I lost Jasha. I loose everything, so why should it be any different with people? We had to check in to different hostels after our night on the rooftop bar as there was no space at my hostel. We made plans to meet at 10:00 am (or so I thought!) and headed to bed. I slept very well and woke up very early to take care of some things. I was down waiting for Jasha at 9:30, thinking he may be on the ball and early. Unfortunately this did NOT seem to be the case and I was still waiting at 12:30. Noooooooooot good. I wasnt sure whether to go off and find him, sit there more or jsut go off on my own. I eventually decided to go and find him at his hostel.
I managed to navigate my way through some backstreets to his hostel, which was incidently in an amazing part of town. The guy at the desk said that he was checked in, but did not know if he was here. He also wouldnt let me go knock on the door. So I left empty handed walking back to the hostel. I did this twice. On the third go, when I returned, the girl at the desk at MY hostel said that Jasha had jsut been in and told her that it would be too difficult to find each other. I took that as 'go off and do what you want', which is exactly what I did. I WASNT GOING TO WASTE MY LAST DAY IN ATHENS!
I was tossing up between heading to the National Archaeological Museum, exploring the city more, or heading in for a closer look at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The latter won out, as I had been intrigued by my distant view the day before. The temple was even more amazing up close. The columns TOWER over you. It is impossible to explain the sheer magnificence of these monumental structures. The temple must have been one of the most amazing buildings ever conceived when it was complete. I wondered around the temple for about 4 revolutions, taking it all in. I then decided to explore the rest of the site, which included a temple to Apollo Delphinos, the Delphic Law Courts, a couple of archaic buildings, a temple to Rhea and Kronos, and a temenos sanctuary to Zeus. I suppose all of these would not have been that interesting to the lay person who did not really know what they were looking at, as they were mostly just foundations and ruins. They were amazing to me though. and I enjoyed every minute of it.
I made my way back to my hostel, as a few people from my Mitrou dig were schedueled to arrive soon. I soon managed to spot a girl named Mattie at the check in desk, and after helping her with her bags, we decided to go for a walk. After getting her a few essentials we decided to walk around the Plaka (marketplace). We soon made our way back to the hostel where we found another girl by the name of Britney. We decided to head to the rooftop bar for a little, tosee if we could find anyone else but this didnt work out. The girls were really hungry so we went out for a meal at a local Taverna which was incidently close to Jasha's hostel. I popped in there and managed to convince him to come to dinner with us and say goodbye (as we were heading out to Tragana in the morning).
Dinner was alright, and we were soon back at the rooftop bar. After saying cheers to Jasha, we found 3 other people from the dig, Ashley, Doug and Alex. They were quite animated about a pub crawl that was happening later that night but I was much too tired and wanted to get my rest before heading out to Tragana in the morning. I took my leave and managed to sleep like a baby. I probably wouldnt have If I knew what was in store for me the next day.....
Monday, June 9, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
This One Time, On the Areopogus.....
My first day in Athens was fantastic. Defenitly a step up from terminal 5, 2 and 4 at Heathrow :p. When I finished my last post, I was still waiting for Jasha and Steph to come meet me and I had about an hour and a half to kill. So I decided to go exploring. I have gone out exploring on my own in a foreign city before in Rome and Cairo, and I find it is certainly the best way to orientate yourself, and make some nice discoveries. Athens did not dissapoint.
After a little difficulty I managed to find myself an ATM machine, and I decided to draw out as much money on my BA Compensation Visa card as possible, as the first transaction on it was free. I can now say that drawing large amounts of money out of an account that isnt yours is a very pleasurable experience. I then decided to go see what I could find in 15 minutes before heading back to the hostel.
I did not expect to stumble on the remains of the biggest temple in Greece. I was walking along a road that was bordered by some parkland area, and it seemed that this parkland area was strewn with some ancient remains dotted all over the place. I didnt think this was that unusual considering where I was. I turned a corner and decided to continue following the parkland border, and in the distance I noticed a large archway, similar to the Arches in Rome. I decided to check it out.
After a little difficulty I managed to find myself an ATM machine, and I decided to draw out as much money on my BA Compensation Visa card as possible, as the first transaction on it was free. I can now say that drawing large amounts of money out of an account that isnt yours is a very pleasurable experience. I then decided to go see what I could find in 15 minutes before heading back to the hostel.
I did not expect to stumble on the remains of the biggest temple in Greece. I was walking along a road that was bordered by some parkland area, and it seemed that this parkland area was strewn with some ancient remains dotted all over the place. I didnt think this was that unusual considering where I was. I turned a corner and decided to continue following the parkland border, and in the distance I noticed a large archway, similar to the Arches in Rome. I decided to check it out.
