March 13

This morning I did wake up early and beat the rush to the kitchen. Just as I was sitting down to my prepared oatmeal, Emily walked into the kitchen. I was already out of the way of her cooking space, so we each easily got our breakfasts made. The kitchen at the hostel isn’t too small, but it is difficult for two people to cook different meals at the same time. I spent the 45 mins after breakfast going over our art book, paying particular attention to the items that are housed in the Athens National Archaeological Museum, the first place we were going to today. That was a cool time: studying up on these famous works in our art books because I was about to go see them personally.
We left the hostel at 7:45 to beat the crowds at the museum, especially the school groups (they tend to be huge, noisy groups that cluster all around the best pieces – at least we aren’t loud). Our guide for the museum was Jennifer Niles. She did a great job explaining the best objects on display, and we ended up spending well over three hours there. Dr. Toumazu, another Davidson professor in the Classics department, is in Greece for a few days, and met us at the museum. Krentz had him show us the Mycenaean exhibit after Jennifer’s tour. Everything was very interesting and I took down lots of great notes, but the day would have been so much better had we had a break after this museum. But because we had another guide to show us around the Epigraphical Museum, we headed there next.
This museum houses the largest collection of ancient inscriptions in the world. I think Molly, our guide, said there were over 100,000 inscriptions in this museum. She showed us some of the more interesting ones, but all of them were relevant to everything we are studying, especially our readings in Herodotus. It is a requirement for a Classics major to get to the intermediary level in at least one of the two languages, Latin and Greek, and at least the beginner level in the other.( I have reached the intermediary level in Latin and will be taking Greek 101 in the fall, fyi.) So she had us try our best at the best preserved inscriptions, though she knows we have been taught only one dialect of ancient Greek (Ionian). I only got to put my skills to the test once, when she showed a newer (relatively) inscription that dates to the Roman period.
By 1:30pm we were finished with the day’s outings and we were free to spend the rest of the day as we pleased. I stopped by the produce market to see what looked good and picked up a head of cauliflower and a tomato. I reheated some of my pasta and sauce for lunch and cooked up a nice big bowl of cauliflower. After lunch I used this extra time to take a nap. Oh the joys of napping. I always took naps at Davidson, but they are nearly impossible to take on this trip. Sarabeth and Mary were thinking the same thing and they napped as well. It felt like The Napping House (a great book my mom used to read to me).
After some much needed sleep I got back to my reading. Getting my reading done proved to be a bit harder than normal. I guess since we had so much more time today than we normally do, I didn’t feel the pressure to get it finished all that quickly. Also, there isn’t all that much assigned for tomorrow, so I knew when I eventually got around to reading it, I wouldn’t be spending that much time. So I flipped through a German celebrity magazine, hung out in the kitchen and chatted some more with Christian, made myself some dinner, but prepared and ate each part individually: salad, then rice, then bananas on toast, and then talked with Allie as she made and then ate her dinner. After 4 hours, my 30 page reading was finished, but I had spent the afternoon and evening talking and cooking, so I consider it a successful and productive time.
Tomorrow is another 7:45 morning, so I will try and get up early again.