Guess Who?

February 19, 2007

Nauplion, Greece.

Today was a wonderful free day. I did not get out of my pajamas until around 5:30 in the afternoon. The only thing I did today was read and write, watch movies and hang out until I decided I needed to actually shower and change and go get food. We walked around the small town of Nauplion and looked around at the shops and finally stopped at a nice restaurant where I had stuffed grape leaves and bread, which was absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed it immensely.

So with a lack of things to say about today, I will fill you in on yesterday’s events, which were rather exciting.

Yesterday we got up super early, and still extremely tired after a late night, I dozed on the bus until we finally arrived at our first stop—the site of Eleusis, one of the most sacred places in Attika. We piled out of the bus and into the cold—completely bundled in our long underwear and scarves and gloves and into the early morning sunlight. Eelusis feels sacred. The tumbled down pillars and rocks were lit from the slanting light and there was a quiet atmosphere which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially considering how early it was in the morning. It was too early to go somewhere loud.

In any event, the Eleusinian mysteries were one of the most important mystery cults in ancient Athens. People would gather at the Keramaikos cemetery in Athens, and would walk down the ancient way to Eleusis, a few miles away. Once they arrived in Eleusis, the mysteries would take place. Not much is actually known about the Eleusinian mysteries because no one would talk about it. We know that the mysteries were connected with the myth of Persephone, who was abducted by Hades and taken down to the underworld. Demeter, her mother, who was the goddess of the harvest, went into mourning and caused winter and famine throughout the world. The mysteries were then designed in order to bring Persephone back into the world—the rites were believed to keep the world going.

The buildings themselves were crammed all over the small enclosure. The Romans and the Greeks had put sanctuaries all over the place, even adding an entrance to the whole complex that echoed almost exactly the shape of the Propylaia on the Athenian acropolis. We walked up through this gateway and onto the sacred ground, finally reaching the big building where the mysteries would take place, a large colonnaded hall about the size of a basketball court. Only the foundations remained, but there was enough there to impress upon me the scale of importance of this event. We wandered around the site for a little bit more and then went to the museum, which housed a lot of the sculpture from the area, including a large karyatid of a woman, presumably a priest of Eleusis, carrying in a box on her head one of the sacred mysteies that has never been fully explained.

We boarded the bus once more and went to another really cool site—Mycenae. The center of the Dark Ages, this fortified citadel was the place of Agamemnon—the brother of the man that was supposed to marry Helen before she was stolen and shipped off to Troy. We visited first the tomb of Atreus, which was a massive corbelled dome set into the ground. Used as a massive monumental tomb, the blocks that comprise the building are enormous, and stepping inside of the vaulted chamber felt like stepping into another great architectural wonder. This was supposedly the largest vaulted space until the Pantheon, which was constructed about 2,000 years later. We stepped inside and our voices echoed in the blocks that retreated up to the pointed ceiling.

Exiting the Treasury of Atreus, we walked up a long walkway and up to the Lion’s Gate. This archway exists in just about every art history book, and is a massive gate with a huge linel stone, above which are a pair of heraldic lions that face each other with a column standing in between them. Mycenae in general is heavily fortified, and looking at that massive gate I could definitely believe that there was no way that anyone would surprise the citadel. Two huge towers flanked the gate, and their impressive blocked faces would have stopped any invading army. No one was getting in here.

Continuing up and entering the citadel itself, we encountered some more tombs and the remains of houses and the royal palace, the place where Agamemnon would have met his unfortunate death at the hands of Clytemnestra after the conclusion of the Trojan war. From our vantage point at the top, we could look down the sheer cliff faces into the rocky limestone landscape, and out over the land and the scattered remains of foundations that stretched off into the distance. We walked around the whole surface of the citadel, finally going to the postern gate, which had a slick series of steps down 20 feet into the rock face. We had no flashlights, so we only ventured part of the way before the uneven footing and the wetness dissuaded us from continuing any further.

It was a long day, so I was very happy to get to our next stop at Nauplion. We checked into the hotel and I immediately took a very long nap, waking to hear the buzz that there was a huge crazy carnaval going on outside. Stepping out into the crowds, we saw people cross-dressed, in bananna costumes, with purple and pink wigs… We had no idea what was going on but seeing tons of people milling about in this small street square in the city was good entertainment. We grabbed dinner and headed back, to discover that the following day was an off day! Apparently the carnaval or festival thing that we had witnessed was part of some holiday, so all of the archeological sites that we were going to visit that day would be closed. Yes! I was getting pretty burned out from contstantly having to go and see things so I was more than happy to take it easy—but that meant that we could go out that night!

Stewart and Anna Marie had the excellent idea of throwing a party where we each picked someone to imitate on the trip. It was so funny because we all have such a limited wardrobe and at this point on the trip EVERYONE knows what each other wears. And we had been spending so much time with each other that we could imitate each other’s habits, tendencies, etc. I picked Katie to imitate, Ambrice took some of my clothes, and to top off the whole scenario, Brad decided to put on makeup and long boots and a tank top and pose as Ambrice, which was hysterical. We were all cariacaturing each other, and Toumazou even came into the room to join the fun, and could successfully identify almost all of us. It was a riot! All of our goofy little things were thrown out into the open, and we could laugh about them before they became problematic. We acted like each other and tried to imitate people’s posture, conversation, everything! Appparently I act a lot like a jock sometimes and then the rest of the time am really girly. Who knew!?!? It was pretty funny to see myself through Ambrice’s eyes, and I think she got a kick out of Brad going “oh man, that was a hot mess” or “I wanna go shopping!” And I as Katie pretended to recite poetry and dance around and wear outrageously red lipstick. It was so much fun! I don’t think we could have pulled off a party like this at Davidson, simply because people’s wardrobes are too big to successfully imitate. But here, we all wore the same things everyday, so you put on a distinctive jacket, and bam! There you are.

The night concluded with an ill advised trip to a bar, which was way too crowded and full of strange people. We left almost immediately, returned to the hotel, and slept, and slept in! It was wonderful, and my lazy day today was absolutely worth it. WE have been going non-stop for so long that I was finally happy to stay in and watch a movie. My batteries feel recharged and I am ready for tomorrow—when we see Corinth and Nemea.