It's day three in Nafplion, this place is so beautiful! Our course instructor, Matthew told us that Nafplion is like a little weekend getaway for Athenians and I honestly don't think I've ever seen a town this adorable. The town is very small and has a little bay, a lot of the pictures of the bay are on my Facebook album of Greece so far and I'd suggest looking at them since my description can't do them justice. Right now we're staying at a hostel type-thing that is full of cats (yes, cats). It's run by a very nice woman named Mama Vassaliki and her daughter Leah and its a very charming place. The rooms are very tiny but colorful and we have a balcony that overlooks the alleyway and a little courtyard that all the cats lounge in. Sometimes at night I hear cats screeching outside my window and I think it's a baby crying (which makes me think of Eli Bear back home). The worst part about this place is the shower, it's always the shower! The hot water only lasts three minutes for me and so I had a cold shower the first day. Since then a Greek God must have heard me complaining and decided to punish me because I have not gotten a shower since then. It's not that I've stopped bathing, the shower head just won't work for me. Last night I took a cold shower by crouching underneath the faucet, real uncomfortable. But there is a bright side to this story, today I took a warm shower crouched underneath the faucet so I'm keeping the fingers crossed for the shower head to work on my last night here.
Unfortunately it's raining here, it has been raining off and on for the past few days. This means that I've taken multiple two hour naps in order to pass the time, but I do want everyone to know that I've also done a fair share of exploring. I've also found numerous gelato stands that I've tried (LOVE them, had gelato at least once a day while I've been here). I also adventured to the beach last night with Kramer, LuLu, James, Keegan, Zakea, and Nicolette last night. The chicken gyros here are awesome despite the fact that they have mayonnaise on them because I'd definitely take tsaztziki over mayo anyday. Regardless of all that, I still love this country and everything about it.
We went to the citadel of Mycenae this morning and discussed some of the shaft graves and the remains and artifacts that Heinrich Schliemann found there. I've always found it fascinating about how bones are like stories of a person's life--you can see what they ate, make inferences on what they did as a profession and their status, and even ask questions about their city when they were alive. You'd never imagine that one day, if you're lucky enough to be that important, people could be looking at your bones and wondering the same things about you. We've actually been to quite a few citadels and important cites here. We went to the citadel at Argos, Palimidi, and Tiryns. Tiryns is by far my favorite site here because of the way that our instructor taught it. Since Tiryns is an archaeological site, he told us to imagine we were walking through the palace in its peak--in other words he told us to try and walk through the remains of the door ways rather than around them and try not to walk over walls. It was definitely a new teaching style for me and this approach made me feel like this place was still real and alive rather than sprawling ruins.
My mom tells me that she reads so I just thought I would let her know that all of the gelato I've eaten is all for her since I know she'd love every flavor just like I do. Make sure and hug Eli Bear for me everyday and don't let him grow up too much before I come back, I do still want to be funny to him when I get back.
I'd like to finish this up with a funny thing that happened today. After retreating back to Nafplion early because of the rain we went to Professor Fisher's hotel to eat lunch and we found the news and weather. The weather report seemed pretty simple, each city has both the high and low listed over their location on a map. Then Matthew told us that the reports only tell us what has already happened even though we know what's happened and don't need the anchors to tell us. After Matthew told us that they don't project weather just recap the weather, Russel (aka Brusselsprout or Brussel) said my favorite quote of the trip so far: Them Greeks, they do weather as well as they make showers...
That seems about a good place to end, hopefully I'll get a few more updates in before I get back to Athens.
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