The Old Town of Lamu

Sunny afternoon by the Old Fort

After settling into the guesthouse, Wildebeest Hotel, and trying to adjust to the stifling humidity (I'm not used to that anymore after months living in the dry season at high altitude!), I still had a full afternoon to explore.  Through the guest house, I found out about the options for visitors to Lamu and made plans for how to spend my few days there.  

Wandering through the local market

In the late afternoon (after it cooled a bit), I took a tour of the town with Mr. Ziwa Amahdi.  He was born in Lamu and has lived there most of his life, and knows every back alley and market stall.  We explored the old town as he told me about the massive wooden doors on the old houses, the shady entryways, the people who have come to be educated at the school in a venerated old Mosque, the bright red sugared baobab seeds that local women like to eat, and so much more.

Lamu Town is Kenya's oldest continually inhabited town.  It was established in around 1370, as one of the original Swahili settlements along the coast of East Africa.  The town is first mentioned in writing by an Arabi traveler named Abu-al-Mahasini, who talked about a man he met while on a trip to Mecca in 1441; the man was a judge from Lamu. 

The Swahili people are a tribe whose language was the basis of modern Swahili, which is used as a lingua franca in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. Their language became important because they were the coastal people who interacted with merchants from Arabia and India, which is why Swahili has a significant Arabic influence.  Swahili became the trade language and spread inland as other tribes brought ivory, spices and slaves to the port cities.  Zanzibar is the most famous and largest of the Swahili port cities, but Lamu was quite important in its own right.  

Some of the many donkeys around town

In 1505, the Portuguese invaded Lamu, forcing the king of the town to pay protection money to them.  Portugal captured several such port cities in the 1500s as they built a monopoly on shipping along the East African coast. There was a rebellion in the 1580s, but it wasn't until 1652 when the sultanate of Oman helped Lamu to finally take control back from the Portuguese.  

The period during which Lamu was allied with Oman is now considered the golden age of the town.  This golden age lasted from the late 1600s through the early 1800s.  The city was ruled by a council of elders called the Yumbe, and poetry, politics, arts and crafts flourished alongside trade.  A particularly famous writer from Lamu was a woman called Mwana Kupona, who wrote a book, Advice on the Wifely Duty. Many of the traditional homes in the old town were built during this period.  

In 1812, trouble began as a couple of other tribes teamed up to invade the archipelago.  They landed at Shela, the village just down the beach from Lamu, at the point of the island, but the locals beat them back. The people of Lamu asked for more help from their Omani allies to finish the partially built fort and to station a garrison in the town to protect from further raids.

Int the middle of the 1800s, Lamu came under the influence of the sultan of Zanzibar, uniting the Swahili ports along the coast.  Soon after, however, what is now Tanzania became, by force, a German colony.  Ther Germans built a post office in Lamu, the first to be built on the East African coast.  Although it was in operation for only three years, there is a museum in Lamu now in its building, the German Post Office Museum.  In 1890, the British took control of what is now Kenya.  Since Kenya's independence in 1963, Lamu has been part of Kenya, but has some amount of local autonomy.

The town of Lamu is a UNESCO world heritage site as "the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa", although in 2010 it was named as one of the sites that are on the verge of loss and damage, as the committee felt the management was insufficient, and there is a lot of pressure to modernize and develop as the town's population grows.

While the town was established by the Swahili tribe, the current population is quite diverse, as many people are descendants of not only the Swahili people but also the Arabs, Portuguese, and the various inland tribes who came to the coast to trade over the years.  Due to their long association with Oman and Arabic trading, the majority of the population is Muslim.

Lamu's importance as a trading port began to wane after 1900; today it is a rather sleepy and out-of-the-way outpost, mostly important for its history.  The slave trade (with the Middle East and India; few slaves from this area ended up in the Americas) was a major part of the economy until abolition in 1907.  Other goods that passed through Lamu were ivory, mangrove wood, turtle shells and rhinoceros horn, all of which are highly regulated today as poaching and overhunting have led to the animals being endangered.  The Uganda railroad was built in 1901, which connected inland cities with the port of Mombasa instead of Lamu, also directed business away from Lamu.  Mombasa today is the second city of Kenya.

