I'm coming home soon! Leaving Kefalonia, the most beautiful and wonderful island ever, tomorrow morning and then leaving athens Sunday morning. Hopefully i'll get to arrive home for the end of Father's Day :).

More blogs shall have to follow my return, bc there is definitely more to write about. Also, on the Fourth of July in Seward I'm speaking about the trip and the Farsa project! 12 pm, Jones Bank basement.

<3 <3 <3

the start of the big one

Attention: This post may be interrupted at any time to go to the beach.

So, I left off with Ithaca, eh? Well, we went. It's an island that is right next to Kefalonia, and may even have been a part of it at one time. Much page space and argument has been wasted over whether or not Odysseus actually lived there; at least three other places in Kefalonia claim to be his home and one crazy scholar lady thinks he went to Florida. But no one really listens to her. So anyways, it was gorgeous. We had lunch and swam in a beautiful little harbor, surrounded by an idyllic little village, wrapped up in the middle of some stunning little mountains, and had a great big awesome time :).

Then hardcore project work kicked in. I was in three different groups, working on four projects. Have I ever explained the whole concept of this program to you all? I get the feeling I haven't, which was definitley unintended.

Basically, we're in Kefalonia studying the village of Farsa, which was destroyed in a 1953 earthquake. They rebuilt farther down the hill, and left the ruins alone. Now they want to rebuild, and we're using it as a service learning/case study project for community planning. Students have been doing this for three years now, and we're layering information to help build a comprehensive plan/proposal for them to rebuild using A. traditional architecture and B. sustainable methods. We want the community itself to become sustainable (environmentally, socially, and economically).

My projects included creating an identity mark for Farsa to use when they start promoting tourism, helping with a video documentary about the project, studying the traditional women's crafts and enterprises/finding funding for them to develop new businesses, and helping to build a physical model of the site. That last part took the longest--i was up all night once, and my roommate was a bunch! Then, Saturday, we presented all of our work to the community. It was the brief version, but still took 3 hours. Other groups this quarter studied food security, hotel development and marketing, a disaster relief/management plan, agritourism, designing a community center and developing a business plan, water catchment and renewable energy sources, etc. etc. Quite a lot of work has been put in! This summer a book is going to bring everything together in a comprehensive plan.

oh, beach time! Love to all!

Earthquake

Dear Everyone,

I did not die in the earthquake. Everything in Kefalonia is fine! We were laying on the beach, and it just felt like someone was jostling a giant bed.

Love to all, I'm coming home in a week and hope to see you soon!

-Kjersten

P.S. I know I haven't written lately, and there's a lot to say, so watch out for a big one *coming soon* :)

The land where Odysseus trod

Another catch-up post!

So to continue where I left off, Grandpa and Grandma and I flew to Athens on Friday. That evening we strolled around, seeing the street markets, the flea markets, and the markets that don't exist anymore (except through the remains of some columns and walls). City walking is one of my favorite activities in Greece, and nighttime strolls practically redeem Athens from it's grimy daytime crush. Another part of the balance for Athens is the food.

Have I extrapolated on gyros yet? Fabulous. Pronounced Yeeros, for all of you wondering, they are hot pitas wrapped around spit-roasted meat, tomatoes, tsaziki sauce, and occasionally french fries. Mmmmm. And, if bought on the street, cost less than 2 Euros. Sitting down at the same restaurant sends the bill up to 7, which may seem strange, but you have to consider the culture. You're really paying for your seat--for the opportunity to sit, linger, and people watch for hours. Cafe sitting is the Number One most popular activity in Argostoli. All the cool people do it. I'm learning, slowly, how to sit and sip one drink over the period of at least an hour. You should try it sometime, it's not easy!

So anyways, Friday we wandered, got gyros, and settled in. Saturday we sailed to Aegina. And when I say sailed, I mean took a ferry. And didn't get off at our destination. What happened was that we didn't realize we had actually docked, and were busy taking pictures, so by the time we headed towards the exit the ferry was already moving again. Ohi! (no!) We were afraid we'd have to go back to Athens, and for a milisecond I considered jumping off and swimming, but the boat was just going to one more island and returning. All was well after all! Once docked we wandered around and got a taste of island life (much better than Athens). I wish G&G could've seen Kefalonia, my home and probably the most beautiful island, but that trip is not so convenient.

Back in Athens the next day we made the climb to the Acropolis. Always awesome :). On the way we stopped at Mars Hill, where Paul preached (Acts 17). It's pretty cool to be there and think about his words and testament of the unknown god.

More exploring, shopping and eating wrapped up our trip, and Monday I had to go back to Kefalonia. 'Twas a sad parting after such a wonderful trip!

At the bus station I happened to run into some fellow classmates, and that made the trip seem much faster than the eight hours it was :).

Home in Argostoli it was business time. The profs piled on projects like none other, and we are still in the midst of wading through them. The coolest project I'm working on is for Planning Studio--a group of three of us are making a documentary about Farsa; its history (fishing village destroyed by the 1953 earthquake), current status (beautiful overgrown rubble), and future possibilities (being rebuilt as a sustainable community with traditional architecture and spirit). Quite a lot of work is going into this, as well as sweat and blood. While filming in the village I stumbled into some thorny bushes and sustained considerable scratching injuries.

But hopefully it will turn out well! We shall see! Also, I'm designing an identity mark for the village! hooray :)! I've been missing projects where I actually know what's going on, and it felt good to get back into Illustrator.

