Highlight Reel: Athens

As is said in the Princess Bride, "It is too much. Let me sum up." So here are some of the more outwardly-oriented travel highlights...and a favorite photo (or so) from each.

Mt. Lycabettus: We climbed to the highest point within Athens on our first full morning in town. The views from the top were spectacular and gave us a good orientation to the city and where things were in relation to one another. By the end of our time there we could look at Mt. Lycebettus or (especially) the Acropolis and know which way was home. The orienting was so helpful that we took our students up on their first full morning, as well. Unfortunately it was quite a bit hotter and they had something of a hard time. On our family hike, the kids had also been tired and a little whiney and we bribed them with future treats. At the top in a cafe we got ice cream and honey dumplings. Let that sink in...Honey. Dumplings.      At one point during our snack Margaret said, "I need to get down so I can dance." And she did.

OK, for this I'm sharing a photo and a video:

View across Athens towards the port of Piraeus from Mt. Lycabettus

National Garden: That this was such a short walk from our apartment demonstrates what a great location we were in. The garden runs between the Temple of Zeus and Syntagma Square. We played soccer there a couple of times as a family, and on another occasion found a playground (where local children came up and gave Carmen some crafty little necklaces they had made). Maddie also took the kids several times while we were teaching. From what I understand they found a small pond and played Indiana Jones there, and also enjoyed the turtle population. We never got over there again as a family for Carmen to show me the ponds as she had wished to do. This was a disappointment for both of us. I just have to say, "maybe next time" about things like that. In the same category, there are probably about a dozen shots that we wanted for our city photo essay that we never got--things like the ponds, the dogs sleeping in doorways in our street, and the church where John Werner met his wife. Also Victoria Station. I am sad to not have them. However, 11 years ago Jesse and I returned from our 3-week backpacking trip and rushed to get our film developed; I remember now that after we had the pictures back I had a real sense of loss as we looked through the photos for the first time. Even in the moment I could feel the largeness, the completeness of my memories of events shrinking to fit the frames of the photos and it made me sad. That is something of a comfort now, although I still wish I had those shots!

Although Jesse took a picture or two of our soccer game in the National Garden, upon looking now I see that I don't have any, so there's that, too.

Sharing Meggie's Juice

Delphi: While many of us expected Sounion or the island of Agistri to be idyllic, I think Delphi took us all by surprise. It was our farthest-out day trip and it was for my class, so I was a little concerned that everyone might think it was a waste of time. As it turns out it is an incredibly beautiful place perched on the side of a mountain and overlooking a valley with over a million olive trees. It was also a bit cooler than Athens, which certainly didn't hurt. We had lunch in a cafe that extended out over the edge and had telescopes for viewing the valley. You could see all the way to the Gulf of Corinth and the food was delicious and the service so friendly. A husband and wife were working; their kid was running around and coloring with markers and playing with our kids while we waited. Grandpa was there, too. The Delphi olives have spoiled all other olives for me forever (sorry, California). As it turned out, we would have liked to have stayed longer, which is almost always a good feeling. Our guide was great at helping us imagine Delphi as it was 2500 years ago (give or take) and more recently. The museum held the Charioteer; it was riveting in person.

As a side note, at Delphi the wasp family and I ended our 31-year-old cease-fire agreement when a yellow jacket stung me with no provocation. I was really angry to be proven wrong in my "If you don't bother them, they won't bother you, so don't swat at them" advice and immediately exclaimed, "That is IT! You broke our pact! This means War!" in front of the whole group. Nice. Plus it turns out that it does really hurt. I tried not to be a wimp about it, given that my almost-3-at-the-time niece had recently taken 15 stings at once and was a trooper about it.