Now, tourism has become an important industry, as it is a cheap destination for backpackers.  Many of the traditional dhow boats are now used to take travelers sailing, and there are lots of shops selling local crafts, especially wood working, and plenty of restaurants along the waterfront.  Furniture making and boat making are common. Mangroves are still grown on the outer islands and are harvested for use as poles.  

Since the town was built well before the invention of cars, the streets are mostly narrow paths that snake between the buildings.  To this day there are no cars on Lamu; even if you had one, the only place wide enough to drive one would be a few hundred feet right along the waterfront.  Donkeys have always been used for carting things around; there are still about 3000 donkeys in and around Lamu.  There is even a Donkey Sanctuary where injured or old donkeys can be cared for for free.

Unfortunately, much to the annoyance of most of the older people on the island, a few people have brought in motorcycles now, most for use in the newer part of town and to go between Lamu and Shela, the smaller town on the island.   

In the photo above, Mr. Ahmadi is showing me one of the entranceways of a traditional Lamu home.  I'm sitting in a similar one across the way.  The door, usually a massive wooden door with a particular style that spoke to the religion and wealth of the owner, was inset, with a entryway with stone benches built in.  The second story overhangs the porch, creating a cave-like shady space.  With the heat and humidity most of the year in Lamu, the shady stone spaces were a great place to sit and visit with neighbors during the heat of the day.  

The oldest of the buildings were plastered with crushed coral and shells; buildings that are restored skip this step as we now know how long coral reefs take to grow and how endangered they are, but there are still a few of the old examples left. 

As part of our tour, Mr. Ahmadhi took me to a building that has a rooftop terrace.  It was worth the few flights of stairs up for the incredible view out over the town and the channel in the golden late afternoon light.

There's the airport and its pier over there on the island across the channel; other than the airport, it's mostly mangrove farms over there. 

I know, I know, I'm posting way too many pictures, and it's boring to see someone else's vacation pictures, but Lamu was such an interesting and photogenic place that I want to share it with you all. 

The narrow streets are crowded with people walking and riding donkeys, and the occasional boy on a bicycle rushing along. 

Mr. Ahmadhi stopped to greet the granddaughter of one of his friends.  

An area of marshy land separates the old town and a new neighborhood built to accomodate the growing population.  

After a long ramble through the narrow passageways of the town, we came out a ways down the coast from the port, so we walked along the waterfront past beached boats and a lot of garbage back to the center of town. 

The old doors are incredible.  Many are hundreds of years old, and there are several common styles, all intricately carved.

As it got dark, I ended my tour with Mr. Ahmadhi.  I'm glad to have taken the chance to see the town with him; we saw more of the town that I would have known to have explored on my own, and with a better understanding of the details.  I wandered along the waterfront looking at restaurants for a while, and enjoyed a nice meal of steak with mushroom gravy and chapati on the upstairs veranda of a hotel restaurant.  It was a long day, but a good one.  I was thankful to get back to my room for a cool shower and reading in front of the fan.  (Have I mentioned the humidity??) 

Two More "Weddings"

Today, I did the week 13 lesson with my other two classes--including acting out the wedding.  Again, no one wanted to volunteer to be the bride or groom (although in my last class, all the girls were staring pointedly at one particular girl, and those close by were elbowing her--she must have a thing for some boy in the class), but I think it's all the funnier when it's random.

Here's some pictures from classes 1103 and 1104:

The Week 13 Wedding

For weeks, we've been practicing writing different kinds of paragraphs in my writing class.  Which frankly, gets a bit boring now and then--so, I like to have an activity that gets students participating now and then.

This week's topic according to the syllabus (well, actually, not according to the syllabus--I swapped a couple of weeks around so that this lesson wouldn't fall the week of Halloween) is Comparison/Contrast.  Certainly a useful type of paragraph...

