[ CYA Spring ’24 Student and MediaLab intern Chloe Revier shares moments of her time in Greece, as captured on her journal ]

 

Jan. 23rd – Arriving in Athens, Greece.

Exiting the airport was simple, and there was a line of taxis waiting to pick people up. Driving to the hotel was not as easy; the cars here are very small, and the roads somehow even smaller. It took a while to find our hotel, but once we did and the taxi driver parked, he walked to the trunk and opened it to reveal a whole bunch of oranges. Smiling, he handed one to each of us, and wished us a happy and safe trip. 

That is exactly what this trip has been so far – happy and safe. It’s been under two full days, but I already know that the decision to be here was the right one. I feel comfortable, not only in the school but in the city itself. I feel the luxury of living in a walkable city, where anything I need is a short walk away, in a country with breathtaking sights and then the fresh air to replenish me immediately. I feel incredibly grateful to experience this city with my two best friends, Perry and Liz. 

The past day has been taken up by exploring and meeting new people. I spent the evening last night with a large group, walking around the city. We ate dinner at a Mother and Daughter restaurant and afterward walked around until we found a small, outside bar. It was relaxing to be around other students. While we didn’t know each other, it felt as though we did. We are experiencing the same thing, a cultural shift in ourselves as we experience something that will impact our lives forever. 

Jan 25th-27th – Olympia and Delphi

We started bright and early Thursday morning and had a few hour bus ride to our first stop of Olympia. The ride was a trip on its own, worthy to be acknowledged even when compared to ancient monuments. Mountains and hills line the road no matter where you are, some with snow on top of them. Sheep and goats graze the rocky fields, and not far behind them a dog is chasing. The small rural Greek towns were beautiful, from the houses and streets down to the way clothes on drying lines waved in the wind. I made an effort to try to pay attention to the little things within these small towns. The clothes, the children’s toys laid outside, the plants on the patios. We drove straight West across the Peloponnese until we reached Olympia. 

The historical site and museum of Olympia are phenomenal. Just from standing on the rocks there, it’s almost as though you can feel the thousands of years of history against your shoes. We walked the site for over an hour, exploring the temple for Zeus and the training grounds for the athletes. At the end we reached the space where the races were held, and we saw the stone seat where the only woman attendee of the first Olympics got to sit – the priestess of Demeter. It’s told if any other women were caught watching the games they were to be thrown off of a cliff, a surprisingly common ancient punishment in ancient Greece. Perry and I ran a race with fellow students at CYA down the field, our feet hitting the ground where athletes did thousands of years ago. After our professor took us around the site, we were brought through the museum. There is a lot of stuff in the Olympia Museum, but my favorite (and I imagine most people’s favorite) space was the room filled with the sculptures that used to be on the friezes of the temple of the Olympian Zeus. 

We began the journey to Delphi. This time, our drive wasn’t through the country, but along the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The view was unlike anything I’ve seen before. It was beautiful, yet also nauseating due to the tight curving roads. At one of the bathroom breaks, we were able to put our feet into the sea. We reached the town of Delphi right at sunset and watched it from the top of a mountain. 

I can’t begin to describe the beauty of Delphi. I never knew where to look when I was there. I could look upwards at the top of the mountain where temple ruins would tower over me, or I could look down where you can see for miles. There were cats throughout the monuments, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they are able to perceive how beautiful of a location it is where they get to sunbathe. We drank from the ancient stream that travelers would drink from, it was icy cold. The museum itself was small, but it held one of my favorite art pieces yet – The Cylix of Apollo, a piece of pottery decorated with a portrait of Apollo, a crow, and a lyre. I’m not entirely sure why it caught my attention more than the large sculptures around it, but I’m glad it did. Afterward, we boarded the bus once again and began our way back home to Athens.

A short trip to Aegina.

Two weekends ago, Perry, Liz, and I traveled to a nearby island named Aegina with a few friends we had made. The town is small and along the coast, and I couldn’t wait to finally swim again. There is something so relaxing to me about the way being in the water feels, specifically cold water. Once we got to our house, a cute cottage on an olive tree farm, we picked our rooms and sat out on the patio, making a plan of what we were going to do for the evening, and eventually we decided on going to a beach that was only a 15 minute walk away. The beach we settled at was pure sand, and we swam until the sunset. Back at the house, we cooked a pasta dinner and spent the night talking.

