Περιπέτεια

Travelling to a Christian country during springtime means experiencing lots of religious festivals.  One of these was "Carnival".  Carnival (with the emphasis on the last syllable), or Apokries , is a season that traditionally begins ten weeks before Greek Orthodox Easter and culminates on the weekend before "Clean Monday" or "Ash Monday".  This year, Carnival took place on Thursday, February 28. This celebration is very similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  There's all kinds of masquerade parties and it's celebrated before the Lent season.  The Greek name Apokries means abstention from meat, because after that, the period of Easter Lent begins. The characteristic of Carnival is disguising and wearing costumes and masks that offer anonymity and freedom of expression. This festival dates back to Dionysos, the ancient Greek god of wine, fun and fertility. The biggest carnival that is organized in Greece is that of Patras. Other popular carnival...

Believe it or not, while I'm here I will actually be doing some schoolwork!  I'll be taking five classes: Contemporary Greek Culture, Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece, Athletics and Competition of Ancient Greece, Honoring the Gods: Festivals and Rituals of Ancient Greek Religion, and City-States of Ancient Greece. I've been to all of the classes now, and I'm thoroughly impressed.  I'm actually kind of shocked about how much I didn't  know about Ancient Greece and how much I've already learned.  Obviously since it's only been a few days, I can't go into too much detail about everything I'm learning since I'm not particularly sure about what that is yet.  For several classes, we're actually starting before  Ancient Greece became the major power of the ancient world.  For Honoring the Gods and Arts and Archaeology, we're starting in the Bronze Age, about 3000-1200 BCE.  For our Athletics Class, we're actually starting in Mesop...

My first day and a half in Athens was full of adventuring and exploring. We arrived in the city at around 4:00 pm on Sunday, February 4, and after checking in to the hotel, we set off to eat dinner at a local souvlaki  (typically pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer) restaurant in downtown Athens.  I got a souvlaki skewer of pork, Anelia got grilled eggplant in tomato sauce with feta cheese, and we both got a plate of kalamari to share (props to Anelia the vegetarian for sharing squid with me).  Everything was extremely good and extremely satisfying.  I was very happy with our first meal choice! Our first meal in Athens As Keti told us, one of the ways restaurants decorate is by framing old flyers and posters and hanging them on the walls.  They also have dry spices hanging around the restaurants. Spices on the walls as decoration Old posters as decoration After dinner, Anelia and I found a little crepe place on the way bac...