A Little Worried About Your Future?

It's college graduation season again, and I'm finding it hard to believe that it's been one whole year since I myself graduated. However, now that I'm one of these Real World residents instead of a college student, I feel it necessary to share what I have learned in my first year since college. I feel that this is especially necessary because I am also kind to trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with myself next year, and it makes me feel better if I can give sage advice to someone, anyone. So, without further adieu, here are five important things to keep in mind:

1) Everyone talks about the real world as though it were a horrible, horrible place where all of your dreams will be crushed and you will miss college forever. This is not true. Look at me; I do various jobs and still have time to read books, write all different things, get the ocassional eight hours of sleep and obsess over my cat. I did not have time for any of that at college.

2)If you majored in English and you think your major is useless, move to a foreign country where they do not speak English, and suddenly you will feel more useful. If you don't want to move to a foreign country but you still feel your major is worthless, you are wrong. English is not the least useful major out there, not by a long shot. Just think of all those people who majored in Classics and Philosophy.

3) Read books for fun, and watch movies, but don't read books or watch movies that try to make points about the futility of life by depicting promising young people who destroyed their lives and never came to anything and ended up homeless on the street.

4) Always remember that you never have to eat dining hall food again. You may have to get up early in the morning, and you may have to clean your own toilet, and you may have no money, and you may feel lost, confused and scared. But you never have to eat dining hall food again.

5) People are going to try to give you lots of advice. They have probably already been trying to give you advice for months or even years. Maybe you have even been asking them for advice, but they are probably giving it whether you are asking for it or not. They are popping out of the woodwork shouting things like "College is the best time of your life! The best time of your life is OVER!" and "You should really start to think about law school" and "you should really start to think about getting a PhD," and "You should NOT become a teacher," and "You should DEFINITELY become a teacher." People that you hardly know are coming up to you and asking you "what now?" and you shrug, and they say "Starbucks," and "Journalism" and "Plastics!" People are saying "It's awfully hard to make friends out there in the real world" and "You're going to be in a long distance relationship? Why? You realize you're DOOMED, right? DOOMED! It won't last a week and you'll end up lonely FOREVER!" People are giving you books with titles like "The Post-College Survival Guide" and "How To Go From Liberal Arts Grad to Millionaire in Five Years" and "How To Not Live In A Carboard Box on Broadway." If you are thinking about just relaxing and getting a job at Barnes and Nobles, people are telling you "You're overqualified for that! Don't do it!" If you really don't want a job at Barnes and Nobles, people tell you "What, do you think you're too good for an honest job? Kids these days are so spoiled!" If you tell people that you want to become a famous best-selling novelist they laugh and say "Get a grip on reality!" If you tell them you don't think you'll ever be a best-selling novelist they tell you "Follow your dreams!" Eventually, all of this will bombard you to the point where you want to cry or vomit or curl up in a little ball in the corner and cover you ears and scream "LALALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" or all three.

You should feel free to ignore all of these people. Including me.