As I approached the arch, I saw that hidden by a spruce of trees was a MASSIVE column. When I say massive I mean it was.....unbelievable. I now know that these columns are 19 metres tall. As I got closer, I saw another column. and another. and another. This was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It was started in the 7th century BC and was only completed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian 700 Years later. 700 YEARS! It used to house the famous Ivory and gold statue of Zeus Olympios, that was the basis of early christian portraits of Jesus and subsequently our modern conception of what Jesus looked like. He had to look like a god of course, and Zeus was the greatest of them all.
As you can tell I was getting extremely distracted. I turned my attention to thearhcway and I noticed a large inscription near the top on either side. I could easily make out the Ancient Greek words for city, Theseus and Hadrian. I assumed the translation was something like 'This arch was built for the city of Theseus by Hadrian' or some such. I later found out that it actually says on one side 'This is the city of Theseus' and on the other, 'this is the city of Hadrian and not Theseus'. Very odd. I was now jolted to reality by the time. I had to meet Jasha in....5 minutes. So I ran back to the hostel.
We all decided to go check out the Acropolis (forgetting that if we waited one more day we would get in for free as it is free on Sundays).Luckily our hostel is VERY close, and it was only about a 2 minute walk away. The Acropolis is a truly AMAZING place. I get Ancient History tingles every time I go there. The Parthenon is obviously not the only thing to see on the Acropolis, and our first stop was the Theatre of Dionysus (Dionysus Eleuthereus to be exact :p). This was part of the sanctuary of Dionysus and it was here that the Great Dionysia (a very major festival) was celebrated. The theatre would have hosted great plays by the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides (You-Rippa-Dees. teehee).
We next hit the sanctuary of Asklepius, the deity of health and healing and also the Stoa of Eumenes. We pushed onwards and found the Odeion of Herodus Atticus, built in the 2nd Century AD and stiull used today for artistic events. Still further up the hill we travelled and rounded a corner onto the Propylaea (the monumental entrance onto the Akropolis proper, also serving as a temple to Athena Nike or Athena the goddess of Victory). The unfortunate thing about being so majestic and just plane gob smacking, is that the tourist crowds are RIDICULOUS! you can barely move among the throngs of tourist groups. This defiintily detracts from the splendour I suppose but there isnt much you can do about it :p. Moving on through the towering Propylae (which Jasha and steph assumed was the famous Parthenon) We came out onto the top of the Akropolis. As we did, I said to Jasha 'that wasnt the Parthenon buddy. THIS is the Parthenon!' and there it was.
Words like 'WOW' jsut dont work here. The Parthenon was built at the urgings of Perikles in the 5th Century BC. The Acropolis had been completely destroyed by the recent invasion of the Persians and after they had been pushed out of Greece and the Athenians were able to return to the city. Work was begun on upgrading the temples and sanctuaries. Athens was in control of a large alliance in the Aegean Sea and tribute from various city states was used to fund this project. The Parthenon itself took 10 years to build at MASSIVE expense. The result of this is a religious complex that forms the greatest architectual and artistic buildings bequeathed by Greek Antiquity to the world.
After exploring all around the top, including the Erektheion and the amazing views over the city, we started on down. I made sure we climbed up the Areopagus Hill, one of the most sacred places in Athens. This was a cliff from where priestesses breaking their vow of chastity were thrown off. Paul also made his sermon from here when he was in Athens. We visited the ancient Agora and surprises were all around me. We found remains of the ancient Panathenaic Processional way which was the route taken during the major religious festival of the year in Ancient Athens. *insert ancient history tingles here*. We also visited the Stoa of Attalus, a restored replica of the ancient one. It has been turned into a little museum. In ancient times, the stoas dotted around the city were used as meeitng places and social areas. Works of art were displayed for criticism and entertainment. So I suppose turning one into a museum is rather appropriate.
The rest of the Agora was incredibly awesome. Although Im sure by this time Jasha and Steph werent quite so enthusiastic. I was still running around like a kid in a candy store. We made our way out making some small stops along the way, including lunch. We decided to head back to the hostel becasue by this time we were very sunburnty and quite tired from all the walking. The route we decided to take home was through the Plaka (markets). The whole place just REEKS of tourist traps, but luckily we were qwuickly out of there. We made our way through some charming backstreets that gave us a completely different view of what its like to live in Athens.
BAck at the hostel it was really good to freshen up. We made our way up to a relly good rooftop bar at the top of our hostel where it was happy hour. A few beers later and a couple of ouzo shots and the night wasl ooking preeeeeeeeeeeeetty good. The night gets hazy from then on, and I woke up the next morning in my hostel bed still dressed :p
Thats all for now. I had another big day today so a new post will be up about that later.
Adiossas!
