Hellenic Legacy Scholarship 2010

On Saturday night, after almost 30 hours of flights and layovers, I arrived home. Since my arrival, my family has been begging to see some of the alleged cooking skills I acquired over the course of the semester, so today I made a trip to the grocery store. I wandered through the unfamiliar aisles, searching for items that I could have found blindfolded in the Carrefour on Αγίου Ιωάννου. Tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, filo, strained yogurt. The olives were $7.99 per lb. The feta was equally expensive, and looked hard and dry. The fava beans were nearly unrecognizable. I went to the check-out line and began to bag my groceries, but an employee walked up and took over the job.

I know that over time I will need to adjust a few aspects of my lifestyle. Unless I want to eat dinner alone, I probably need to bump my mealtime up by a few hours, and I’m not sure my American professors will appreciate it if I show up to class a traditional 5 minutes late. But other things I very much hope to adopt into my American life. Actually, I feel a sense of certainty that I will continue to eat more slowly, look around more often, and stop to say hello to friends no matter what, because this past semester has shown me that enjoying something is more important than finishing it, awareness is of more value than blind progress, and people are more important than just about anything.

I’m very thankful to be back with my friends and family, but my homecoming has been accompanied by a requisite sense of surreality. It’s crazy to think that a few days ago I was living in Residence 1 on Αθανασίου Διάκου, buying bus tickets at the περίπτερο down the street, and eating gyros whenever we were too lazy to cook. It’s crazy to be in a place where words like “ευχαριστώ” and “συγνώμη” aren’t part of the everyday fabric of my life and where foods that I’ve taken for granted over the past 3 1/2 months are on the international aisle at the grocery store. It’s crazy enough that I can’t help but think I’ll be back to Greece before too long.

A few of my favorite places in Athens…

1) The first two photos were taken from the top of Lycabettus Hill. I have been three or four times, and the 360° view of the city is simply unbeatable. The trip to the top is worth it at any time of day, but watching the sunset over the Aegean is particularly incredible.

2) This is, of course, a photograph of the Parthenon. However, the location I would like to highlight is Pnyx Hill, which is where I was when I took the photo. The Pnyx offers another unbelievable view of the city, but in an environment completely different from Lycabettus. The walk up the Pnyx feels more like a stroll through your neighbor’s backyard, as compared with the calorie-burning hike up Lycabettus. At it’s height, the hill is characterized by greenery, silence, and a breathtaking view of the Acropolis at night.

3) The National Gardens was only a recent discovery, and it has since become one of my favorite places in Athens. Surrounded by nature in the heart of downtown, you can wander along dirt and gravel paths and feel miles from city life.

4) Monastiraki Square is one of the few places that I’ve been to often enough to feel a sense of ownership. It is my square, in many ways, and when I walk out of the metro station into this bustling arena of Athenian life—fruit sellers displaying their wares, dancers and circus troupes entertaining crowds of passers-by, lone carts filling the air with the aroma of roasting chestnuts—I feel right at home.

Although Thanksgiving officially fell on Thursday, November 25^th this year, I don’t think that is the day I will remember when I look back on the Fall of 2010. I woke up at 3:30am Thanksgiving morning to head to the airport, where I boarded a plane to Munich, and then changed to a smaller plane that took me to Graz, Austria. From there, I was picked up by Sabine, the granddaughter of family friends, who drove me to the tiny town of Leibnitz. If she understood me correctly when I asked, the town has about 7,000 residents. She took me to her grandmother’s home—a place I last visited in 1997 when I was 8 years old—and I ate Frittatensuppe, Wienerschnitzel, and Cucumber Pumpkin Oil salad as I listened to Sabine and her grandmother, Ilse, speak in their Austrian dialect. They both emptied their plates well before me.

“It is too much food?” Ilse asked, turning to me.

“No, no I have just learned to eat much more slowly in Greece. Besides, it is good to eat a lot of food today, because today is Thanksgiving.” I tried to speak clearly, without contractions.

“Oh it is? Thanksgiving,” she said to herself, looking down as if trying to remember. “Ah with the big bird—how it is called…”

“Turkey,” I offered.

“Yes the turkey, I have seen on the television.”

“So I guess I should say, Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Ah yes. Happy Thanksgiving.”

I had a wonderful weekend with my family friends, but it wasn’t Thanksgiving. I think that when I look back on this semester, I will look to Wednesday, November 17^th as the Greek replacement of my favorite holiday. ACG did not hold classes that day, so originally I had planned to make another day trip. However, when I heard that our program had hired a professional chef to come in and give us a few pointers about Greek cooking, I knew that I needed to spend the afternoon in Aghia Paraskevi. All fourteen of us study abroad students gathered in one of the empty apartments on the first floor of our building as we watched the magic begin to happen. Admittedly, it’s difficult to cook with over a dozen people in the kitchen, so only a few of us got our hands dirty while the rest talked, played cards, and generally relaxed. I for one kept going back and forth between the two groups. I would grate a cucumber, then play a round of Nertz, then fry a few meatballs, then karaoke to an N*SYNC song…or something along those lines.