I decided that we would compare/contrast something fun.  How about American weddings vs. Chinese weddings? So, it's wedding week in writing!  The students are usually really curious about American culture and customs, and nothing gets them talking like romance--students here don't date in high school, so when they get to college the dating scene is new and bewildering.  I sent out a facebook message a few days ago asking if I could borrow anyone's wedding pictures for examples--thanks to everyone who responded!

I rushed through the boring part of the lesson from the textbook, and then showed a power point discussing various wedding customs (clothing, the ceremony, cake, bouquet/garter, throwing stuff as they leave, etc.) illustrated with scenes from the beautiful weddings of several friends.

Then came the really entertaining part--I made them act out a wedding ceremony in class.  I had printed up detailed scripts for them to look at (and keep, to use for their assigment later). I wrote all the parts on little slips of paper and had them draw--if anyone wanted to volunteer for the major parts they could (no one so far has volunteered), but I didn't want to waste ten minutes of class arguing over who had to do what.  By including the seating of the mothers and grandmothers, and a reading by the brother of the bride, I managed to come up with enough parts for everybody, with the guests being imaginary.

I took a lacy white scarf to stand for a veil, and candles and a lighter to act out a unity candle lighting (which of course, the center candle woudn't light--that's why I don't want that particular little part in my wedding if I ever get married; something always goes wrong.) I wished I had something to use as bouquets; I gave them balloons to hold but it didn't work very well, as they turned out to be water balloons and thus quite small.  Maybe I'll come up with something better before I teach the lesson again tomorrow.

I was the wedding director, of course.  I lined everyone up, and we went through the processional, and then the ceremony.  They all got the giggles during the "You may kiss the bride" part.  Of course the two students randomly picked didn't even consider it; in fact, I'm not sure they ever even let their eyes meet.

I think the students had fun; we'll see when I get their assignment back if they learned anything.  

I'm Awake

Sometimes I don't realize just how much time I spend alone.  It seems the interactions I do have with people are of the type that take a lot of social energy--teaching, trying to make myself understood in Chinese to shopkeepers and waitresses, lesson-planning and strategizing, trying to find the right words to talk with someone about the most important things, in occasional meetings with colleagues.  It seems like I'm tired after all these interactions, so I don't notice that really each is not too long.  

I've been in a bit of a weird mood these past few weeks; probably just the normal culture shock period kicking in, as it started just over a month in.  I was tired of Chinese food, tired of learning the language ( I don't think I learned a single word in the last three weeks), tired of answering the phone, tired of lesson planning, even tired of traveling, or planning to travel.  Just tired. So, as I usually do, I escaped into the world of stories; it all started with Star Trek on a rainy evening, then wandered into the Narnia series, then on into Harry Potter (still trying to dig my way out--I love it, but goodness, you get pulled into that world, and it's hard to get out again), then into a "How I Met Your Mother" marathon.  I did my work, but in any gaps of time, I didn't think; I tuned out.  I was just living for the next chance to tune out again.  

Anyhow, over the last few days I feel like I've woken up.  Suddenly learning Chinese seems like a worthwhile, nay, necessary pursuit--I'm really tired of the same three dishes I know how to read on the menu.  I've figured out two more just today.  I'm looking forward to next week's lesson; I've got several ideas I can't wait to try.  I want to spend time with people.  I want to get busy figuring out a trip to take during the winter holiday.  I want to let myself think again.  

Culture shock and adjustment is an odd thing.  

Referring to Classes

It might make by blog posts a bit clearer if I go ahead and explain now how we
refer to classes here in China.  Unlike American colleges where each student
has their own separate schedule, students here are sorted into classes
according to their major.  There are six classes of Sophomore English majors,
each with between twenty and twenty-five students.  They are labeled 1101,
1102, etc.  The 11 is the year they entered the university, so freshmen this
year will be 1201, 1202, etc.; juniors would be 1001, 1002, 1003.

The students stay with this class through the four years in university; all of
their core classes and major courses are together.  Some choose different
electives or second majors/minors, but for the most part they share the same
schedule and spend quite a lot of time together--when a Chinese person refers
to their "classmate", they are talking about a person who is like a brother or
sister to them--many of them are roommates, besides having most classes
together.  So, a Chinese person means something quite different by classmate
than what we Americans would mean refering to someone we had a class with in
college.