Chris
After exploring all around the top, including the Erektheion and the amazing views over the city, we started on down. I made sure we climbed up the Areopagus Hill, one of the most sacred places in Athens. This was a cliff from where priestesses breaking their vow of chastity were thrown off. Paul also made his sermon from here when he was in Athens. We visited the ancient Agora and surprises were all around me. We found remains of the ancient Panathenaic Processional way which was the route taken during the major religious festival of the year in Ancient Athens. *insert ancient history tingles here*. We also visited the Stoa of Attalus, a restored replica of the ancient one. It has been turned into a little museum. In ancient times, the stoas dotted around the city were used as meeitng places and social areas. Works of art were displayed for criticism and entertainment. So I suppose turning one into a museum is rather appropriate.
The rest of the Agora was incredibly awesome. Although Im sure by this time Jasha and Steph werent quite so enthusiastic. I was still running around like a kid in a candy store. We made our way out making some small stops along the way, including lunch. We decided to head back to the hostel becasue by this time we were very sunburnty and quite tired from all the walking. The route we decided to take home was through the Plaka (markets). The whole place just REEKS of tourist traps, but luckily we were qwuickly out of there. We made our way through some charming backstreets that gave us a completely different view of what its like to live in Athens.
BAck at the hostel it was really good to freshen up. We made our way up to a relly good rooftop bar at the top of our hostel where it was happy hour. A few beers later and a couple of ouzo shots and the night wasl ooking preeeeeeeeeeeeetty good. The night gets hazy from then on, and I woke up the next morning in my hostel bed still dressed :p
Thats all for now. I had another big day today so a new post will be up about that later.
Adiossas!
Chris
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Who wants to Hear about my Day(s)?
'The Great Journey' has taken on completely new significance courtesy of the 'good' people at British Airways and Heathrow Airport. If I can help it, I will never fly with them again. Now I left my last post anxiously awaiting my connecting flight from Heathrow to Athens. This was supposed to be a moderate 2 hour stop (as we were running a little over time from SIngapore). Put it this way. 6 Hours after getting to the boarding gate, I was still sitting there. In Heathrow. It all started when..............(insert flashback splash scene):
We received the Gate number for our Athens connection. 'FANTASTIC! We can finally get going.' So I hop on the tram system to get to the correct part of the terminal (Heathrow Terminal 5 is MASSIVE. Its really cool!). I was supposed to be meeting one of the peeps from the dig who jsut happens to be getting on the same flight although she is connecting from the USA. I walked around the gate area for AGES trying to find her but no luck.
The boarding time came and went and still nothing happened. Eventually a bunch of names were rattled off by the ground staff, but I wasnt on that list so I jsut sat and waited. After an hour or so, we were told that there was a 'technical' fault with the plane anda new plane had to be organised. This was all well and good, as these things happen. Unfortunately British Airways, in all their wisdom, did not have the same SIZE plane available and had to settle for a smaller one. Some people were therefore forced off the flight. As I am a single adult male travelling alone, I am of course first off the list. The customer service aspect was SHCKING handled by the groundstaff. It took a full 3 hours for us to be told ANYTHING. I was standing in line to talk to these people to figure out what was going on for AGES and they jsut werent having anything to do with us. By now, the groundstaff on scene had multiplied exponentially and it seemed like some management was floating around too. I now believe that the size of the stuff up is directly proportional to the amount of groundstaff partaking in a pow wow, seemingly NOT sorting it out. This is a new 'law' that I will be proposing, and just may be the answer to Stephen Hawkings quest for the ultimate laws of the universe.
Eventually we were told (I still had not been spoken to directly NOR had my boarding pass checked or anything) that we were going to be booked onto an Olympic Airways flight, leaving a couple of hours later, but we would have to be reissued with tickets and go through the palava of security and check ins again. We awere also given a nice sum of money as 'compensation'. We eventually got to the check in counter and LOW AND BEHOLD the Olympic Airlines have already given their flights to a bunch of Americans who had been delayed and missed their earlier Olympic Airlines flight. I thought this was perfectly justified as our problem was a BA problem and not Olympic. The result was that only a few of us managed to get onto the Olympic flight. I was one of the lucky ones it seems, although it was quite the miracle. I got the LAST possible seat. I just felt horrible leaving about 15 odd people behind, some of whom were really nice people with the patience of saints. I attempted to give up my seat to a girl who was particularly struggling with the situation and offered to stay the night at Heathrow instead. However this didnt seem possible, and we both agreed that we had already been through enough and didnt need to start causing problems.
It now entered my mind that I needed to get in contact with Jasha somehow, as he was patiently waiting for me at Athens for a flight I wasnt on. Unfortunately, he is only able to receive text messages and I still did not have a European Sim Card. I had the bright idea of trying to call home and get my parents to text him my details for me. A lovelly women lent me her phone for the international phone call, and this was organised quickly. I thank my parents for not asking questions when I did not have time to answer them, and simply agreeing to follow my instructions. That helped a lot. Jasha received the text message and was waiting for me when I eventually stumbled into Athens Airport.