After about an hour, the meal was ready and we all piled our plates high and sat around a long table, gorging ourselves on roasted lamb, Greek salad, meatballs, turopita, bread, and tzatziki in traditional Turkey Day fashion. Even though it was only the 17^th of November and I knew that I would miss my family terrible when Thanksgiving actually came, sitting in that apartment as sunlight streamed through the window and I enjoyed the company of these students who have become good friends somehow made it ok.

As much as I prefer to live in a state of denial, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that I don’t have very many weekends left here. In light of this realization, two friends and I decided to take advantage of our free Saturday, so we hopped on a train to Corinth. After taking a cab to the ancient ruins, we wandered around the little museum on site, waiting for our unofficial tour guide. As it turns out, our Archaeology professor lives in Corinth, so when we told her we were going, she offered to come guide us through everything. I don’t think it was until about halfway through the morning that I realized how cool it was to be given a private tour of an ancient Greek city by a real archaeologist. She led us through the museum and the ruins, stopping every so often to ask us questions about various artifacts, and helping us to make connections between what we saw and the things we’ve learned in class. Although we’ve since moved on to studying Rome, we spent the first half of the semester studying daily life in Athens during the 5^th century BC, and many aspects of the Corinthian forum/agora corresponded with things we’ve talked about. For example, as we walked across the Roman forum, she asked us to think about what function the site must have served before the Greek city had been conquered by the Romans. We needed a couple of hints, but when our professor pointed out how flat the ground was, and then drew our attention to some cuts in the stone where runners would have put their feet, we concluded that the Greeks must have used the area for races.

After wandering through the main site, our professor went home and we took a taxi up to the entrance of the Acrocorinth, an ancient fortress overlooking the city. The hike from the entrance to the top of the hill was pretty strenuous—compounded by the fact that we got there 40 minutes before it closed, so we had to move pretty fast—but the view was unbelievable. Somewhere along the way, we got adopted into a tour group of Bulgarian Orthodox priests, which certainly didn’t take away from the experience. We were led by a hyperactive guide who alternated between begging us to move faster and beseeching us not to run and fall off the cliff. We followed our guide faithfully, trying to match his breakneck speed, stopping whenever he turned his head to take in the majesty all around us.

According to Greek mythology, when Zeus wanted to discover the center of the earth, he employed the help of two eagles. He released one eagle from the far East and another from the far West, and watched to see where they would meet. They came together in Delphi, and that is why this majestic location was considered the navel of the ancient world.

Most people, however, think of the Oracle of Delphi before they call to mind eagles or bellybuttons. Here stood one of the most sacred temples of Apollo where his priestess, or Pythia, would deliver the messages of the god. As the story goes, Apollo slew the Python that once guarded the sacred stone of Delphi, and when the body of the serpent began to decompose, it released fumes which the Pythia would inhale. In this trance state, Apollo could inhabit the body of the young girl and relay messages to his followers.

There was certainly a mystical aura inhabiting the locale of our third and final study abroad excursion. The sky was overcast and the air was heavy, perhaps with the sheer amount of history which had transpired in that space. As our tour guide told us these stories, she always included an Enlightenment addendum complete with modern scientific explanations for these ancient phenomena—ethylene concentrated gases rising up from a deep crack in the earth, inducing a trance when inhaled. I appreciated getting the full picture, but as I hiked the switchbacks up Mt. Parnassus, watching the gray skies give way to pure blues, I preferred to imagine myself surrounded by the myth.

“Poverty is the mother of the arts.” —Greek Proverb

There is really only one American treat that the other girls and I have been craving since we got here: chocolate chip cookies. The problem is that a few key ingredients for this classic recipe are difficult (impossible?) to find in Greece. The search began a few weeks ago, and was energized when I found brown sugar hiding on a corner shelf of our small grocery store. Then, my roommate’s mom came to visit last week and brought vanilla with her. Only one ingredient remained: chocolate chips. While this is arguably the most important component of a chocolate chip cookie, I came to accept the fact that they are nowhere to be found in this country. However, I did not see this as the end. Rather than admit defeat, I decided it was time to pull on all my collegiate resourcefulness and make a plan: bake the cookies without chocolate chips, and drizzle warm Nutella over them right when they come out of the oven. Needless to say, they were as delicious as they look (more, if possible.)  I think I’m almost glad that chocolate chips haven’t made it across the pond.

On Saturday evening, after our time in Thessaloniki, Sarah and I got on our first Greek train and headed to Meteora. We were met at the Καλαμπάκα train station by a trilingual cab driver—“Sprichst du Deutsch? Habla espanol? Μιλάς ελληνικά;—who had been sent by the Arsenis Pension House, our home for the evening. After a brief drive up winding mountain roads, I stepped out of the taxi and my gaze was drawn immediately to the unbelievable sky full of stars. In the moment, I wished that I remembered more from the Ancient Greek Astronomy class I took last semester, but constellations and science escaped me as I stared at the swirling radiance above me.

