It's weird that I'm sitting back at my hotel, even though we checked out hours ago. But we came back to pick up our bags, and I decided to use the internet for a while.
This morning, quite early actually, Maggie and her mom left for Rethymno to catch their ferry to Santorini. I was probably only half awake, but we said goodbye and off they went. In my experiences, when you say goodbye to friends on study abroad programs, you're either relieved and somewhat apathetic or sad and wishing to prolong your time together. In this case, the feeling was more sad since we'd pretty much become good friends over the past month. But, we will see them again soon as fall quarter is starting in about two weeks.
I slept for another few hours after they left and before Erinn and I finally got out of bed and decided to head out. Since our ferry doesn't leave till 10 pm, we decided to just walk around slowly since we had the whole day. I passed by an electronic store and decided to buy headphones (mine broke a few weeks back) and also one of those nifty USB-memory card sticks to upload pictures. I couldn't resist not having pictures for my blog.
We strolled down towards the Archaeological Museum and grabbed lunch in the square across the street. We ended up staying there for almost two hours as we ate our food and drank white wine. We were so Greek!
By the time we got the museum, it was close to 4 pm. The museum houses some of the frescoes and other art pieces excavated from Knossos, so I was, as usual, quite excited to go. Thankfully, the entrance fee was only 2 Euros for students from non-EU countries (EU students get in for free...that goes for almost any museum in the EU).
Turns out, the museum is actually quite tiny. We actually probably could've seen the whole thing on Sunday evening when we all arrived. There was a massive French tour group in front of us blocking just about every art piece, so we had to stand and wait. Nice way to practice my French though. I actually got a bit out of the tour guide's explanations.
Some of the famous pieces included the Snake Goddess, who supposedly represents fertility, and also the fresco of the man jumping over the bull. We saw the picture at Knossos yesterday, and we saw the real thing in the museum today. Cool, huh?! Other pieces were interesting as well.
The famous Bee Pendant.
Cretans love bulls. Or maybe Minoans is more correct.
They also love octopuses...or octopi?
They also seem to love snakes. This is the famous Snake Goddess. It's smaller than I had imagined...which is my usual observation of anything I study in AP Art History (i.e. St. Theresa in Ecstacy, the Sistine Chapel).
I just realized I posted mostly art of animals. I guess they loved animals.
And yet another animal art piece...a man jumping over a bull. The REAL version instead of an ugly picture at Knossos.
This is the Phaistos Disc, which was found at another Minoan palace on Crete (Phaistos). It's famous 'cause we haven't been able to figure out what it says yet. In fact, I wrote about this for my UW Honors essay when I applied during my senior year in high school. Such a nerd.
More art pieces of animals. The sash across the bull's head indicates it's a sacrificial animal.
Some statues, including Egyptian versions of gods and goddesses on the left.
It's Cerberus! Or Fluffy from Harry Potter...
The museum only took about a half hour, so we headed down to the port and visited a Catholic church and the Venetian fortress on the port. It was quite windy!
The lion symbol of St. Mark, which I saw all over St. Mark's square in Venice. Makes sense...this is a Venetian fortress.
After that, we strolled back toward the hotel and Erinn bought a new suitcase and gelato. We also passed by the classiest looking Pizza Hut I have ever seen.
We got back to the hotel a while ago, and I've been catching up on email ever since. I realized my email had been down for the past two days, so I missed a whole bunch. Just heard from Maggie and her mom too. They made it to Santorini and now are enjoying the sunset. I'm jealous.
Tonight though, we head back on the ferry (Festos Palace!) to Athens and arrive early in the morning. Knut, our Norwegian neighbor, is going to pick us up at Piraeus, and then we're going to drive three hours up to Delphi for the afternoon. Should be fun! I need to charge my camera batteries tonight...
Then after that, once we return to Athens by early evening, I'm going to try and make it to Kristoffer's lecture. Tomorrow night, I'm going to grab a drink with Doros, Nas, Mike, Maria, Georgina, Knut, Kristoffer, Taso, and Nekteria if they're all willing to go out with me. They're all invited anyway. I leave early the next morning for Seattle via Athens to Munich, Munich to Toronto, and Toronto to Seattle. It's gonna be a long 24 hours of traveling.
Probably talk to you again one more time before I leave Greece. Sad...
Ciao,
Sam
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