In Which I'm Crazy, But Not As Crazy As That Guy

I recently read an article in the New York Times about trapped cats. The article explained that New Yorkers have a history of going to great lengths in order to remove cats who have become stuck in various places, in cases spending thousands of dollars to knock down walls to get out the animals. The article also quoted some urban specialist, who analyzed the situation by explaining that while people in cities are fairly used to seeing human suffering, they are not used to seeing animals suffer. Thus, we ignore homeless people, walk nonchalantly past crime scenes where bodies are being removed, and freak out completely when we hear a few meows.
This is true. Absolutely one hundred percent true. I know because my cat was neutered on Tuesday and I have spent the past forty-eight hours panicking over her. I am panicked when she runs around because I am afraid she will hurt herself or infect her stitches. When she is asleep, I check periodically to make sure she is still breathing. When I noticed some drops of blood coming from her stitches, I called the vet in tears.
This is not the beginning of my cat insanity. I talk to her a whole lot more than I speak to some people who are actually capable of speech. That's the beauty of it, actually; she never disagrees with me. She does meow a lot, but I can interpret that in any way I want; it could mean 'Yes, feed me!" or "I completely agree, the Bush administration seriously needs to go," or "I agree, you should go back to bed."
However, my craziness was put into serious perspective last week when I saw the film Grizzly Man, a recent documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a man who spent thirteen summers of his life living among wild bears in remote parts of Alaska. Not only did he live with them, he also videotaped them, photographed them, and videotaped himself talking about them. All of this footage came in handy two years ago, when he and his female companion were eaten by a particularly nasty Grizzly, right at the end of their expedition.
My first thought upon hearing Treadwell talk to a Grizzly Bear was "oh my god, that sounds just like me talking to my cat." It did, too. He turned to the giant hulking beast and murmured things like "I love you, you cutie, I love you sooo much! Now, be a good girl and go catch that fish! Yes, that's a good girl!" The bear, sadly, did not give nearly as good as response as Calypso does. She didn't even growl in return, just sort of sauntered along on feet wider than my waist.
I should clarify that Treadwell wasn't doing any sort of scientific research out there on the tundra, just kind of chilling and communing with the bears while making sure there weren't any poachers around. He did some educational work with schoolkids during the winters, for which he deserves credit. However, for the most part, the bears were more of a really, really esoteric life-consuming hobby than an actual study. Whether he should have been out there, well, that's the central question of the whole film, and I'll let you investigate that one by yourself. But I would not have been out there, that's for sure.
I assumed Treadwell was, at least, a person raised in the wilderness, a person who had cultivated his love for nature and wildlife during birth, who felt so at home among animals that he felt the need to risk and lose life and limb to protect his home. That's what I thought. And then I found out he was from Long Island. Most of the native Alaskans interviewed in the film appear to regard the Bears with affection, but also trepidation and distance, just as I would regard a fellow passenger on the subway. You coexist, but you don't interact. It takes a wacked out Long Islander to go jump in the river with them and console a bear who has been scratched-up in a mating fight with his own dating woes. And it takes a small town native to approach an urbanite on the nine train and try to make conversation about the weather.
And those are my thoughts on the subject. They have nothing to do with Greece, whatsoever, but then again, I never said I would only write about Greece, did I? Nope, I just said that I'm Emily IN Greece, which I am. In Greece, watching my cat recuperate and thanking myself for choosing a country that does not have Grizzly Bears. Besides, based on that fact that I generally get about 500% more comments on my cat-related updates than my Greece-related ones, I think I am not the only crazy one in the blog world.

In Which the Bus is Full of Petty Criminals

Once again, I have put off my planned posts about the rest of my vacation to tell you about some irritating occurences that have taken place recently.
The first irritating occurence took place before vacation even began; the day before, to be exact. I was coming back from dowtown with a bag of groceries and other supplies, and I grabbed the bus on Egnatia to head back to my apartment in the dorm.
Well, the bus was its usual self that day, which is to say packed beyond all belief. I got on the back door, toting all my supplies. Now, you have to understand something about the Thessaloniki transit system; rarely does anyone actually make you pay. You do pay, at least I do, because I want to be a good citizen and because there's always the threat of a bus inspector coming by to check your ticket and fine you if you do not have one.
Well, on this particular day I was separated from the ticket machine by a solid mass of human flesh. With several kilos of kitty litter tucked between my knees and my shoulders tucked between so many people I could barely breathe, I decided well, to hell with it. I wasn't going to make it to the ticket machine without a struggle and it wasn't worth it, seeing as how the ticket inspector comes around about once per millenium.
It was just my luck that the ticket inspector came along ten minutes later and slapped me with a fifteen Euro fine for failing to purchase a ticket. So now I'm a criminal. I wonder if I should have explained the conundrum of the inaccessible ticket machine, but how the hell do you say "inaccessible ticket machine" in Greek?
As irritating as that incident was, I now have a story tht annoys me even more. Now determined to have my tickets ready beforehand, I purchased a book of ten yesterday before boarding the bus, which was once again packed like a sardine can. No, excuse me, packed tighter than one of those cans with the springy worms in them that pop out and hit people in the face when you open the top. I've said it before, but the New York subway has nothing on my Thessaloniki bus when it comes to crowded-ness.
I stuck my tickets in the back pocket of my purse, zipped up the back pocket of my purse, and boarded the bus. I then proceeded, in typical neurotic New York style, to clutch my purse tightly to me, and to look back and check it every few moments. I had the front flap, which covered the zippered compartment with my valuables inside, against my body. After a long and sweaty ride, I arrived back at school.
It was that evening, as I was standing at the downtown-bound bus stop with coworker Brad, that I discovered something. The back pocket of my purse had been unzipped, and my bus tickets were gone.
Now, I hate that people steal, but I can at least understand the thinking that would cause someone to take a wallet. I mean, one snatch from a handbag and you've got cash, fake ID, and a credit card with which you can repair to the nearest Circuit City and purchase thousands of dollars worth of electronics. I know this is possible, because this is exactly what some jerk did to me on the New York subway last October. Never carry an open tote bag, is my advice to you, especially if three and a half years in Iowa has made you a dangerously trusting human being.
(On a more positive note, I will say that the NYPD was amazingly persistant in looking for the perpetrator. They actually tried to track down the security video from Circuit City, and called me repeatedly in Iowa to ask for the details. )
Anyway, stealing a wallet is low and crummy, but it does at least reward the thief with money and valuables. Bus tickets on the other hand, reward the theif with nothing more than nine sweaty rides on the damn bus, which is hardly an extraordinary thing to be wished for. In all, the thief got away with four Euros and fifty cents worth of goods. Is it really worth becoming a criminal for that?
I don't know why I am complaining about the pathetic nature of this crime; I'm awfully glad he or she didn't get away with my wallet or iPod. But I hope the theif, wherever he or she is, spends his or her nine free rides packed in like a sardine, and I hope there's some really smelly person next to him or her, and I hope he or she gets banged by the opening doors a few times, and I hope he or she loses the tickets halfway through their trip, and the bus inspector comes along. just then. That would be karma.