We managed to get the final subway out from the airport (it was now almost midnight) and we were on the way to Akropoli station. I purchased my ticket fine (I managed to do it in broken greek too!) and got on the train, failing to notice some random yellow boxes at the entranceto the station. We had to change lines down the way, and got off at a station. While walking around that station we were stopped by a ticket inspector. I have lived in Sydney for almost 6 years now, taking public transport fairly frequently, and i have NEVER been stopped by a ticket inspector. I was in Greece for little more than a couple of hours and BOOM there he was. Amazing. He noticed I had not 'validated' my ticket by putting it in the yellow machine at the start of my trip, but he let me off with a warning. Literally 2 minutes later (while Jasha was apologising for not letting me know I needed to do this) we were stopped by another ticket inspector and this one was not so understanding. She promptly wrote up a fine. I dont understand much of what is written on this pink ticket, but from what I can make out, I now have to pay a massive sum of 210 Euro. However, I was talking to the hostel people and they say I dont have to do it. I will find out for sure, and if I do, possibly contest the fine. I was in the country for 2 hours and already I was in trouble with the law. Good work Chris!
When I eventually stumbled into the hostel, I managed to confirm my booking fine and was given a key to my room. Mumbling something to Jasha about meeting him in the morning at 10:30 in the foyer, I stumbled up marble stairs to my floor and boom crashed my way into my dorm where 6 other people were already snoring away (and when I say snoring I MEAN snoring. Chronic snoring and Backpackers must go hand in hand). Stuffing around with my packs in the dark was great fun, until I found my torch. I managed to SOMEHOW organise everything in a manner that things wouldnt get stolen, changed, and crashed onto the thin hostel mattress. I had been on the road for 35 hours straight, with precious little sleep for 44 hours and thousands of kilometers of travel behind me.
It is now the next morning, and I got surprisingly little sleep considering how tired I was. I woke up at 6am (5 hours sleep) and managed to have a long hot shower, change clothes, brush my teeth and generally feel human again. Breakfast was meagre but free. A few pieces of stale toast with chocolate spread and jam, plus a couple of boiled eggs and tea. I am meeting Jasha in an hour, and playing tour guide for the day I think, considering Ive been here before and Im the anceint history nerd.
Got to go.
Chris
We received the Gate number for our Athens connection. 'FANTASTIC! We can finally get going.' So I hop on the tram system to get to the correct part of the terminal (Heathrow Terminal 5 is MASSIVE. Its really cool!). I was supposed to be meeting one of the peeps from the dig who jsut happens to be getting on the same flight although she is connecting from the USA. I walked around the gate area for AGES trying to find her but no luck.
The boarding time came and went and still nothing happened. Eventually a bunch of names were rattled off by the ground staff, but I wasnt on that list so I jsut sat and waited. After an hour or so, we were told that there was a 'technical' fault with the plane anda new plane had to be organised. This was all well and good, as these things happen. Unfortunately British Airways, in all their wisdom, did not have the same SIZE plane available and had to settle for a smaller one. Some people were therefore forced off the flight. As I am a single adult male travelling alone, I am of course first off the list. The customer service aspect was SHCKING handled by the groundstaff. It took a full 3 hours for us to be told ANYTHING. I was standing in line to talk to these people to figure out what was going on for AGES and they jsut werent having anything to do with us. By now, the groundstaff on scene had multiplied exponentially and it seemed like some management was floating around too. I now believe that the size of the stuff up is directly proportional to the amount of groundstaff partaking in a pow wow, seemingly NOT sorting it out. This is a new 'law' that I will be proposing, and just may be the answer to Stephen Hawkings quest for the ultimate laws of the universe.
Eventually we were told (I still had not been spoken to directly NOR had my boarding pass checked or anything) that we were going to be booked onto an Olympic Airways flight, leaving a couple of hours later, but we would have to be reissued with tickets and go through the palava of security and check ins again. We awere also given a nice sum of money as 'compensation'. We eventually got to the check in counter and LOW AND BEHOLD the Olympic Airlines have already given their flights to a bunch of Americans who had been delayed and missed their earlier Olympic Airlines flight. I thought this was perfectly justified as our problem was a BA problem and not Olympic. The result was that only a few of us managed to get onto the Olympic flight. I was one of the lucky ones it seems, although it was quite the miracle. I got the LAST possible seat. I just felt horrible leaving about 15 odd people behind, some of whom were really nice people with the patience of saints. I attempted to give up my seat to a girl who was particularly struggling with the situation and offered to stay the night at Heathrow instead. However this didnt seem possible, and we both agreed that we had already been through enough and didnt need to start causing problems.
