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!