How Is Photosynthesis Going For You?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you these important news briefings:

First, Emily is beginning to think she has spent too much time in the dorm. I came to this conclusion this morning, when I awoke from a horrible nightmare in which I was taking an English Language Proficiency Test and failing horribly. The test consisted of one word; 'hegemony'. I couldn't for the life of me remember what 'hegemony' meant, and I was sweating and panicking and shuffling through sheets and sheets of papers, none of which gave me any help. I also remember running to the bathroom and splashing water on my face in a desperate attempt to wake myself up, but I just ran out of time. Also, it was the same bathroom that I remember clearly from Xavier High School in Brooklyn, where I took the SATs.

Second, I think we just had an earthquake. I was sitting here in my apartment, like I do, and suddenly there was a great shaking sensation, kind of like the feeling you get when the subway passes underneath the sidewalk you are standing on, but a really BIG subway train. Anyway, I'm fine, everything's fine, but the school bells were ringing like mad and all the kids came out for an earthquake drill, which is kind of like a fire drill in that everyone stands outside for a while.

Third, I must share this unique dorm experience from last night. Some nights in the dorm are calm and unextraordinary. Last night was not one of those nights.

8pm I arrive in the dining hall for the beginning of my shift in the dorm. While eating spaghetti I converse with a diverse group of kids, including an International Baccalaureate student and an inquisitive set of Greek eighth graders. It was a routine dinner chat, in which the IB student told us all about her previous experience in another boarding school. This led to a conversation about boarding schools around the world, and many a Harry Potter reference was made. When one of the eighth graders remarked that he has a classmate who cries when she doesn't get 100% on every test, I laughed and said "Oh, that's so silly!"
"Why?" he wanted to know.
"Because," I explained. "There's more to life than school! Some extremely succesful people have even flunked out of school."
He looked scandalized. "So," he asked, nervously, "Are there people who do really well in school and are not successful in life?"
"Well, sure."
"Who?" This appeared to be earth-shattering news.
"Well," I said, "I don't know. They aren't necessarily famous people."
The poor kid looked a little stunned, and I felt bad for him. It's so easy, when you're in middle school, to think that your eighth grade test scores are going to have such a huge influence on your entire life. It's so easy, when you're in high school, to think that your SAT scores are going to determine everything. If only that were true. I did damn well on the SATs. And what are they good for now? They give me horrible dreams about hegemony.
The other bit of information I gleaned from this conversation was that in Greek, someone who studies too much (a Hermione Granger sort, to continue the Harry Potter train of thought) is called a "plant" because they don't ever move, just sit and study. Apparently, if you want to tease a Greek who is too studious, you say "So, how is photosynthesis going for you?" I think this is perhaps the most hilarious thing I have heard all year.
But anyway, on to the real excitement of the evening.
At 9:30 I was in the dorm office, helping a seventh grader with English homework, when the phone rang. The caller wanted to speak to one of my co-workers, and I went to retrieve him from the dining room, where he was the study hall proctor.
I stood in the dining room for a few minutes while my co-worker went to answer the phone, and I suddenly heard a big CRASH-BANG above me, as if something had crashed through the roof, but was still above the ceiling. The crash-bang was following by a scampering sound, which moved around the ceiling for several moments. I seemed to be the only one who was alarmed by this, however.
Ten minutes later I was continuing with English homework when I heard a loud burst of giggles and gasps from the dining hall. Seventh Grader and I decided to investigate, and observed the other dorm advisor standing a chair banging on the ceiling. "Mouse," he explained.
Five minutes later we heard ANOTHER bang and returned to find a ceiling tile in pieces on the floor and my c0-worker peering into the ceiling. No mouse was retrieved, and the ceiling tile was replaced.
Study hall ended soon after, but there was still something running around up there."Too big to be a mouse," one kid told me. "Must be a cat." "I thought it got electrocuted," another kid remarked. "It walked over the light, and the light flickered."However, it was definitely still alive, as the next fifteen minutes involved a series of middle schoolers running in circles through the dining hall, following the scampering noises from one side of the room to the other. It was well after ten when the intruder was actually spotted through a skylight, and a fifteen year old pointed and shrieked "IT CHICKEN! IT CHICKEN!"
Immediately, the word spread that we had a chicken (κοτοπουλο) in the ceiling. I have not seen many chickens on the premises, and suspected it might be a different sort of bird. However, 'chicken' stuck, and kids started shrieking things about avian flu. I tried to get everyone to vacate the premises and leave some experienced person to get the chicken out of the ceiling, but the entire scene proved too exciting to abandon.