Anyhow, I teach writing to classes 1103, 1104, and 1106, and Greek and Roman
Mythology to a class that's half 1101 half 1102 (presumably, there was some
alternative class they could choose).

Travel Advice: Laos

From Hanoi, I took an overnight bus to Vientiane, Laos.  Red leather reclining seats and all.  You can get a visa for Laos at the border, or at the airport if you fly in to either Vientiane or Luang Prabang. Vientiane, and Laos in general, are so relaxing.  Vietnam has eighty-eight million people; Laos has six. Most of Laos is still jungle. There is no fast food in the country; a whole country without a McDonald’s is a nice change! Even though Vientiane is the capital, it feels like a small town.  There’s the Patuxai monument, and a neighborhood with sophisticated shopping--Gucci, Dolce Gabbana, and such.  There’s several wats, and along the river (forming the border with Thailand; you’d think there’d be a convenient  border crossing here, but in fact, the closest place to cross into Thailand is several miles away), open-air restaurants are set up on the sidewalk nearly every night in good weather.  I had the best barbecue ribs I think I’ve ever had  at a western  restaurant a few blocks away from the river; after you’ve been in China awhile, you really crave barbecue! There’s nothing terribly exciting to do in Vientiane other than eat and wander, but it’s a nice place to take it easy for a couple of days.  

  

The most popular place to visit in Laos is Luang Prabang.  They do have a small airport there, or you can go by land.  The easiest  way by land is a ten-hour bus trip from Vientiane.  The scenery along the way was so good, though, that it didn’t seem long at all.  You pass rice fields, villages of straw huts where naked children bathe by the village pump, and finally wind up into the mountains.  If you are prone to motion sickness, do take some dramamine to Laos.  About half way you pass Vang Vieng, a backpacker town  famous for extreme sports (mountain climbing, rafting, etc.) but I didn’t stop there. Once you arrive at the bus station in Luang Prabang, you can get a little truck that carries six people to take you to Sakkaline Road, which is the main street  off of which there are a lot of hotels and such.  Some of the guesthouses are quite expensive, but if you look online first you should be able to find a simpler place on a side street that is reasonable.  

Luang Prabang itself is surprisingly western for being in the jungle of northern Laos. A lot of its architecture is from when Laos was part of the French colony of Indochina; it’s filled with boutique hotels and western restaurants.  However, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s in a beautiful spot on a peninsula of land where the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers meet.   At night, there’s a huge street market on Sisavangvong Road where you can buy wonderful souvenirs.  If you go down to the very tip of the peninsula and fight your way through the weeds on a little path down to the river bank,  you will find a boy waiting with a boat who will take you across  the Khan for about  5000 kips (very little).   On that side is a village of wooden houses, with a few shops selling  woven  scarves and such.  Not a whole lot to do, but nice just to get into a village area for a bit.   There are several wats and temples in town; definitely spend a bit of time to explore these--they’re absolutely beautiful.  One of them, Wat Xieng Thong, has exterior walls  that are gilded gold, and it was only a block off the main road.  There are several others  that are just as nice along Sakkaline Road and Sisavangvong Road (The same road, really, but the name changes along the way).  My only regret about my time in Luang Prabang is that I didn’t plan time to spend more time in the wats, especially Wat Chom Si, which is up on a hill and has a good view.  Before you enter a temple, you must leave your shoes outside the door.  

Since there are so many wats and monasteries, there are lots of monks, mostly young boys in training.  They all wear bright orange robes and have shaved heads, so they’re easy to pick out.  At a certain time early in the morning, I think around six, the townspeople line the streets and the monks, hundreds of them, file through in a line with their bowls.  The townspeople put sticky rice and other food into their bowls as they pass.  They are used to  foreigners coming out to watch, so long as they are respectful.  The monks are not supposed to talk during the procession, and it’s considered disrespectful to touch the monks or block their path.  

