Sorry for the longer intervals between blog posts this year. I have had inconsistent Internet all throughout my trip. I’d thought that moving from Greece to Germany would help, but it turns out the student apartment where I’m staying at doesn’t have an official wireless network. So I have to mooch off someone next door or upstairs.
I left Greece early yesterday morning (6 AM flight) and arrived in Frankfurt 3 hours later, went to the train station and bought my tickets (conversing in German), and arrived an hour and a half later by train in Marburg. I will be in Marburg for the next six weeks for an intensive German language course. There are four levels of German class for this program, but I’m still not sure which level I placed into. I haven’t really spoken the language much since taking German 302 in winter quarter. So far so good though.
I’m excited to be in Germany again, but I really do miss being in Greece. These past two weeks were some of the best times I’ve had abroad. Not only did I go to Taso’s wedding, but I also did a considerable amount of research. The day after my last blog post, I actually ended up getting 9 interviews that night. So I nearly doubled my total interview count in one day.
The largest reason for this is the serendipitous friendships I developed with a few local shop owners in Exarchia, the neighborhood where I do my interviews. Both Tasos and Thanasis helped me tremendously in recruiting friends and passerbys for interviews. I cannot describe just how much they did for me during my time in Athens. They treated me as a close friend and invited me to hang out with them every day in the last week as I did my interviews.
On Sunday night, as I was packing, Tasos actually called me to say he had come over to bid me farewell and wish me a safe flight. We had a nice little chat, and he told me that his buddy, Spiros—who owns a shop across from Thanasis in Exarchia—had told Tasos to tell me that I have to come back and visit again in the future because I had become part of Exarchia’s neighborhood community. Seriously, that was a pretty cool feeling to know that they had welcomed me so openly and continued to invite me to join them. I will miss hanging out there every day, but I’m hoping to be back in either March or July of next year. We shall see.
My trip to Greece not only allowed me to meet more Greek friends and visit with good friends from last year like Doros and Georgina, but it also allowed me to meet all the students on Taso’s program this year. As I said in one of my earlier posts, what a fun group! I’m extremely grateful that they allowed me to spend time with them on the program. On Saturday night, many of them came out with me to Gazi to hit up a few bars and clubs. It was a fun night of relaxing and enjoying Athens’ nightlife.
Then after only a few hours of sleep, we all woke up on Sunday morning and went to the island of Aegina. We had gone to Aegina last year on the day that the wildfires had started. This year, there were no fires, but again there was construction on the Metro line, so we had take a bus to Piraeus and book it on the docks to reach our ferry. Fortunately, we made it, and forty-five minutes later, we were hanging out in Aegina.
Last year, our group had taken the bus to a beach and gone swimming the whole day. I had also gone to the Church of St. Nektarios with Taso after exploring some ruins around the port, which I had at the time mistaken for the Temple of Aphaea. So this year, I decided to rent an ATV and ride up to the real Temple of Aphaea and then to the beach. The bus system on Aegina is pretty anachronistic, and I was not a big fan of having to wait an hour and a half between buses. Besides, ATVs are much more fun and allow for much more flexibility.
One of the students, Mel, joined me on the ATV and together we went up to the Temple of Aphaea. The drive up reminded me of the trip I took last year to Mycenae because of the trees on the hills. It was pretty hot, but at least the roads were smooth so we weren’t bouncing everywhere on dirt and rocky roads.
The Temple of Aphaea is supposed to be one of the most complete temples in all of Greece. It’s modeled similarly to the Parthenon, but seemed a bit smaller to me. Mel and I paid 4 Euros each, which was more than I had imagined the cost would be since the site was virtually empty. Since the Temple is at the top of one of the mountains on Aegina, the weather was pretty hot. We literally spent 5 minutes to walk around the site, take a few pictures, and then head back on the ATV to hit up the beach. When it’s that hot, all you want to do is go swimming.
It only took us an hour and half (including a short break to grab a Fanta and Coke with Taso), but we finally found the rest of the team at the beach at Marathonos. As with all the other beaches, this one was chock full of people, white umbrellas, and beach towels. I had already put on my sunscreen, so I headed straight for the water with the rest of the gang. My last swim in Greece was last year in Naxos, so I had been looking forward to swimming in the Aegean Sea again.
My parents bought me a new waterproof camera for my birthday, so I put it to great use. We made a few videos and took plenty of pictures. The beach we were at didn’t have as much stuff to take pictures of in the water, so we mostly goofed around. I had a great time just chilling in the water. When we finally left the beach though, we were starving, so we headed for dinner with Taso. He had already told the restaurant to set up tables for us, so when we got there, we were able to eat right away—Greek salad, caviar dip, fresh bread, fried fish, tzatziki, and much more. Yum!
The rest of the night just included taking the ferry back to Athens, taking a shower, packing my bag, and bidding farewell to all my new friends. I got about two hours of sleep…on the corner of my buddy Derrick’s bed. I had already returned my keys for my guesthouse, so Derrick and Brandon were kind enough to let me hang out in their room at the other guesthouse until I had to go. And now…here I am in Germany. Side note: thank goodness it’s much cooler in Marburg. It’s nice to not feel sweaty and gross 24/7.
I didn’t take all that many pictures in Greece this year…only 375. J And not all of them are even good. I don’t have much time now, but I’ll post more pictures later.
My Fulbright work starts this week with orientation and then language class beginning on Thursday, so it’s going to be a whirlwind leading into the end of September when I move to Berlin. Should be fun. I’ll try and do a better job of blogging too.
Until next time,
Sam
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