It's summer!

The very last part of the academic year for me was to work at the English language summer camp put on by the school’s English department.  The camp is designed for students finishing grades K-6, and our job was to work with individual classes (mine had sixteen fifth and sixth graders) on arts, crafts, science experiments, and make sure they got to daily sessions with other counselors (fitness, swimming, art, music, and dance).  A few takeaways from this:

1.  Fifth and sixth graders are the SLOWEST walkers in the history of the world.  Seriously.  My 15-month-old niece could probably move more quickly than them.

2.  Despite claiming to have common sense and the ability to use it, students of that age group should NEVER be trusted to use anything related to fire, lest they start a fire in their art class using a candle, used matches, and the paper from a crayon.

3.  Greek school lunches are far superior to any other school lunch.

4.  Primary education is not even remotely close to what I should be teaching.

Yay summer!

 Above and below:  projects the students worked on during certain parts of the camp.

Of course, no summer camp would be complete without a moose.

"It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN"

It occurs to me that I haven’t really written much about the school itself.  Well, there’s a reason for this: it’s not all that different from a U.S. school.  Now, before you start throwing stuff at me for lying to you, let me justify this argument:

SIMILARITY:  Students take the same types of classes (math, science, social studies, literature, music, English, ancient Greek and Latin.

DIFFERENCE:  Just about all of these classes are taught in Greek.  Surprise!

SIMILARITY:  Students get just excited about Christmas and Easter  breaks as we do.

DIFFERENCE:  Students dread their end-of-year tests much more than we do.

On that last point, I want to share with you a bit about why students live in terror of these tests.  You see, it’s not just a final exam like we know.  Our finals are packed in to about three days at the end of the semester; their finals are spread across a 4-week period, and the scores they receive on these tests carry the same weight for college admissions as the ACT or SAT do for us.  Talk about high stakes testing.  Students, particularly the seniors, stop showing up at school for the last three weeks or so because that time is more valuable for them to be studying independently than to be in class.  Makes for some pretty small (i.e. 0) class sizes.

During the testing period, the school is on LOCKDOWN.  Seriously… we are not allowed in a 30 meter radius of the school building, and security takes this perimeter very seriously.

"Tresspassing forbidden.  Violators will be shot"
Not really, but it's a much better sign that way.
And most of you can't call me out for a bad translation, anyway.

Now with the intensity of these exams, you’d probably expect the Greeks to have a fool-proof way to secure the integrity of the tests.  You’re right – they do.  Let me give you an example for the English exams*.  The writing prompts are decided between sundown and sunrise the morning of the test, and the questions are released to the schools about 30 minutes before the scheduled start of the school day.  It’s hard to cheat when the test writers don’t even know what the writing topic will be, eh?

Oh, Greece…

*This is based on hearsay.  I have no reason to doubt that it’s true, but don’t quote me on it.

Forensics... and not the murder mystery kind.

One of the big parts of my job this year was to work with the forensics (speech and debate) team for our school.  Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a nerd… it’s hard to break away from it all, though!  In fact, I think this year marked my 10-year anniversary of beginning speech-related activities!  Crazy.

Anyhow, the program in Greece shares many similarities to that in Minnesota.  I have never done debate, but I found some striking similarities to mock trial, so it really felt like a natural bridge to cross.  We had around 60 high school debaters that I worked with at different points throughout the year, as well as a group of 16 middle school students that I worked with for about two hours every Tuesday.  Oh yes, middle school students in a class-like setting after a full school day.  That brought back all kinds of great memories.

I also worked with the speech portion of the team, specifically with persuasive speeches.  These kids were fun to work with, taking on topics such as poverty, privacy, perfectionism, phones, and many other.  All of this culminated with the Panhellenic Forensics Association Tournament, hosted at our school for teams from 18 schools across the country.  This four-day tournament and the planning of it kept me at school late into the night in February and March, but it paid off in the end.  We won the team trophy, and we were the only school with finalists in every event!  Not too bad!

Oops.

Guess I forgot about this for a while.  My bad.  Well, you're in luck now, because I'm about to give you an UNPRECEDENTED amount of posts in a short amount of time.  Actually, that's probably not even true (see November 2010)... but the point is I'm going to create, for your reading and viewing pleasure, enough posts to give me cover for another three months.

And so it begins...

Carnival!

This past weekend, I joined with several other fellows and friends for a trip to Skyros for the Carnival weekend.  Skyros is a moderately sized island that’s known for a few things these days:

1.  The hiding place of Achilles when he was trying to avoid the Trojan war.  He dressed as a woman and was only discovered when his searchers staged an attack on the island.  Instead of running and hiding, Achilles pulled a sword out of his dress and stood to fight them.  Oops.