In the end, I don't know what happened to the intruder; I was too busy putting kids to bed to watch the events unfold. I assume it was either removed or found its way out. I'm just thanking myself that it wasn't a repeat of the last time a wayward animal wandered into the dorm; that particular creature is currently sitting in my window, possibly on the lookout for "chickens".

In Which I Acquaint Myself With Pottery, Commerce, and Tasteless Objects of Every Description

This picture from Athens amuses me greatly. I have no explanation for it, except that tourism crosses all borders and cultural boundaries.
Anyway, I departed from Monemvasia on the 2:15 bus to Athens, which arrived at 2:35. I was the only one on the entire bus, and I settled down for a long ride, as my five days of travel had landed me almost at the tip of of the Peloponnese itself. For those of you unfamilar with Greek geography, I had basically spent five days working my way south, until I was almost as far south as it is possible to get without landing on an island. Athens was five hours north. I had decided to return there for a day before heading back to Thessaloniki; I wanted to a chance to see some of the things I had missed during my previous trip.
I had only been riding the bus for half an hour or so when they announced that I had to get off and get onto an adjacent bus in an unknown town somewhere. I did so. An hour later, they announced that once again, I needed to disembark, and get on bus number three. This brought my total bus tally for my trip up to the lucky number thirteen, where it finally ceased. When I had climbed onto my final bus for the day, I relaxed and congratulated myself on not forgetting or losing anything important throughout my entire Peloponnesian adventure. Half an hour later I realized my Lonely Planet book had disappeared. I cursed myself, realizing it must have been left on northbound bus number two, and I lacked many of the phone numbers and little itty bits of paper that I had written important things on and shoved between the pages. However, it was hardly a complete tragedy. After all, Lonely Planet just came out with a new edition, and rightfully so; my old book kept saying things like "The Athens transportation system is due to change in 2004, rendering all information here invalid." Of course, most things due to change in 2004 (such as the eradication of the Kifisou bus station) have not occurred, as this is Greece. But I did spend some time wondering. Well, the book served me well enough that I shouldn't complain; ancient sites hardly move around much.
Anyway, I arrived in Athens safe and sound, planted myself in the youth hostel in Plaka, and grabbed dinner at the first place I found, as I was exhausted. I must say, I do appreciate the existence of youth hostels when they are available, and I rather miss them in Greece. This nation is significantly cheaper than other parts of Europe that I have travelled through, but staying alone in hotels did raise the prices slightly. In Athens, I shared a room with three English majors from a small college in Iowa (I swear, I am not making this up) and spent very little money on accomodation.
The next morning I was off to the archeological museum, where I saw all of the gold from Mycenae, a fitting way to end my trip. I also saw a whole lot of sculptures, including a rather famous bronze one of Zeus that I remember seeing pictures of in high school art history class, and some beautiful pottery. I must say, I was particularly taken with the pottery. I have seen Greek pottery before, but not in such vast quantities or in such an appropriate context. I particularly like the black and red designs, which seem to come largely from the Athens/Attiki area. The figures are all beautifully painted, and very human; they are depicted doing anything from dancing to doing laundry to getting married.

