Grecian Odyssey, A Student's View (Day 6)

The Honors Program just completed its Grecian Odyssey tour, where thirty-five students and two staff members traveled to Greece from May 6th through the 16th. We asked our students to blog about the journey, so each day is written from the perspective various students.  Today's post includes contributions from Kailyn Clarke, a sophomore majoring in History and Political Science; Jazmyn Batista, a freshmen Chemistry major; and Kara Hollinger, a freshman Integrated Language Arts major.  We hope you enjoy reading about our journey!

I started out the day waking up at 5:30 in the morning to hike up a mountain in Delphi. The hike started with a bunch of stairs up to the other side of town and then we started the steep hike that also begain with stairs. We hiked for a good 45 minutes. By the time that was over, the town of Delphi looked small and the sun was rising. It was beautiful! The mountain was covered in yellow flowers and green grass. We could still see the water from where we were. We didn't make it as far as we wanted, but that's ok. It was a very difficult climb, but the view was absolutely worth it.

After spending the night in the village of Delphi we woke up early to grab coffee in town before heading up to Meteora to see the Monasteries. We tried to get coffee every morning before heading out on our adventures for the day. This coffee was definitely one of my favorites, it was a freddo cappuccino which was espresso and cold foam.

To get to the temple of Apollo required more climbing, but we were eager to see the ruins of Delphi. Since we got to the site early, Christiana led us through a tour of the ruins and explained what archaeologists recovered in the different areas of the site. First she explained how people would come from across the known world to the “navel of the universe” in order to consult the Pythia (which was tied to the symbol of a Python). When they came the brought offerings, such as weapons and battle armor, jewelry, statues, and art, to honor the patron God of Delphi, Apollo. To the left is a picture of the ruins of the temple of Apollo, underneath was the room where the Pythia delivered guidance. Archaeologists discovered the cause of the hallucinations and mystical experiences that occurred was due to the release of ethylene that occurred naturally at the site.

After the informational tour we got time to explore the site on our own. A lot of us decided to hike up to the stadium at the top of the mountain. Even though it was a harder climb than a lot of us were used to the view up top was worth the hike. After we left the village of Delphi we headed over to the museum, which displayed most of the treasures found inside the temple and the treasuries. The most famous was the statue of the Charioteer which was almost perfectly recovered because it was buried below the ground at Delphi. The day was full with explanations of mythology and modern scientific experiments, which intertwined so beautifully in Greece, but specifically in Delphi.   

              

From here, we went on to have lunch at a local family restaurant, and it was delicious. I got lamb chops and ice cream with strawberries for dessert. From there we traveled to Kalambaka, where we had dinner and then explored the town. We went looking for chocolate milkshakes, but all we found were chocolate milks with ice cubes in it. It was still good, surprisingly, but not exactly what we were looking for. Afterwards, we came back to the hotel to play cards and experienced Dr. Swanson's first win of the trip. It was a little disappointing, but I'm proud of us for keeping him from winning as long as we did. Overall it was a good, but really long, day and now it's time to get some rest before visiting Meteora in the morning.