Nicholas Poussin's Achilles on Skyros.
Can you spot him?

2.  Skyros is one of the places with the most traditional Carnival celebrations, including (but not limited to) the yeros, or “old man.”  By one mythological account, there was a great calamity on the island, one that killed all of the goats living there.  The shepherds (yeros) came to the town to warn the people of the impending calamity, and they were ominous creatures.  Dressed in goat hair with a goat skin mask, the yeros these days prance along the streets, jangling the bells on their hips (100+ pounds of bells).  It seems like they’re usually drunk, too.  It’s hard to miss them.

Because Clean Monday is a national holiday (it’s the equivalent of Ash Wednesday), we had the opportunity to spend three days on the island.  We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring parts of the island and town, respectively, and had our fair share of delicious foods.  I tried some rooster for one of these meals, but the best dish was baked goat meat with a cheese sauce, cooked with tomatoes and peppers.  And the best part?  Our onlooker:

The nights were a different story.  Things were pretty slow on the island ‘til about midnight or so, when it seemed much of the island headed to the bars.  A funky mix of Greek pop, American pop, and Greek traditional music and dancing made for some fun, late nights.  Sunday night was capped off with some dancing in the street (I was more of an observer than a participant, although I had a great dance with a giraffe) and a bit of spanakopita.

Thanks to Christie for the picture.
I hope you don't mind...

Trust me, I have just about as much of an idea of what
I'm doing as you probably do right now.

A good time was had by all.

It's official. Monks are nuts.

About two weeks ago, I was feeling the itch to get out of Athens.  I had a long weekend coming up, and I figured it’d be good to explore some of the north a bit more.  I finished my school day around 1:15 on Friday, and I caught a 3:30 bus north to Kalambaka, or more specifically, to Meteora. 

Meteora ranks right alongside of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland in terms of strangeness.  Sheer cliffs rising up hundreds of feet from the ground are spectacular enough to see; add in the fact that there are monasteries perched on top of the cliffs makes it a remarkable place to visit. 

 vs.

I’d imagine you probably have two questions going through your mind right now:

Q:  How were the monasteries constructed so high up like that?  More specifically, how did anyone get up there to build them?

A:  There are a few theories about this one.  The first idea is that some absolutely crazy monk free-climbed the rock with a rope, then he began pulling up supplies and people.  The second is that monks flew a gigantic kite over the rocks with a rope ladder attached.  You choose.

Q:  How did YOU get up to visit them?

A:  I flew.

Q:  Okay, seriously, how DID you get up there?

A:  Fine.  I hiked the trail between the rocks, then climbed the stone stairs to the top of each monastery.  Happy?

It was a long hike, but it was well-rewarded with a delicious plate of lamb and potatoes, a side of xorta (I've seen it translated as “green stuff,” and it’s very literally green plants picked from a mountain.  It’s like eating dandelion leaves, but better), and some wine to wash it all down.  It’s a pretty routine meal in the villages – jealous?

Can Bake Sales Fix the National Deficit?

For Halloween and Thanksgiving, the school put on bake sales as fundraisers for various departments.  Now, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking “oh, that’s a cute way to raise a bit of money!”  Wrong.  There is nothing cute about these bake sales.  Nor is it a “bit” of money we’re talking about.  These bake sales were OBSCENELY HUGE and incredibly profitable.  The proceeds brought in from the sales of cupcakes, brownies, cookies, bars, cakes, muffins, hot dogs, and whatever else I’m forgetting are large enough to fully fund the scholarship for multiple students to attend this school, not an insignificant amount. 

I’ll never again discredit bake sales as a waste of time…

A Greek Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, especially if you have the opportunity to spend it with family.  If that is not the case, however, we just have to find ways to make do.  That’s what I ended up doing.  Not just once, but three times this year.

First “Thanksgiving”:  On Tuesday evening, the school hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the English department.  There were about fifty-five or sixty of us coming together for a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal.   Salads, cranberries, rolls, stuffing (well, not in the traditional sense… minced meat would be a better description.  Minced meat of a questionable source would be a good description), turkey, and pumpkin pie.  Except, this isn’t your normal pumpkin pie.  It was straight out of the pumpkin.  Interesting, to say the least.  Regardless, it was fun to be there, and the food tasted good!