Here's a vase painted with a picture of Sappho, a fragment of a pot covered with dancing nymphs, and a scene with two lovers that comes from a beautiful plate.
I wanted to purchase some postcards of pictures from the pottery; my camera hadn't quite done justice to some of the images, even when I crouched down closely and tried not to let my hand waver. However, I was quite disappointed to learn that the gift shop did not sell much of that sort of thing. In fact, the gift shop itself was something of an experience. I stumbled into it by mistake, thinking I had entered another gallery, when I realized that I was looking upon an exact replica, albeit slightly smaller, of the aforementioned Bronze Zeus. I wondered why they would keep a copy if the original was right upstairs; but then I noticed the price tag. As it turns out, you can buy your very own life size bronze Zeus for only four thousand Euro.
Four thousand Euro. I haven't made that much money since my arrival in Greece. That's enough Euro coins to fill my bathtub. I could take in the entire cat population of Pylea for that sum, not that I need any more felines in my life. I could not quite fathom why anyone would want their own life-size bronze Zeus. However, I was soon to discover that Athens contains a myriad of purchasing opportunities, many of which are similarly baffling prospects.
My next stop, you see, was the market, a vast area full of twisting and turning streets, where numerous merchants sell anything from antiques to lamb intestines to pistachios. There are some worthwhile things to buy there, of course, and I did purchase a skirt for myself and a hanging lamp for my sister, but I did not find any postcards with desirable pottery images on them. I did find postcards with cats on them and postcards with pornographic pottery images on them. I guess that tells me something about humanity, but it's nothing I didn't know already.
I soon moved on to another market, this one more ancient in nature. The agora, located in the foothills of the acropolis, was closed during my last trip to Athens, but it was open this time. I wandered about and examined the ancient columns still standing, and tried to imagine in some of the vendors that I had seen that morning, advertising their animal innards and dried fruit with vehemence. It's much quieter than the modern market nowadays, but you can see plenty of real Greek cats, rather than looking at them on postcards. Graphic sexual paintings were NOT available, however, so if that's what you're looking for, stick to the souvenir shops.
Speaking of souvenir shops, that's what I spent much of my afternoon doing; perusing souvenir shops in Plaka. This was mostly due to time constraints and exhuastion, which prevented me from straying too far from my hostel before I caught my flight north. I did not actually want to purchase very much at these stores, as I am not endowed with vast resources of disposable cash, and growing up in New York has made me skeptical of souvenir shops. (Come on, that twenty-dollar statuette of King Kong on the Empire State building is not really going to improve your life, is it? It's definitely not going to improve your image in the eyes of New Yorkers.) However, I entertained myself by playing a fun little game entitled "Find the Tackiest Object". In the running for the prize were T-shirts that showed Socrates drinking hemlock (because killing free thinkers is something to be proud of!), ouzo bottles shaped like various mythological figures (because Aphrodite liked anise), ouzo bottles shaped like various naked mythological figures (because Americans like anise better when it is topless), and massive imitation statues of all shapes and sizes (because that is going to look really classy in your living room, especially next to that bronze Zeus.)
Just to give you a taste of the various tasteful objects I could bring home with me, here are some pictures, consisting of two dazzling light fixtures, the previously depicted, mysteriously out-of place-garment, and an ironically appropriate accessory for the smoker in your life.



My parents are not overjoyed about the idea of my cat coming home with me, but I bet they would be even less enthusiastic if the cat came along with an electric topless nymph.
I did make one purchase in Athens; olive oil. I bought some very nice Cretan olive oil, which I placed in my bag and promptly forgot about. An hour later, I headed to the airport, where I boarded an extraordinarily cheap Aegean Air flight to Thessaloniki, and forgetfuly checked the bag with the olive oil in the bottom. I arrived at the baggage claim to find that my bag and many of the contents were irreparably saturated, or perhaps marinated would be a better way of saying it. Glass bottles don't do well in luggage compartments. Remind me of that next time. I'm still scrubbing the olive oil out of my bag and even off the floor of my apartment, where the bag first landed on my arrival home.

Up Next: Easter, The Inner Organs of Beast and Fowl, Baklava Ice Cream, and The City That Never Sleeps, not even at three o'clock in the afternoon.

