey looking out towards the sea (though there are a few more buildings between us and the shore, so the view isn't quite a beachfront one). All around us are other rooms with Lewis and Clark students. We don't have a kitchen here, but they feed us breakfast, a snack, and dinner everyday so we never really have to cook anyway.

On Sunday we were supposed to have a all day long field trip around the island, but Prof Kugler seemed to get the hint that we were all exhausted from finals, the ferry ride and moving and postponed the trip until this weekend, so just about everyone spent the day sleeping. On Monday we had a tour of Mytilini with Iannis, which is only about 45 minutes by bus south of Thermi.

On Tuesday we began work at the different archeological sites around Thermi and Mytilini. For this week I'm in a group of 12 at the site of the Bronze age settlement at Thermi which has been entirely excavated. Now they're just doing reconstruction and preparing the site for the public. I spent all of Tuesday categorizing animal bone fragments with a group of people, which was cool, but I felt really underqualified. Until a few days ago, there was no way I could tell the difference between a pig mandible and a goat scapula. Yesterday I was at the same site, this time digging with a group in an unexcavated area. We haven't found much of anything yet except really small shards of pottery and one brick, but I don't think they expected us to. Other groups are working at three different sites in Mytilini, a Roman era rescue dig (someone wanted to build a hotel and they found ruins when they went to build the foundations), at a metals workshop, and at a ceramics workshop. Next week we rotate and our group breaks up into smaller groups of 4 to go to each of these places. I'm most excited about the pottery workshop where they put together shards of pottery back into pots.

In the evenings we have our general culture course with Prof Sophia who is a Greek-American and a sociology professor at Michigan State University. She has a lot of insight into Greek culture as both a Greek and a sociologist, so the class is fairly interesting, but sociology really isn't my field, or my cup of tea.

In the evenings we have dinner in the cafeteria/lounge at the hotel. Each night has been a different Greek dish, all delicious. They have a bar, and the group I usually sit with at dinner has gotten into the habit of getting a jug of wine to split with dinner at every meal, which is less expensive and more Greek. After dinner, people play board games and cards, sometimes really late into the night. A few nights ago the whole group went out to a bar in Mytilini to celebrate one of the girls in the group's birthday and had a great time. Last night Prof Sophia suggested that we have a screening of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" which is even more funny now that I've been to Greece.

What little free time we have is wonderful. Most people lay around on the lounge chairs or go swimming. Yesterday Chris and I went swimming and then kyaked along the shore to a bunch of submerged ruins off of the beach, which was pretty cool.

As much as the sunny weather and warm sand makes me think that we're not in school anymore, we most definately are. I have a ancient Greek quiz this afternoon that I'd better get around to studying for. I'll post some pictures as soon as I have time.

For now, yasu!