Thanksgiving Day Presentation:  Every year, the English department is asked to put together a 40-minute presentation to celebrate Thanksgiving.  This year, we decided to tackle a pretty challenging program, including live music, filmed interviews, a brief history, a visual presentation, and a bake sale).  It’s amazing how much work goes into a presentation like this, but in the end we had a pretty good final product.  

A sample from the presentation.
Yes, those are pics from SJU.

Thanksgiving Day Dinner:  It’s okay, though.  We had a second Thanksgiving dinner that night!  Seven fellows got together to have salad, potatoes, broccoli, turkey, gravy, and pecan and apple pies!  Not only was it fun, but it was pretty tasty!  The only thing missing was the pumpkin pie we have at home…

Yup, Thanksgiving wasn't too terrible.

Post-Thanksgiving Day Dinner:  I was lucky.  My department head (a Boston native who’s been teaching here for about 19-years) invited me over to her house for her family’s/friends’ celebration.  I rolled in around 8:15 with a pumpkin pie (yes, the one I was missing the night before!!) and left around five hours later, fully satisfied.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, quinoa salad, mushroom and chestnut pie (SO GOOD!), cranberries, corn bread, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, and copious amounts of wine were on the menu!  I met some fun Greeks, practiced a bit of my Greek language skill (or non-skill), and completely forgot that it was the day after Thanksgiving!  I have to say, this was probably one of my top five Thanksgiving celebrations!  Looking forward to bringing some of those recipes back home!

Get ready for some mushroom and chestnut pie!

Johnnie Pride!

Over the past week, I actually had two really cool opportunities.  I had two experiences involving CSB|SJU.  The first of these was on Friday afternoon, when I met the professor and several of the Bennies and Johnnies studying in Athens right now.  Not only did I enjoy a tasty lentil soup with salad, bread, and a cheese pie, but I got to talk with fellow Minnesotans about the CSB|SJU fall, the football team’s surprisingly good showing so far this season, and general life in St. Joseph, MN.  It was good to be among people who were as excited as I was to see the weather starting to change.

A few days later, I became the unofficial representative of CSB|SJU at the United States University Fair at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Athens.  This was an event sponsored by the Fulbright Foundation in Greece for universities across the United States to recruit among Greek students.  Although I had no experience with this type of event and minimal training, I think it went really well.  I got to talk to a lot of people about some awesome schools, plus I gained two things: a black CSB|SJU banner (currently being used as the curtain of my bedroom) and a nice CSB|SJU polo.  Love it.

I'll leave you with a song that comes to mind as I write this post.

High above the Sagatagan,

Towering o'er the oak and pine,

Proudly stands our alma mater,

Ever let her beacon shine.

Alma mater we'll be loyal,

Ever love and praise thy name.

Hail, all hail Saint John's our mother,

We thy honor will proclaim.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

The weekend after Hydra, I joined a few of my fellow fellows on a trip to Aegina, another nearby island.  Instead of going for the whole weekend, we figured it’d be just as awesome to make it a day trip.  Conveniently enough (i.e. we planned it this way), we were there on the weekend of the PISTACHIO FESTIVAL!!!  Oh yes.  Kilos upon kilos of pistachios.  Pistachio ice cream.  Pistachio brownies.  Pistachio liquor.  Pistachio milkshakes.  Pistachio baklava.  If you can’t guess it already, it was a very nutty day.

Before I go on, it’d be worth a few moments to share a bit about Aegina itself.  Like Hydra, Aegina is very close to Athens – about a forty-five minute ferry ride away.  That’s about where the similarities end, though.  Aegina is a much more modern (read: motorized) island, which makes it much noisier and much dirtier.  Regardless, there are some pretty neat views.  Like this one:

 Anyhow, we got to visit a few places that are kind of cool.  Apparently they are excavating an entire town they’ve discovered.  Overlooking the town is the Temple of Aphaia, a minor goddess worshipped exclusively on this island.  She was thought to have strong influences on fertility and the agricultural cycles on the island, but after a few centuries, she was lumped into worship of Athena.  Talk about a demotion…  Regardless, there’s a relatively intact temple standing at one of the higher points of the island.

Further down the hill from Aphaia’s temple, there was the Church of St. Nectarios.  When I say church, you’re probably thinking an early- to mid-Christianity era church; relatively small with some nice architecture, but not entirely the most impressive.  WRONG.  Check it out.

After these few explorations, Anna and I sat down at a sea-side taverna for dinner, watching the crystal blue waters and breathing in the impeccably clean air as the sun slowly came closer and closer to the horizon.  Beat that.