Ancient Corinth: Probably this was the day trip I was most looking forward to. We were going to Ancient Corinth and in addition to visiting the museum and ruins, we were planning to sit among the ruins and read selections from Paul's letter to the church there. It turns out that there's not much going on in Ancient Corinth; our bus actually drove through a neighborhood, made a turn, and there we were in the parking lot of the museum adjacent to the site. For a city that was the economic hub that it was, the remaining ruins (we had seen so many) are comparatively unimpressive. Maybe I had "ruins fatigue." I just expected more and bigger; or perhaps more well-preserved. The columns were impressive, but much of the ruins looked like piles of rubble.

The Impressive Monolithic Columns of Corinth

We sat in a group with interested students and read aloud by turns. I read early, and all we had been learning of the art and philosophy and history of the Ancient Greeks stood in sharp relief as I read:  

"²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach^[b] to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

"The Greeks" was no longer a generic term but very specifically attached to the people we'd been learning so much about and in whose history we were steeped.

The rest of the time, I looked around and listened instead of reading along. So I was looking at a heap of stone when I heard this:

^2:6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 

Three-quarters of a million people; decadence, art, and commerce; crowds and tourists and merchants. And now? A small archaeological site with grass growing between the stones and relative quiet all around.

^3:11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³ each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 

And then we finally came to the glory of chapter 15 and resurrection. After sitting among the ruins of Corinth and thinking, "I never realized that Paul was this kind of a prophet"-- After physically experiencing the ruin of the glories of the earth at the time of his writing--and being brought low along with them, we heard this:

⁴² So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³ It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 

We finished that chapter with reading how we will all be changed in a twinkling of an eye. And I thought, these stones may or may not ever be made into anything but what they appear now to be: but to those in Christ there is resurrection hope. Not just a theoretical cerebral hope, but a physical awareness contrasted with our physical surroundings. That was the gift of Corinth. 

A young olive tree growing among the ruins

Mycenae: I knew we were going to Mycenae in large part because it was very, very old. [I just went to get dates from Wikipedia (around 2000BC) and am suddenly overwhelmed that all of the photos on that page are place I have seen, sung, walked, photographed. I cannot believe we are doing this.] All of the archaeological treasures we had already seen at a museum in Athens. When we went we had been in Greece long enough to know the tales that connected this site with others: An ancient king was the brother of Helen of Troy's abandoned husband, and this was the region from which the armies gathered to go to Troy and retrieve her.

The mountain-top citadel was a dizzying height above the valley floor: a fertile region stretching out to the visible coast. It was backed by two mountains. While Elizabeth Bennett my not have seen a house more happily situated than Pemberley, I can't imagine a snugger citadel. It was fantastic.

We visited an ancient grave whose stone walls were still intact. It was like the inside of a small pryamid buried within a hill. The echoing acoustics were incredible inside; some of the group sang the Doxology and it was hauntingly beautiful. As we visited immediately post-Ancient-Corinth, there was an air of consecration to our music.

Crescendo the bakery: I have mentioned this bakery before. It was downstairs, and we smelled the delicious bread baking every morning as we woke up. We often had it for breakfast; they also made pizza and sandwiches, so we had it other times as well. Our names were known and we waved and greeted coming in and out. It is one of the places Charlie wants to return to if he ever comes back to Greece; he also wants to see our apartment, and his bedroom and living room. And drink orange Loux soda. And eat a "hamboat' from Crescendo...that's his Greece agenda.

The Parthenon: We were amazingly blessed to have an apartment with views of the Parthenon. It was actually the last thing I saw at night, as it was illuminated and shone through the window even after the lights were out. In the morning, the sun caught it and once it had passed through its "rosy-fingered-dawn" stage--where the sun temporarily pinked the edifice--I knew it was time to get up. (No, really, get up).

The day of our actual tour of the Acropolis was blisteringly hot; we didn't spend much time on the acropolis. I actually used my umbrella for shade. We went up, listened to our guide, snapped a photo, and headed down.

I'm a little grateful my tourist experience was no great shakes, and that instead I got to have the Parthenon all to myself, in a way, as part of my regular routine. Such a gift to be there long enough for routine and to have a part of it--in this case, about 5 minutes of every morning--be mine.