It now entered my mind that I needed to get in contact with Jasha somehow, as he was patiently waiting for me at Athens for a flight I wasnt on. Unfortunately, he is only able to receive text messages and I still did not have a European Sim Card. I had the bright idea of trying to call home and get my parents to text him my details for me. A lovelly women lent me her phone for the international phone call, and this was organised quickly. I thank my parents for not asking questions when I did not have time to answer them, and simply agreeing to follow my instructions. That helped a lot. Jasha received the text message and was waiting for me when I eventually stumbled into Athens Airport.
We managed to get the final subway out from the airport (it was now almost midnight) and we were on the way to Akropoli station. I purchased my ticket fine (I managed to do it in broken greek too!) and got on the train, failing to notice some random yellow boxes at the entranceto the station. We had to change lines down the way, and got off at a station. While walking around that station we were stopped by a ticket inspector. I have lived in Sydney for almost 6 years now, taking public transport fairly frequently, and i have NEVER been stopped by a ticket inspector. I was in Greece for little more than a couple of hours and BOOM there he was. Amazing. He noticed I had not 'validated' my ticket by putting it in the yellow machine at the start of my trip, but he let me off with a warning. Literally 2 minutes later (while Jasha was apologising for not letting me know I needed to do this) we were stopped by another ticket inspector and this one was not so understanding. She promptly wrote up a fine. I dont understand much of what is written on this pink ticket, but from what I can make out, I now have to pay a massive sum of 210 Euro. However, I was talking to the hostel people and they say I dont have to do it. I will find out for sure, and if I do, possibly contest the fine. I was in the country for 2 hours and already I was in trouble with the law. Good work Chris!
When I eventually stumbled into the hostel, I managed to confirm my booking fine and was given a key to my room. Mumbling something to Jasha about meeting him in the morning at 10:30 in the foyer, I stumbled up marble stairs to my floor and boom crashed my way into my dorm where 6 other people were already snoring away (and when I say snoring I MEAN snoring. Chronic snoring and Backpackers must go hand in hand). Stuffing around with my packs in the dark was great fun, until I found my torch. I managed to SOMEHOW organise everything in a manner that things wouldnt get stolen, changed, and crashed onto the thin hostel mattress. I had been on the road for 35 hours straight, with precious little sleep for 44 hours and thousands of kilometers of travel behind me.
It is now the next morning, and I got surprisingly little sleep considering how tired I was. I woke up at 6am (5 hours sleep) and managed to have a long hot shower, change clothes, brush my teeth and generally feel human again. Breakfast was meagre but free. A few pieces of stale toast with chocolate spread and jam, plus a couple of boiled eggs and tea. I am meeting Jasha in an hour, and playing tour guide for the day I think, considering Ive been here before and Im the anceint history nerd.
Got to go.
Chris
Friday, June 6, 2008
Travelling, Travelling and More Travelling
Sydney to London is a long flight. A VERY long flight. I have done this once before on my 2005 trip but I had forgotten just how long it was. After 8 hours on the plane we arrived in SIngapore for a fuel stop at around midnight. This was only a very quick stop, but it gave me a chance to stretch my legs. The flight was made bearable thankfully by my travel companions. I was sitting next to Leo, an Italian who was returning home after a year in Sydney. He was very talkative and managed to tell me a lot about what and what not to do in Italy. Also in my row was Samantha, a backpacker who was returning home to Cornwall after 6 months on the road. She was a little less talkative but friendly enough and also managed to talk a bit about her home, and what it is like to live in England compared to Australia (information that I am sure will come in handy on the second leg of my trip).
After Singapore, we re-boarded for the LONG 14 hour flight to London. This is equivalent to the usual flight from Sydney to Johannesburg which I have done many times, so I knew what to expect. Unfortunately what I am not used to is doing it directly AFTER 8hrs on the plane. As some of you know, I am a terrible sleeper when it comes to planes. I really dont stand a chance. However, I managed to get a couple of hours on this flgiht, and was pleasantly surprised at the entertainment on offer. I managed to knock off a few movies that I had never seen and they were all well worth it. Jumper, Sweeney Todd, Juno and There Will Be Blood. All very good.
I am now sitting in the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport for my connecting flight to Athens. It is very shiny and new, and kind of reminds me of the new the new terminals at Johannesburg. I have managed to get in contact with Jasha, and he will be meeting me at the airport in Athens, shaggy hair and all. It will be good to hang out wiht him for a couple of days before heading off to the dig.
I dont have much more to tell, so I will leave this here for now, and get to some emails before my internet time runs out.
Will post soon so stay tuned for the next episode of 'The Incredible Journey!' (patent pending).