We walked inside to find something more like a living room than a lobby, complete with the fireplace I had been craving ever since we’d been exposed to the colder northern climate. Κώστας, the owner of Arsenis, greeted us with ham and cheese sandwiches, Turkish delight, and a map of the monasteries. Sarah and I planned out how we could see as much as possible in the short time we were there, and talked with another traveler who was sitting by the fire.

As we meandered up and down the paths leading to the monasteries, stopping every few minutes to stare at the seemingly endless array of mountains, Sarah and I talked about the different ways people experience places. It all began when she mentioned that she “isn’t much of a museum person,” so we tried to figure out what kind of people we are. It turns out I experience places in a few main ways: 1) people, 2) nature, 3) food, 4) adventure. As far as people are concerned, if I meet someone new or even just have a good conversation with an old friend, I consider my time well spent. People are unique. If I learn something from someone in Meteora, I know the situation couldn’t have been duplicated anywhere else, and therefore the setting is consecrated, in a way. Nature and food come next. There are few better ways to spend time, in my opinion, than taking a couple hours over a good meal—particularly if it’s local cuisine. And I have trouble believing that everyone doesn’t fall in love with stars, sunsets, and mountain landscapes. The final category, adventure, is admittedly a catch-all. Basically it means doing anything off the beaten path, away from tourist sites, and without planning. Exploring, getting lost, and finding hidden treasures fall into this category.

Discovering what kind of traveler I am means I don’t have to waste my time seeing popular sites just because I feel a strange sense of obligation, or spending hours in a museum because that sounds like a more intellectual activity. I can do the things that I know will help me connect with a place, and leave feeling satisfied.

A few more pictures from the weekend.

On October 28, 1940, Greek Prime Minister Ιωάννης Μετάχας received an ultimatum from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stating that Greece must allow occupation by Italian troops or face war. Μετάχας replied with one word: όχι. Although his refusal marked Greece’s entrance into World War II, October 28th has been celebrated as a national holiday ever since.

Last Thursday, because we had the day off, my friend Sarah and I decided we needed to go on an adventure. Ever since I finished reading Eleni by Nicholas Gage—a story which takes place primarily in the mountain villages of the Mourgana range—I have been itching to see northern Greece, so we bought our bus tickets and made our way to Thessaloniki.

Although we only spent 2 1/2 days in Greece’s second largest city, I left feeling very well acquainted with it. Maybe it’s because it’s nearly impossible to get lost in a city built sloping up from the waterfront—where walking uphill or downhill is as indicative of North or South as any compass or map. Maybe it’s because we visited the same bakery three times in two days. Whatever the case, as I walked along the old wall up to the Άνω Πόλη or Upper City—the same road that the Apostle Paul walked to bring the gospel to the Thessalonians almost 2,000 years ago—and as I sat surveying the entire city from wall to water on the empty veranda of Άγιος Παύλος—a quiet, marble haven seemingly miles from the sound of any car or motorbike—I couldn’t help but feel that Thessaloniki and I had become old friends.

It’s time for another update on the cooking ventures of apt. #302. Over the past few weeks we have completed three more of our unofficial culinary goals:

1) On my second day in this country, we took a tour of Αγία Παρασκευή. One of the shops we passed sold fresh seafood, and I vowed to go there at some point and learn how to cook fish. Admittedly, I under bought on the fish and over prepared for the topping (looking at the finished product, it was a challenge to actually see that meat was involved in any way), BUT it was absolutely delicious, so no regrets. (Ingredients: tomato, orange/yellow pepper, onion, garlic, olives, feta, fresh parsley, salt, pepper, olive oil, white wine. I may have forgotten a few things, but that’s the basic idea.)

2) When people ask me what my favorite thing about Greece is, I have a really hard time replying something other than “tzatziki.” It’s not that I’m not enamored by the culture, history, landscape, people, etc. It’s just that I really, really love tzatziki. Anyway, I’m afraid I won’t be able to find any as good when I get back to the States, so I’m learning how to make it myself. This first attempt was ok, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. (Ingredients: Greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic, fresh dill/parsley, salt, pepper, lemon juice)

3) My first encounter with Dolmades was actually in Chicago’s Greektown, and it was one of the most delicious experiences of my life. My own batch was edible, but far from where I wanted it to be. The αυγολέμονο sauce was something of a disaster, and overall they were somewhat flavorless. (Ingredients for the filling: ground pork, rice, spearmint, parsley, oregano, onion, garlic, salt, pepper)

If anyone has any suggestions about how to improve these dishes (particularly the last two), I would greatly appreciate it!