The next morning we went out for breakfast and explored the town more. There was a tea shop with an abundance of flavors, and it was nice to take our time smelling them all until I found my tea of choice – Grandma’s Garden. I couldn’t help but reflect on how so many of my fondest memories involved my grandmas and their gardens, and I’m glad to carry their love with me through different continents. Perry and I were determined to find a frisbee for the beach, but after searching a few stores with no luck, Perry had the idea of using a 1€ plant lid as one, and it worked perfectly. Liz, Perry, and I headed to the beach with our makeshift frisbee. We swam for a few hours until eventually, a Greek man came up to us, asking where we were from. After explaining we were Minnesotan, he chuckled and said it made sense due to how cold the water was. We were the only ones swimming, the rest were in coats and mittens. After swimming and an emergency gyro stop, we made it back to the house where we packed up and prepared to leave the next morning. 

The trip to Aegina was short, relaxing, and peaceful, which was exactly what we all needed. While we spent the majority of the time swimming, I was also able to have some fun with photography, which was my highlight of the trip. I couldn’t help but imagine during the trip an ideal situation where I was able to travel through rural Greek locations with a professional camera and be able to take my time with photography – Maybe one day that can be a reality.

Northern Greece Trip 

This last week CYA brought us on a field study trip through Northern Greece, and it was one of my favorite trips so far. We started early on Tuesday morning, around 6:30 am, and drove to our first stop, the Schwartz Mansion in the small village of Ambelakia. The village was full of giant old mansions. It used to be a large farming community cooperative, and still to this day it is wealthy. The floors of the mansion were split up by which season you would spend them in – Cement walls for the winter, and wooden walls at the top of the house for summer. The mansion had wall art that had been restored, but the stairs were still old and fragile (I may have fallen down the ones to the cellar in front of everyone, but let’s not bring that up). The village was in a mountainous region, and the view from our lunch stop at a taverna was stunning. But after an hour and a half in the village, we left for Thessaloniki. We all had the whole evening free in Thessaloniki, so Perry and I went and watched the sunset at the port, and then wandered around until we found a restaurant to eat at. Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, is very different from Athens. It’s more spread out than Athens and doesn’t feel like the buildings are squeezing you into the small street. It’s also a college town, and it’s clear that the city has a younger influence compared to Athens.

The first full day in Thessaloniki started with a walking tour through the city. We visited the Roman Agora, multiple churches (in which a lot of us girls weren’t allowed because our knees were out), and lastly the White Tower. 

The next morning we visited the ancient site of Pella, the then capital of Ancient Macedonia, where Alexander the Great was born and raised. Our CYA Professor, who brought us there,  was one of the lead archaeologists when they found the site, so we were able to go behind the ropes and see special mosaics. After Pella, our bus drove us to the archaeological site of Nymphaeum of Mieza, also known as Aristotle’s School. This site is one of the most picturesque places I have ever been – the site was a forest with small cliffs, caves, a river, and so much wildlife. 

The next day our next bus ride took us to Vergina, where we saw the Aigai Ancient Royal Tombs. The museum was very well laid out, and captured the feelings of an ancient tomb quite well – dark lighting, highlights on the gold pieces, and an ambient background track. We then went to Volos, which is probably my favorite little town in Greece. The hotel we stayed in was very fancy, a 5-star hotel that probably wasn’t the best choice for a whole bunch of 20-year-olds. We had the evening free, so Perry and I immediately ran to the beach to swim in the ocean for a while. The sunset was watched from the beach, and we walked around until we ended up at a small Italian restaurant with live music.

In the morning, we packed up and went to a hiking trail. The trail was where the mythical Centaurs supposedly lived, and with the high rocks we had to climb I could believe it. It was a great experience, balancing and jumping from rock to rock to get across the river that separated the trail sides. While getting to the top was challenging, going back down seemed to be scarier. It was harder to balance when facing down, and the rocks felt more slippery than before. I also got lost a few times and found myself facing a boulder that I was certain I had not climbed up before. Eventually, we made it down, and we went to the village of Markinitsa. With almost three hours of free time, we were able to get lunch and have enough time to explore the streets. After Markinitsa, the bus took us on a very long ride back to Athens. While the trip was exciting, beautiful, and fun, I was excited to be back in the space I have learned to know as home.