The best thing about Luang Prabang, though, is where you can go from there.  There are elephant sanctuaries in the jungle near town; you can go for an elephant ride or spend the day giving an elephant a bath in the river.  There are several waterfalls; I went to Kuang Si and it was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen; water cascading down a whole series of drops through the jungle; the water was sea green, and there were calmer pools down from the falls where you could swim in the icy cold water; there is a little hut with a couple of stalls for changing in down there.  Along the path to the waterfall you pass a sanctuary for Asiatic Black Bears, better known as moon bears, that have been rescued from poachers  There are villages of ethnic minorities; one sells their own kind of whiskey--each bottle has either a scorpion or a small snake  preserved in it.  It made a good gift  for my brother.  You can buy it at the night market, too.  You can take a long boat across the  Mekong to the Buddha Cave.  There’s plenty of other things, too.  You can rent a scooter for about $25-30  a day and get yourself to some of them, or hire a tuk-tuk if you have a few people to share the fare, or you can join a small group  van trip.  There are several places along the main road that offer these group trips; I took one with only four people.  Visit several and compare what they offer.  These trips are about $40 for a day, but they pack a lot in.    

Leaving Luang Prabang depends on where you’re going next.  Bus to Vientiane if you’re going that way, flights to various places, a boat down the Mekong to Thailand, or, what I did--a twenty-four hour sleeper bus back into China, to Kunming.  Do not take this route if you’re prone to motion sickness.  The first five hours were terrible--winding through and over the mountains on a barely paved road in a large bus, while on a bunk that I couldn’t sit up in.  I just had to hang on tight to the rails to keep from being thrown out of the bunk while  repeating over and over, “I will not be sick, I will  not be sick.”  After those first few hours, though, it was quite comfortable.  But, it makes a great story now!  

The Piano Guys

Alright, Lokey put this video up on facebook.  On a whim, I stopped and listened to it.  And there went my evening...I've been listening to The Piano Guys videos on YouTube for the past three hours.  Really good stuff...this one is my favorite, but there are several that I was really impressed with.  This is what I like most about the internet--the sharing of stories and talents and music and art that otherwise you'd never hear about. 


Coldplay - Paradise (Peponi) African Style (Piano/Cello) Cover - The Piano Guy

October 3rd: Fish for Sunday Dinner

 The long-awaited fall cool-down came to us over a week ago, but we haven't been able to enjoy it too much as it brought with it a solid week of drippy drizzling.  Today, however, was one of those crisp, clear, brilliantly sunny perfect fall days.  I wished I was hiking in the woods; the urge to be outdoors was nearly irresistible.

It was a good Sunday, following the normal pattern: in the morning, Rebecca, Season, and I headed over to Ron and Evelyn's house on the south campus for a morning meeting.  After the meeting, most weeks we all go out to eat together.  Eleven people gathered around two pushed-together tables in the small back room of a restaurant across from the south campus.  It was crowded, but the more the merrier when we can share good food with good friends.  The main dish was grilled fish.  We Americans tend to have quite a disconnect between animals and food--we buy our meat clean and packaged in plastic from Kroger's; it's easy to disassociate it from the animal it used to be a part of.  No such thing  here.  Just inside the doorway of the restaurant there was a tub of water with a board over top of it.  Jordan, one of the Chinese brothers, translated Ron's request for fish.  The restaurant owner lifted up the piece of plywood and plunged his hands into the murky tub, and came up with a squirming ten-pound fish.  "Bigger!"  So he dropped the first fish unceremoniously back into the water and scrambled for another.  The third pick met the requirements, so he tossed it over his shoulder onto the sidewalk by the door.  It gasped in the sun as we filed past to find a table.  The owner's daughter squeezed past us with a meat cleaver in hand.  Twenty minutes later, we had a perfectly grilled fish, with a marinade of onions and spices, in the center of our table. 

As everyone else settled in at the tables, Ron, Jordan, and I held a conference in the kitchen with the owner.  Jordan is Chinese, so he could write our order down for us--here, generally you write your own order on the pad of paper instead of the waitress doing it.  Ron has the idea that I'm good at ordering food, so I have now been promoted to the ordering committee at most meals.  My Chinese is still on a just-getting-by level, but I have learned how to say several of the normal dishes.  Today was a wonderful meal: besides the fish, we had a plate of sweet and sour pork, two plates each of eggplant and cabbage, potatoes and onions, scrambled eggs and tomatoes, lotus root, and a super-spicy version of chicken and peanuts.