As we wrap up this post, I want to come back to the title of this entry.  I bet you’re curious why I’m asking about a chicken when I don’t mention it at all.  Well, there is also an oddity about Aegina that Bethany stumbled across.  Apparently the Mayor of Aegina tried to ban all poultry from the island.  The Aegina city minutes are posted here:  http://www.aeginagreece.com/magazine/the-mayor-of-aegina-against-poultry/.  So now we know: He was avoiding the Mayor.

Adventures on a car-less Island

This past weekend, I got in touch with my inner pirate.  Yes, you read that correctly: PIRATE.  You see, myself and four of my colleagues took off on Friday evening for an adventure on the island of Hydra.  Hydra is a quick (well, 1.5 hours) ferry hop away from Athens, so we left a little bit after school ended and arrived just a little bit before dinner time.*

*I haven't mentioned this yet: Greek dinner time doesn't take place at 6:00 or 7:00, as most of you Midwesterners probably are used to.  It doesn't even happen at 8:00 or 9:00, for all you East Coast folks.  No, it's just starting to become acceptable to dine around 9:30 or 10:00 on a daily basis.

A quick word on logistics in Hydra: the only vehicles that you'll find on the island are a garbage truck (yes, a SINGLE garbage truck) and water taxis.  Oh yes, there are plenty of donkeys also.  You can imagine how much quieter all of this makes the island -- a huge change from the business of Athens!  Anyway, we arrive at the port and go to meet our landlord, who walks us up the mountain to the villa he is renting us.

Two things I want to point out here:
1.)  That's a really damn steep hill.
2.)  The yacht is probably worth more than the entire city.

Once we get settled, we enjoy some dinner at a local taverna, then head on over to THE PIRATE BAR!  Several people from school recommended this place, particularly their B52s.  Friends, ask me about that sometime.  Parents/grandparents, you're probably better off not knowing.  We'll just agree that it was a very fun birthday evening.

Yarrr.... 

I think the pirates ran out of rum...

On Saturday, Bethany (one of my colleagues) and I decided to go for a hike.  We started following signs for the lighthouse, which we thought would be pretty neat to check out.  It was kind of like looking for buried treasure (except it's not buried...... nor is it really a treasure...... nor did we have a map.....), but alas, our pirating skills were not up to snuff.  After three hours of searching, we decided to turn around and head home.  Luckily for us, the Mediterranean Sea was calling our name, and we hopped into a beautifully warm and refreshing ocean.  

 Clear water = Happy Evan

 Our hikes are rough.  All uphill.  This picture doesn't do it justice...

...especially with this little stretch at the top.  Ouch.

Sunday was very similar to Saturday -- hiking and oceaning took up most of the day, but there came a point when we finally had to face reality -- it was time to head home.  I'm convinced, though, that Athens is fake-Greece.  Real Greece is only found on those little islands out in the middle of the ocean.  One down, 1,399 to go!

Proof that I was actually there.

No Mother, of course I didn't jump off the cliff into the Mediterranean Sea...

Off to Hydra!

Hello everyone!

Today's my birthday, and it's probably the coolest birthday yet!  Sure, it's not quite the excitement of #21, but the Greeks here have a way of making it a really, really great day.

More on that later though: I'm off to Hydra for the weekend!  I'm anticipating some adventures hiking and beaching and... exploring the Pirate bar!

Arrrrr!

Let's talk about home!

In the spirit of me trying to find cheap/free housing associated with my jobs (i.e. SJP dorm, Tomahawk tent), I opted to live in an on-campus house at my school in Athens.  Now, I'm pretty sure most of you have no idea about the scope of this campus, so I figured I'd give you a tour.  We'll start off with the school grounds and will end with my luxurious mansion.

Kollegio Athinon (Athens College) is a campus between two well-off parts of outer-Athens: Psychiko and Halandri.  It's a gated campus, with security staffing the gate 24x7.  I suppose this is necessary for two reasons:  First, this school draws the children of many wealthy and/or important Greeks.  This includes children of the former or current Prime Minister, children of diplomats, actors and actresses, and many others of the same type.  That's not to say they do not have your typical Greek family sending children to school here, but you get the picture.

From the gate, we have the option of hanging a left to the athletic buildings or straight to the academic buildings.  Athletic buildings include a swimming pool, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, a turf soccer field, tennis courts, a weight room, and a racquetball court.  

This pool has the honorable distinction of being the cleanest body of water I've EVER swam in.  

Yes, that includes Long Lake.  And the YMCA.
Maybe those aren't the best comparisons...