Chris
After Singapore, we re-boarded for the LONG 14 hour flight to London. This is equivalent to the usual flight from Sydney to Johannesburg which I have done many times, so I knew what to expect. Unfortunately what I am not used to is doing it directly AFTER 8hrs on the plane. As some of you know, I am a terrible sleeper when it comes to planes. I really dont stand a chance. However, I managed to get a couple of hours on this flgiht, and was pleasantly surprised at the entertainment on offer. I managed to knock off a few movies that I had never seen and they were all well worth it. Jumper, Sweeney Todd, Juno and There Will Be Blood. All very good.
I am now sitting in the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport for my connecting flight to Athens. It is very shiny and new, and kind of reminds me of the new the new terminals at Johannesburg. I have managed to get in contact with Jasha, and he will be meeting me at the airport in Athens, shaggy hair and all. It will be good to hang out wiht him for a couple of days before heading off to the dig.
I dont have much more to tell, so I will leave this here for now, and get to some emails before my internet time runs out.
Will post soon so stay tuned for the next episode of 'The Incredible Journey!' (patent pending).
Chris
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Operation STUFF IT IN! (ie. packing)
The day is finally upon me. This last week has been even busier than I could have believed with saying goodbye to everyone, studying and writing my exams, and preparing all my equipment and gear for the big day. It seems that time has flown past and so I have to be brief, as I must be on my way to the airport.
To summarise this last week, my OWH stuff is now all organised. That was a big load off my shoulders. They will contact me closer to my arrival in the UK with exactly where I will be working. The good thing is now I know I will be able to afford this 'Great Journey'. The packing has gone extremely well. My brother has been offering his sage-like advice in packing techniques and general survival skills. Thank you to him :D. Even though I think my pack is jam packed to bursting point, he still assures me there is another square foot of space available to me. Ill believe it when I see it.
My head is full of directions, smatterings of essential Greek, things to do and places to go. It is all extremely overwhelming but there is no doubt in my mind that I will have a fantastic time. I simply can't wait to get in the air. Maybe the long flight over to London and Athens will give me time to put my feet up and rest a bit, although we all know that travelling is the worst kind of rest you can get. You always arrive more tired than when you left!
I will try put up another quick post when I arrive in Heathrow, as I have a 4 or 5 hour stopover.
Thank you to everyone for their wishes and support through this last few hectic weeks. You have all been fantastic.
As I said to Rishi last night when he came to see me off, 'SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE!'
PS> I will edit this post when I can to add some photos.
To summarise this last week, my OWH stuff is now all organised. That was a big load off my shoulders. They will contact me closer to my arrival in the UK with exactly where I will be working. The good thing is now I know I will be able to afford this 'Great Journey'. The packing has gone extremely well. My brother has been offering his sage-like advice in packing techniques and general survival skills. Thank you to him :D. Even though I think my pack is jam packed to bursting point, he still assures me there is another square foot of space available to me. Ill believe it when I see it.
My head is full of directions, smatterings of essential Greek, things to do and places to go. It is all extremely overwhelming but there is no doubt in my mind that I will have a fantastic time. I simply can't wait to get in the air. Maybe the long flight over to London and Athens will give me time to put my feet up and rest a bit, although we all know that travelling is the worst kind of rest you can get. You always arrive more tired than when you left!
I will try put up another quick post when I arrive in Heathrow, as I have a 4 or 5 hour stopover.
Thank you to everyone for their wishes and support through this last few hectic weeks. You have all been fantastic.
As I said to Rishi last night when he came to see me off, 'SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE!'
PS> I will edit this post when I can to add some photos.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Prepare for War!
Time is marching onward as I count down the few remaining days till my departure. With only a week before D-Day I am starting to feel the pressure. This has nothing to do with the trip itself, but rather with everything that has to happen BEFORE I leave. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, I am sort of feeling like I am attempting to storm the beaches of Normandy.
Preperations for the trip are of course taking up a lot of my time, and it is a nice distraction from studying, but it is the actual studying for my exams that is seriously getting extremely challenging. As Im sure many of you have heard me moan and groan about continuously for the last few weeks, the trip has forced me to push all my exams into the last week of classes rather than have them in the examination period. This means I effectively have no study time in order to consolidate. I have been busy for the last few weeks, not only handing in major assignments, but trying to study for upcoming exams next week (I am writing on monday, tuesday and wednesday and leaving on thursday!). I am really quite drained, as is evident in me tryingto wake up this morning. I awoke at 8am thinking 'Ok good job. A few more minutes before you get up wouldnt hurt' and then promptly going back to sleep until 12.