In Which I Have Several Bus-Related Mishaps, See Several Byzantine Cities, and A Lot of German Tourists

Where was I? Where am I? I've been in so many places lately that the past two weeks feel more like four. I'll get to it all eventually, I suppose, but for now I'll start where I left off; as I departed from Nafplio on Sunday afternoon two and a half weeks ago.
I was headed to Sparti, formerly known as Sparta, the ancient rival of Athens. Unfortunately, there are no direct Nafplio-Sparti buses, so I found myself transferring in the town of Tripoli. Just to make things confusing, Tripoli has two bus stations. There's the new, fancy local bus station, where buses from all over the prefecture of Argolis arrive and depart, and the tiny, hidden, secret bus station, where buses from all over Greece arrive and depart, mostly on their way from Athens to Sparti. I arrived at the first and found the second with the help of a very nice local man, who kept giving me directions in Greek, watching me walk off in the wrong direction, and giving me more directions in Greek. You may attribute this misunderstanding to the fact that I was receiving instructions in a foreign language, but I know better. I simply have no sense of direction. I am one of those people that has to take several moments to think about right and left every single time they come up in conversation.
Anyway, I successfully changed buses in Tripoli, somehow, though the bus to Sparti was so packed with people that I ended up standing for a while, then squished next to a guy who was sitting on another guy's lap. It was definitely a very safe way to travel.
I arrived in Sparti, found a hotel, and headed out to find some dinner. It was already after 10pm, and I was tired, so I stumbled into the first place I could find, a souvlaki place on the main street. There were no tables available inside, so I asked the waiter, in stumbling Greek, if I could sit outside.
"Of course you can!" he replied, in perfect English. "I mean, it's too cold to sit outside, but if you want to sit outside, you're more than welcome." He then proceeded to accompany me to the table, explain the menu, give me the history and economic background of Sparti and his own life story, and ask me what I wanted to eat. "You don't have to have anything of course, " he explained. "You can just sit here if you want, we don't care. But if you want to order something, let me know."
Turns out he's Canadian-Greek, born in Canada and moved back here when he was twelve. That explained both the perfect English and the hint of a northern accent that reminded me of some of my Minnesotan friends at Grinnell. It was a bit of cognitive dissonance, hearing a Greek speak with a Canadian accent. It probably shouldn't be, though. Sparti seemed to be filled with former ex-pats; the next day I had coffee at a place owned by a former Greek New Yorker.
I collpased into bed soon afterwards, and awoke fairly early the next day. I caught the 10am bus to Mystras, 6 km out of town.
You've probably never heard of Mystras, because it's not nearly as famous as some of the more ancient ruins of Greece. However, it is spectacular. It's not just a palace but an entire Byzantine city, built right into a hillside overlooking Sparti. Actually, it's more of a mountain than a hillside, as I found out when I started climbing. Lonely Planet, (which I trust implicitly ever since I read their New York book and discovered they recommended most of my favorite restuarants,) says you should start at the top of the city and work your way down. Unfortunately, this is not an option for us carless budget travellers, and not only did I end up starting at the bottom, I actually had to hike up fifteen minutes worth of hill before I even reached the entrance.
Before I embarked on this trip, I believe I spent a few days thinking about how nice it would be to relax for a while; I'd been running around the track at school for a number of consecutive days, and my legs were starting to get a bit sore. Little did I realize that all of the interesting sites would be way the hell up on cliffs.
Enough about my pathetic calf muscles. The fact of the matter is, Mystras was worth every sore limb. If only every jog I took were rewarded with such spectacular sights. Mystras was built like most cities of its kind, in different levels. At the top is the kastro, or the castle, the most heavily protected structure in the whole city. Here's the view from the top, which was pretty spectacular, especially since I could look down and think "Oh my god, I CLIMBED THAT." Below the kastro were several other levels, filled with monastaries and various homes. Basically, it was a hierarchy of the most literal sort; the higher up you were, the richer you were, and the better protected you were.
Here are some pictures of Mystras. I might as well tell you that they don't do it justice.