Another Sunday dinner, a couple of weeks later than the one I'm talking about.  Of course, I should have got the shot before we ate all the food...

I spent the afternoon doing some stuff for BW's birthday, and then we had a meeting at Colonel and Kelly's at five.  The singing seemed especially wonderful today--several of my favorite songs.

June 22nd: Umbrella Weather

I've complained quite often, I know, about how rainy this spring has been.  Not, of course, that I have a problem with rain, but for weeks on end... I think, no, I know that sunlight really does affect my (and most people's) moods. 

And now that we're well into June, it's still umbrella weather.  However, it's a little different this time--it hasn't rained in day.  In my experience so far in life, umbrellas in June are a bit rare, as everyone chucks them into the closet (where they will inexplicably either disappear or develop bad turn-inside-out and stab-people-with-errant-spokes habits) as soon as the spring rain turns into beach weather.  Not in China!

I think I've seen more umbrellas out now that it's 95 and steamy than when it was drizzling and dismal.  And it's all because of the demands of fashion...

In America, and also in Europe, to a  slightly lesser degree, tanning is important.  We go to the beach, but oil on ourselves to attract rays, and get pink on purpose.  When I know I'm going to be in a sunny location, I wear a sleeveless shirt or roll my sleeves up to avoid tan lines.  My mother and I would sit out in the backyard with our legs in the sun, all to try to make ourselves just a bit darker.  Here, however, being pale is the thing.  My friend Shirley complained several times the other day about how she stayed out at a yard sale for several hours and got a bit darker--I told her it would fade in a couple of weeks, and she's counting the days.  So, on a sunny day, you walk down the street, and see...an ocean of umbrellas.  Shirley and  I made quite a pair at the bus stop--she had her umbrella held close, while I was holding my arms out to sun the other side.  We agreed that it's not fair--I want to tan, but remain one of the palest people around, not to mention burning if I try too hard, while she wants to be pale but turns darker without burning after just an hour in indirect sunlight.  However, I did try out the umbrella-thing for a while as I was holding Shirley's umbrella while she opened her yogurt, and it is cooler. 

It's been steamy hot here lately with temps in the nineties and high humidity, so it's certainly umbrella weather. 

In honor of umbrella weather, or what we like to call 'beach weather' if you're from North America, here's my ramblings on the topic of tanning/sunburns/etc:

Funniest sunburn story:

 One my college roommate and a friend were driving on the interstate from somewhere-or-other to Memphis, or vice-verse, in her 80-something model Cabriolet convertible (don't let the 'convertible' throw you--this was not a luxury car...).  It was one of the first hot days of late spring, so they decided to make the drive with the top rolled back and wind blowing.  However, about an hour short of their destination, there was a major accident and the whole side of the interstate was shut down.  Perfect tanning opportunity!  They were wearing tank tops and were ready to soak it in.  After forty-five minutes of parking on the road, they were finally able to move on. When they got back to the dorm later on that evening, I couldn't help but laugh.  They were moderately burnt--but, K had not realized that her tag was sticking up in the back, so she had a silhouette of the tag burned into her neck.  Even better, she had not thought to remove her seat belt, and so had a white stripe across the front.  It did fade after a couple of weeks...

Reminds me of how, back at band camp in high school (which, for those of you who didn't do the marching band thing, meant spending most of the day every day for a week in August on a blacktop parking lot), we used to make designs on our arms with SPF creme and thus "tattoo" symbols as we burned.

