Pictures, a Presentation and a Preview

With patience shall you be rewarded! Today was actually quite exciting. I seem to finally have gotten all financial matters straightened out and should be expecting a financial aid check for foodstuffs and souvenirs in the next two weeks or so (e.g. before Santorini!) and I'm settling down on plans for the weekend and for Crete next week.

But starting with today: it was perfectly normal and class-filled until after lunch when M and I went down to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which we hadn't realizes until earlier this week was the very bunch of ruins we've been passing and looking at curiously every time we've been to Plaka and the Acropolis. Oops. Anyway, once again our student access cards provided free entrance (I really love those things) and we stepped inside. The ruins of the temple itself are separated by a low brick wall from many other ruins, mostly of column and stone art pieces, but some that look vaguely like ongoing excavation sites. There were no labels that we could discern so a lot of what we were looking at was guess work, but the temple itself, isolated and huge, was easy enough to locate.

  This might be my favorite picture so far due to sheer epic-ness.

First view of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Very impressive!

Something that is very difficult to capture in these photos is the sheer impressive massiveness of these columns. The Parthenon is impressive. The Propylaean is overwhelming. The Acropolis is enormous. These columns are just unbelievable. They are SO big!! You can see the people walking by at the bottom of this picture, but you must understand that they are at least 10 (probably 15) feet closer to my camera than any one of those columns. And this is only one corner of the original temple. I'm glad they keep it isolated. You can really get a powerful feel for the overall magnitude of this temple, which honestly impressed me more than anything on the Acropolis (though that might have been in part because the Acropolis was so very full of tourists. I'll have to try again in the early morning. Maybe tomorrow. :-)

The symmetry and detail of those lovely, gigantic columns up close.

And up closer because I can't get over how intricate and delicate they look despite their size.

With one of the 3 columns at the opposite end of the temple. The one that's fallen over.

Another attempt to visually describe the scale of these ruins. That last column in the back? That's the front column from the previous picture. (Thanks for being an awesome unwitting scale model, M!)

After about half an hour, M and I decided we wanted to race to the New Acropolis Museum and try to see at least a little of it before my afternoon class. I only got a tiny taste of the first floor (and I knew that would be the case given my time restraint) but it's quite literally one of the most innovative and beautiful museums I've ever seen, including in pictures and online. There might be pictures (I couldn't tell if they were allowed, but I will ask tomorrow when I go back) and there will definitely be sketches eventually, but I can give you a tease now. Upon walking to the entrance of the museum, you might notice that the concrete below you suddenly turns to a sort of plexiglass and perhaps wonder why. Then you look a little closer at what exactly is so far beneath your feet...

Oh, right! Ancient ruins still being excavated! Of course, how silly of me!

All of the ruins I could see were in excellent shape and highly interesting in their varying levels and contents. Stairs, wells, cisterns, walls, tiled floors, all almost perfectly preserved. And the plexi-floors continue into the museum so that throughout the first floor and entrance way you can see these stones beneath you. The artwork on the first level is extraordinary, also. I got to see the statues of the Erectheon (those girls holding the temple roof on their heads from the Acropolis) in person. They're lovely from a distance but up close they're so personal it's a little disconcerting. Each one has her own individual face, body type, clothing style and hairdo. They seem to be modeled off of real people as much as any idea. It's mind-blowing and perception-changing and over all thrilling to be so close to something so familiar yet unexpected and so very very ancient. It makes me think the world really hasn't changed that much in the last few millennia. Unfortunately, I then was forced to leave so I could dash back to class. I'll probably spend the whole day there tomorrow.

To wrap up our day, K, SE and I went to a lecture called "Repatriation, Restitution or Return: The Legal Aspects of the Return of Cultural Objects". It was presented in English by a Greek lawyer and was quite fascinating. I knew already that this was a sensitive subject in Greece (the Parthenon marbles being primarily under the control of the British Museum) but I had no idea how wide spread or legally - rather than just morally or economically - intricate the world's stance on this subject really is. Every country has it's own laws which may or may not have been in place when the objects were removed, and there are all sorts of complications in getting them back, even if you can prove that they came from your country in the first place, which is often very difficult given the multitude of illegal (ie - not registered) excavations, where people simply took things from holes in the ground and sold them many many years ago. It was wonderful to feel like I was really being educated on an important subject that is on a lot of Greek minds right now. Also, they provided free food after and I got to speak with our Student Events Coordinator (who was also in attendance) about getting discount tickets to Greek dancing, a few Greek recipes from her personal stock, and a (slim) chance at an internship with a local theater group.

I find more and more that I may never want to leave this place.

Tomorrow: The New Acropolis Museum in full, possibly more photos of the Ancient Agora, and Greek Dancing at the Dora Stratou with SE. I'd better get some sleep!

Kαληνύχτα!