Like I mentioned earlier, if you went straight up the hill from the gate, you'll start passing a few other buildings.  The first one of distinction is the library.  This is the largest school library in Greece, and it has a full-time staff of around twelve.  Then there are the teaching fellows, who work in the library either with specific classes or full time.  Tons of resources.  Further up the hill is clearly the hallmark building of campus: the Benakio.  This is the building that I'll be spending most of my time in, and it houses most of the classrooms for the high school.

On either side of the Benakio are two other awesome buildings:  to the west, we have Saka, the alumni and staff "lounge."  The school hosted a cocktail party for myself and my co-fellows on Thursday evening, and they regularly host other functions.  Pictured is Saka in preparation for (presumably) a wedding.  To the east of the Benakio is the Athens College Theater.  This is a really large auditorium (probably seats upwards of 2,500), with a few areas for art displays as well.  Apparently professional groups come through to use that venue quite often, too!

And now, finally, we head up to my house.  I think the best way to describe the room is to go through the description provided to us and fact-check it:

The house has six bedrooms... (FALSE:  It has five real bedrooms, and there are seven people living in it.)
two and a half bathrooms... (True, but only when they're all functional)
a kitchen... (Technically true, but it's a stretch.  We have no stove nor oven, but a combination of the two that we affectionately call a "stoven."  Sketchy.)

a breakfast nook...  TRUE

a living room...  TRUE, a very nice one at that too!

a library...  FALSE.  That is now my "bedroom."

a rooftop balcony...  True, but it is completely filled with a solar panel.

a piano... True.

and a lovely garden terrace... False.  It is not lovely yet.  It will be, though!

complete with a 264 gallon swimming pool!  False.  Our inflatable pool was punctured.  We have a 0 gallon swimming pool.

Regardless, it's home.  In time, I think we'll all grow to love the place!

Our chapel.

I may be cursed...

Some of you may remember my woes when I was trying to return to the United States from my time in Ireland a few years ago.  You'll probably remember that it didn't go well.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just trust me on this one: it's a great story, but one to hear in person.

Anyway, yesterday I was embarking on my first trans-Atlantic journey since that lovely trip in 2010.  It started off very promising.  The sun was shining at the Rochester International Airport, my bags had been packed for several hours now, and I had just enjoyed a deliciously filling El Carambas lunch with a friend.  Well, we arrive at the airport and unload the bags, when lo and behold, my first flight is delayed by an hour.

To give you a bit of perspective, my itinerary never really gave me much time between flights -- usually between 90 and 120 minutes.  I had a flight from Rochester to Chicago, followed about two hours later by a flight from Chicago to London-Heathrow, followed about 1.5 hours later by my final flight to Athens  You can see how delays make travelling on that itinerary significantly more difficult to deal with, particularly for trans-Atlantic flights.  To say the least, I was a bit nervous.

After browsing the internet for a bit looking at potential options in case, you know, I miss my connecting flight in Chicago, I figured I may as well just go wait by the gate.  We board the plane, then are told that our wheels-up time is being pushed back, due to bad weather in Chicago.  Great.  But, there's not a whole lot I can do, so I contentedly read SkyMall magazine.  Twice.

7:31 PM:  Finally!  The 5:20 flight is leaving the ground now!  So we're two hours late for a 1:55 layover... I may be a bit fuzzy in my math skills at times, but that doesn't seem to bode well for me.  It turns out that our in-air time was only about 45 minutes (through thunderstorms, mind you), so we were de-planing in Chicago at 8:25.  There's a chance, right!  After all, my international flight isn't scheduled to leave for another ten minutes, and it's in a different terminal where I'll need to clear security again...

Luckily, British Airways was especially accommodating for me.  Their ticketing agent must've seen the desperation in my eyes as I'm running up to the counter at 8:35, hoping the plane hasn't left yet.  It hadn't.  In fact, he is able to call over to the gate and have them hold the plane for me, and then he escorted me through employee-only areas of the airport, sped me through security, and got me to the gate in about three minutes.
Did I mention that I love British Airways now?  I sat down in seat 22K, and within a minute, I am being offered a newspaper and a glass of water.  After I have a chance to re-assess my surroundings, I realize that I'm literally the only person sitting in row 22.  Yes, I have the entire row to myself.  This'll be a nice flight.  Top this off with a delicious dinner, several travel bottles of wine, and The Hobbit, and I'm golden.

Arriving in the London-Heathrow airport,I also had a bit of a tight connection, but luckily the plane to Athens was also running a bit late.  I boarded without too much difficulty, and about three hours later I set foot on Athenian pavement, minus my checked luggage, which was presumably left behind in Chicago.  Oh, the glories of air travel.