Anyway, enough about exams. I am trying to procrastinate here. Preperations for the trip are going semi-well. I am mostly on top of packing and getting everything I need. A few bits and pieces of clothing and essential items here and there and I should be set. I have managed to make contact with about 18 other Mitrou Field School students thanks to the wonders of Facebook. We are fast becoming comrades in arms and it is proving very useful as inevitably through our discussions we come up with things I would never have thought to think about in the first place. We are definitly a mixed group, but I think we will all get on relatively well. I am the first to arrive in Athens on the 6th of June, and I will be staying at a place called 'Athens Backpackers'. This is quite a modern hostel that is extremely central, caters to budget backpackers from all over the world and is run by an Australian family. It is cheap and the facilities look extremely good. During this time I should beable to hang out with Jasha for a few days. It will be awesome to catch up as I havent seen him since he disappeared over the horizon last year on his trip to Kenya. A few of my fellow 'archaeologists' will trickle in slowly, and hopefully by the morning of the 9th about 7 of us will make the bus trip up to Tragana together. If you thought the coming of the Dorians was something that upturned Greek Civilisation, wait till Greece is invaded by 18 hyperactive archaeologists in training.
So all is well. The only major snag that I have encountered is dealing with the Overseas Working Holidays people. Yes I am still yet to secure a job in England. This is fairly serious as I NEED the extra money. Not only for Europe with Rishi but also to stay afloat while living in England for 4 months. They were supposed to call me weeks ago with a job interview via the phone, but I never heard from them. I have since sent countless emails and phonecalls to my Liason but despite her assurances that she will 'sort things out' and 'look into it' I am not confident. Fingers crossed that it will work out. It has to work out.
Thats all the news I have for now. I will post again soon, hopefully once more before I leave.
Thanks to everyone who is showing interest in this running, albeit chaotic, commentary.
Chris
Preperations for the trip are of course taking up a lot of my time, and it is a nice distraction from studying, but it is the actual studying for my exams that is seriously getting extremely challenging. As Im sure many of you have heard me moan and groan about continuously for the last few weeks, the trip has forced me to push all my exams into the last week of classes rather than have them in the examination period. This means I effectively have no study time in order to consolidate. I have been busy for the last few weeks, not only handing in major assignments, but trying to study for upcoming exams next week (I am writing on monday, tuesday and wednesday and leaving on thursday!). I am really quite drained, as is evident in me tryingto wake up this morning. I awoke at 8am thinking 'Ok good job. A few more minutes before you get up wouldnt hurt' and then promptly going back to sleep until 12.
Anyway, enough about exams. I am trying to procrastinate here. Preperations for the trip are going semi-well. I am mostly on top of packing and getting everything I need. A few bits and pieces of clothing and essential items here and there and I should be set. I have managed to make contact with about 18 other Mitrou Field School students thanks to the wonders of Facebook. We are fast becoming comrades in arms and it is proving very useful as inevitably through our discussions we come up with things I would never have thought to think about in the first place. We are definitly a mixed group, but I think we will all get on relatively well. I am the first to arrive in Athens on the 6th of June, and I will be staying at a place called 'Athens Backpackers'. This is quite a modern hostel that is extremely central, caters to budget backpackers from all over the world and is run by an Australian family. It is cheap and the facilities look extremely good. During this time I should beable to hang out with Jasha for a few days. It will be awesome to catch up as I havent seen him since he disappeared over the horizon last year on his trip to Kenya. A few of my fellow 'archaeologists' will trickle in slowly, and hopefully by the morning of the 9th about 7 of us will make the bus trip up to Tragana together. If you thought the coming of the Dorians was something that upturned Greek Civilisation, wait till Greece is invaded by 18 hyperactive archaeologists in training.
So all is well. The only major snag that I have encountered is dealing with the Overseas Working Holidays people. Yes I am still yet to secure a job in England. This is fairly serious as I NEED the extra money. Not only for Europe with Rishi but also to stay afloat while living in England for 4 months. They were supposed to call me weeks ago with a job interview via the phone, but I never heard from them. I have since sent countless emails and phonecalls to my Liason but despite her assurances that she will 'sort things out' and 'look into it' I am not confident. Fingers crossed that it will work out. It has to work out.
Thats all the news I have for now. I will post again soon, hopefully once more before I leave.
Thanks to everyone who is showing interest in this running, albeit chaotic, commentary.
Chris
Monday, May 5, 2008
So Close, Yet So Far
Well as of today (the 5th of May) there is exactly one month to go before I blast off, which comes as both excellent and nightmarish news. This is all rolled into one gigantic blob of reality that is currently making a beeline for my face. I seem to be living in a bi-polar twilight zone at the moment where things are happening both extremely quickly and unimaginably slowly at the same time. As the day approaches, I am finding myself getting more excited and impatient by the minute. It seems like every time I turn around to take a look at the countdown another few days have passed.