The monasteries of Mystras were plentiful and the frescoes are still visible on many of the chapel walls. Here's an abandoned church; you can just make out some figures on the walls, now crumbling.
The amazing thing about Mystras was that it wasn't just one castle or one ancient building, it was a whole maze of ruins of homes, chapels, buildings, and who even knows what else? You could poke around in there for hours and not even know what you were looking at. I got so involved in poking around in various places that I stumbled across a living man, possibly some sort of restoration worker, sipping his iced coffee frappe in one of the tiny turrets off of a chapel. Surprised, I stumbled back and mumbled, "Signomi!" (Excuse me!) He shurgged, laughed and said "My office! You see, I have coffee, nice view, everything I need."
I also managed to stumble across a large number of Germans, most of whom I mistook for Americans before I overheard them speaking. It seems that one does not have to be American to wear clothes with names of American places on them. I knew that already, of course. Here in Thessaloniki I know a girl that frequently wears a sweatshirt with the words "Bedford-Stuyvesant; Harlem" emblazoned across the front. I have to restrain myself from cracking up every time I see it. (For those of you not from New York, Bedford-Stuy and Harlem are almost as far away from one another as it is possible for two Manhattan neighborhoods to be.)
After I started my descent from Mystras I also stumbled across an actual working monastery, which appeared to have a number of actual nuns inside, as well as some cats. I was impressed.
After Mystras I took the bus back to Sparta and collapsed. It was a figurative sort of collapse, as it allow for ice cream consumption and blog updating, but it did not allow for much more sightseeing. I was exhausted.
It was nearing 8pm when I headed down to the bus station and purchased my ticket to Monemvasia. I had heard about Monemvasia from an eighth grader, and thought it sounded pretty interesting, though I couldn't quite picture it; some sort of big rock in the water? I didn't really get what it was, exactly. But I hopped on the bus to find out, and the ticket seller informed me that it was the "most beautiful city in the whole world," so I thought it sounded pretty good.
We arrived in a town called Gefyra at 10:30pm, in the dark, and I was dead tired. My book said that Gefyra was actually connected to Monemvasia in some way that I didn't fully understand, so I got off the bus and walked a bit. It smelled like the ocean. It looked cute in a touristy sort of way. I was reminded of Bar Harbor Maine, which smells very similar in a sort of salty nautical way.
I walked down the main street of this little town, glancing about in search of a hotel, when I noticed something just barely visible in the darkness; a giant rock.
Here's what it looked like the following morning. At night it was a bit spookier and even more mysterious in appearance. And it's huge. I stood there and stared at this strange formation for a while, noting that there were several lights glowing right by the other end of the bridge. It was rather fascinating.
The town of Monemvasia, you see, used to be part of the mainland, until an earthquake separated it. To get there nowadays, you walk across the bride pictured, and around the massive rock until you reach a little tunnel. You walk through the tunnel and suddenly you find yourself in a different century. Well, almost. A different century with a few souvenir shops and hotels added in. But a charming different century nonetheless.


They even carry supplies by mule here; I followed several of them around the bend. You can see one in the picture on the right, heading towards the town wall on his way out.
Monemvasia is a fascinating mix of things; you can walk amongst the Byzantine ruins of an ancient church, then walk five feet down the street and have coffee at a very modern little cafe. Unlike Mystras, Monemvasia is a living town, not a ghost world, a fact that makes it both charming and less mysterious. It's a bit harder to sense to centuries of time that it has endured, but you get a feel for what it would be like to live in a medieval city. After all, the Byzantines didn't sit around and wax poetic when their walls crumbled, they rebuilt them. In the museum, they even show you how the Byzantines reused bits of decorative marble. So perhaps rebuilding the place is not a modern corruption, but just the natural way of things. God knows, if nobody ever built over ancient stuff, all of Greece would have to close down and become a giant branch of a museum.
Farther up the rock, though, things are less commercial and more ghostly. I had not bargained for another hike, but once I realized that there were sights to see at the top, I wasn't going to pass up the chance to see them. Yet again, I climbed my way to the top of an ancient city, where I was rewarded with the church of St. Sophia and a number of other crumbling relics, plus a gorgeous view.

I spent all morning wandering through the various incarnations of Monemvasia, examining the artifacts in the museum, examining the postcards in the shops, and examining the ruins among the homes and inns.
It was past noon when I headed back over the water to Gefyra, and forward several centuries. There I found Greece in its more modern incarnation. The following picture was taken there. It's for Joe, who assures me that he is going to read this at some point. (Yup, these are real. I wasn't sure, at first.)
At 2:15 I caught the bus back north, heading for another, more familiar ancient city. But that story I will leave for another day.