Learn from Someone Else's Pain:

Last summer, I got the worst sunburn of my life, totally from my own lack of foresight and preparation.  I was hiking up in the Tatra mountains in Southern Poland on a breathtakingly perfect day in July, and I don't know why it didn't equate in my mind that higher altitude = closer to the sun.  I think I might have put on just a bit of sun creme before leaving the hostel that morning, but sweated it off withing a half hour of hitting the trail, and I didn't even carry it along to reapply (although, in my defense, keeping the weight of your bag down while hiking is also important).  I have a picture of me taken around lunchtime, and it's obvious I was already turning pink (see picture).  You know it's bad when you can visibly see the burn while you're still out.  But, hindsight is 20/20... By about four o'clock I realized I had a serious burn going.  I was beginning to glow.  July or no, I spent the rest of the hike wearing a long-sleeve black sweater.  It was a little too late; I still ended up with severely blistered arms.  At least it was only my arms--I had taken the precaution of wearing long pants and a hat. 

The next morning I woke up in, I think, more pain than I have ever woken up in.  My arms were extra crispy to the point of being too stiff to lift, my darn hip (that I've had trouble with for years) was of course stiff from the exercise, and both knees were stiff and screaming at me from a fall I'd taken.  I was also a bit ticked off, as my dorm mates in the hostel had come in severely intoxicated at three am, and were now sprawled around sleeping naked, but that's that.  (By the way, I love and recommend hostels.  That was one of the very few annoyances I've ever encountered).  Anyhow, it was all worth it.  Getting to the top of a mountain is a euphoria that is worth an awful lot of pain the next morning.  But remember to get stronger SPF for high altitudes. 

October 12th in Athens

It is pretty warm here today.  I wore my cut-off capris.  I started out wearing flip-flops, but thought better of it and changed before we went up to the acropolis.

Our tour guide, Chrisoola (Chris for short), met use with the bus at Syntagma Square, and we took the tour of Athens.  The parliament building is right there on Syntagma.  We drove by the Prime Minister's house and the state gardens, and later the ruins of the Temple of Zeus on our way to the Acropolis. WE went up on the Acropolis and entered through the Propylaia.  The Temple of Athena Nike had been dismantled for restoration, so it wasn't even there.  We walked around the Parthenon and Erechtheum (see school journal for Western Humanities for details about them).

It was a perfect day to be there, because a ceremony was being held because it was the sixtieth anniversary of Greece's liberation in World War II.  I stood on a rock and watched a parade of sorts--a band in uniform played as the participants came by, and next to them was an honor guard n traditional Greek dress uniform.  Several men and women in suits came by first; I assume they were government officials.  A boy scout and girl scout troop went in the middle, and then a group of girls dressed in brightly colored old-fashioned costumes carried a huge flag.  The band and honor guard followed them down to a round overlook area at the edge of the cliff of the Acropolis.  There was a flagpole there, and they raised the flag and the speeches began.  I went on the the museum then since it was all in Greek anyhow.

The museum had many of the things that had been found on the acropolis as they've done restoration.  A lot of the friezes from the Parthenon are inside there (that haven't been taken off to the British Museum), and there are quite a few statues that were votive offerings. 

 From the acropolis, we went down just a little and then back up onto Mars Hill, the Aereopagus.  It's more like a second summit of the acropolis hill than a separate hil.  It is basically just a huge, craggy rock, with a good view of the city.  It looks out right over the old agora, with the stoa and the Hephaiston on either side. I expected more of a man-made, comfortable kind of place, but I can see how if people were sitting ont eh rocks at the top it would be a great place to sit and talk, in full view of both the city and the acropolis, yet out of the noise and bustle.  If someone stands on the flatter part near the edge, they have a good view of everyone, rather an amphitheater feel.  It's a good speaking place.   It was especially interesting to see because Paul spoke there.  Usually Dr. Taylor reads Paul['s sermon on Mars Hill from Acts while up there, but he forgot his Bible at the hotel. I took several pictures; I want to be able to show Papa and everyone what Mars Hill is like.

After that we walked own from the acropolis and ate lunch at an outdoor place in the Plaka area.  The first course was moussaka, which is mostly potatoes and ground beef put together something like lasagna.  Naturally, I didn't eat much of that, but someone else was glad to finish it for me.  I ate quite a bit of the bread, and there was a salad, and I ate some of my chicken, but it was very dry without any ketchup.  I know I'm a horrible. European. :)

After lunch, we went to the National Archaeological Museum.