A few major things have occurred since last I wrote. First of all, the ball has been set rolling with regards to me finding a job in the UK when I get there. I have lodged my application with 'Overseas Working Holidays' and they have in turn passed it on to an organisation called 'UK Pubs'. The theory is that they will call me any day now and conduct a phone interview, making sure I am suitable for any position they may have available. It shouldn't be too much of a problem as the job revolves around customer service, and believe me when I tell you that working as the sole employee on a petrol station during peak hours is all the experience you will ever need in patience, adaptability, stress management and customer service. I should be able to come up with answers to any questions they throw my way.
Secondly, I received all the information for Mitrou a few weeks back. The pack contained an unpublished article on the excavations up to the end of 2007. I have made this my bible and have been religiously pouring over every snippet of information I can find. Reason being that the more you know when you arrive on the site the easier it is to adapt and the less you have to have explained to you. I have also been trying to find out as much information as I can on nearby and contemporary archaeological sites which should give me a good idea on what artefacts and remains we should find.
Interestingly I have also been informed that the inhabitants of Tragana (the village we are staying in) do not speak a word of English. I don't know much modern Greek except for a few basic phrases so this should definitely make life interesting. I will be trying to learn as much modern Greek as possible in the next month, and also hopefully while I am there. In the event that this fails miserably (as do most of my budding ideas), there will of course be people working at the site who will be able to act as translators, but that's not nearly as fun! We will also be at least 10 miles away from the nearest ATM and Internet connection. Never fear though, because I will still be able to update this page often, it will probably just be in weekly chunks rather than every few days.
It looks like my good friend Jasha, who has been gallivanting around the UK and Kenya for the better part of a year, may be in the neighbourhood when I arrive in Greece so we will definitely try and meet up. I seem to have inadvertently picked up a couple of spare days as the dig will only be providing accommodation for us from the 9th of June. This means I have 2 nights in Athens with which to explore the city a bit and hang out with Jasha, maybe picking up a snorkeling mask (Tragana has excellent snorkeling apparently) while I'm at it.
It is now getting to the point where I am starting to think about all the things I will miss while I am gone. Relationships have to be put on hold, I will not have the same degree of support from friends and family, no home cooking, and certainly very little spare time to just relax. While some of these things are more of an issue than others for me, I am relishing the opportunity to assert some degree of independence and also the opportunity to go on something as amazing as this trip. The important things will still be here when I get back.
Till next time (assuming I survive this years major assignment season and still have the ability to type).
Chris
A few major things have occurred since last I wrote. First of all, the ball has been set rolling with regards to me finding a job in the UK when I get there. I have lodged my application with 'Overseas Working Holidays' and they have in turn passed it on to an organisation called 'UK Pubs'. The theory is that they will call me any day now and conduct a phone interview, making sure I am suitable for any position they may have available. It shouldn't be too much of a problem as the job revolves around customer service, and believe me when I tell you that working as the sole employee on a petrol station during peak hours is all the experience you will ever need in patience, adaptability, stress management and customer service. I should be able to come up with answers to any questions they throw my way.
Secondly, I received all the information for Mitrou a few weeks back. The pack contained an unpublished article on the excavations up to the end of 2007. I have made this my bible and have been religiously pouring over every snippet of information I can find. Reason being that the more you know when you arrive on the site the easier it is to adapt and the less you have to have explained to you. I have also been trying to find out as much information as I can on nearby and contemporary archaeological sites which should give me a good idea on what artefacts and remains we should find.
Interestingly I have also been informed that the inhabitants of Tragana (the village we are staying in) do not speak a word of English. I don't know much modern Greek except for a few basic phrases so this should definitely make life interesting. I will be trying to learn as much modern Greek as possible in the next month, and also hopefully while I am there. In the event that this fails miserably (as do most of my budding ideas), there will of course be people working at the site who will be able to act as translators, but that's not nearly as fun! We will also be at least 10 miles away from the nearest ATM and Internet connection. Never fear though, because I will still be able to update this page often, it will probably just be in weekly chunks rather than every few days.
It looks like my good friend Jasha, who has been gallivanting around the UK and Kenya for the better part of a year, may be in the neighbourhood when I arrive in Greece so we will definitely try and meet up. I seem to have inadvertently picked up a couple of spare days as the dig will only be providing accommodation for us from the 9th of June. This means I have 2 nights in Athens with which to explore the city a bit and hang out with Jasha, maybe picking up a snorkeling mask (Tragana has excellent snorkeling apparently) while I'm at it.
It is now getting to the point where I am starting to think about all the things I will miss while I am gone. Relationships have to be put on hold, I will not have the same degree of support from friends and family, no home cooking, and certainly very little spare time to just relax. While some of these things are more of an issue than others for me, I am relishing the opportunity to assert some degree of independence and also the opportunity to go on something as amazing as this trip. The important things will still be here when I get back.
Till next time (assuming I survive this years major assignment season and still have the ability to type).
Chris
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