The most complicated project so far has been building a physical model of the site. Who would've thunk figuring out a scale and finding materials would be so difficult? Live and learn. Nikos still wants to use foam core. I shudder in horror. Can you imagine trying to cut the layers of a topo map out of foam core? No, because it should never be done! Unless you have a super, super sharp knife the stuff tears and jags like none other.

In other happenings, last weekend six of us helped out at Cynthia and Nikos's olive orchard. This isn't olive pruning or harvesting season (they harvest in November-January), so we focused on cleaning up an old, stone goatherd's house. The roof fell in years ago, and the tiles were inside. Now that Cynthia and Nikos want to rebuild it as a storage facility, we had to move all of the tiles out, which sounds boring but was actually quite exciting because, get this, there were scorpions living among them! Little scorpions the size of your thumbnail, but scorpions they were, with stinging tails and everything! We squished them as diligently as we could, and although Katie felt bad about killing them, I recognize that the overall scorpion population will not be hurt at all, and it really doesn't matter. Besides, who wouldn't boast of killing a scorpion or two?

Well, I was going to write about our trip to Ithaca, but as Homer says, "There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep."

Good night, all!

A trip across the sea

Spring Break! Fabulous, wonderful, delicious spring break. We hit the halfway mark in the program (already!) and were given a week + of freedom to explore. I hopped on a bus, a ferry, and a train and made my way to Rome to meet up with my grandparents. After that we bopped over to Athens and Aegina, and then the break was over in the blink of an eye!

That was the short version. There are many more details provided below, feel free to skim!

It all began Thursday, May 1. Katie, Ben, CJ and I went to the Cycloptic Walls--built on the island in the time of Odysseus, but of rocks so large that purportedly only a Cyclops could have moved them! We walked and climbed all the way, and then took a nap in the shade of a thousand-year-old olive tree at the top. Since we were laying on rocks, it wasn't exactly a deep sleep, but the buzz of bees and distant clanging of goat bells was quite hypnotic.

The next day began the trek of public transportation. Peter and I took a bus to the other side of the island, killed time by stashing our stuff and hiking a mountain, then came back for food and the ferry. Strangely enough, the ferry had to dock twice. Must've been a student driver. Anyways, once we knew it was actually docked we walked right over, but despite arriving within four minutes were blasted for "delaying the ferry!" Seriously???
After a 12-hour trip in airplane seats we arrived in Brindisi, Italy. Hooray! Not much to see there, but delicious gelato, and being in Brindisi all day allowed us the opportunity of eating it twice. MMM. And then I took the train to Roma! And then, because we're not done with the public transport yet, I took the Metro to the airport.

I wasn't leaving Rome, but picking up my Grandparents (Mom's side). When I was first considering coming to Greece with the AHA program I joked to them that they should come and visit me for spring break--and they did! Pretty awesome, huh? We chose Rome because they'd never been there before, and it is, after the Eternal City! One of my favorite places.

Throughout the week we did oodles of cool things, starting off by eating pizza. A huge, Napoli pizza probably baked in a clay oven. Then we did other cool things like visit St. Peter's Square, gape at the parades of Pentecost-celebrators ("We should have known it was Pentecost, they were speaking in tongues," --Grandma), take a double-decker bus tour of the city, and climb down the Spanish Steps to find a back street full of an art fair--pretty neat!

The next day started with a leisurely breakfast provided by our B&B host, Fabio. Yes, Fabio. How could he be named anything else? Great host though, I highly recommend the B&B Federici. It was basically on top of a metro station *ideal* and within walking distance of what turned out to be our favorite restaurant and the Vatican. But ach, we're getting bogged down with details! You're tired of reading already, aren't you? And I'm only on Monday *dun dun dun*.

So then we went to the Coliseum and Roman Forum, where I got to show off my art history I skills. A rainstorm sent us in to St. Peter in Chains church, home of a monumental sculpture of Moses by Michelangelo. If you pay 50 cents they even turn on the lights around it for a whole minute!

Tuesday was the Borghese Gallery day. The Borghese Gallery is my favorite art museum in the world. Period dot com. Most of the works, some of the best in the world from Carravagio, Bernini, Canova, and even Titian were collected by a ruthless cardinal of the Catholic church who would do anything, including jailing and threatening lives to build his collection. It turned out pretty well for him! The museum, housed in the Cardinal's villa, is so popular that you MUST get advanced reservations! I did that back in April. My favorite sculpture is a Bernini--Apollo and Daphne. The white marble is carved in such a delicate way that it has been described as being "more air than stone," depicting the moment when Apollo first catches Daphne and she begins to turn into an oak tree. The leaves sprouting from her fingertips are so fine that when tapped they ring like crystal.

Also that day was the Trevi Fountain. Next day: Catacombs. Back in the day when Christians were persecuted one of Caesar's sisters converted and donated quite a bit of land before she was executed. The Christians used this land to dig tens of miles of underground burial chambers and a few chapels. Grave robbers destroyed most of the graves and sold the bones as relics *look, John the Bapist's hand!*, but we could see some remaining oil lamps and frescoes.

Later we saw the E.U.R. district, an area planned by Mussolini in the 20's/30's and completed in the 50's. It's gridlike and chock full of Modernist and International Style architecture. Interesting.

Next day: the Vatican, St. Peter's, and the Sistine Chapel. What a day! Without intending to, we spent five hours in the Vatican museums. Raphael Rooms, Julius Caesar the orator, hundreds of busts, etc. Pretty overwhelming, and I've even been there before. I'm amazed my grandparents were able to keep taking it in! The Sistine Chapel is just amazing. Michelangelo spent years of his life just lying on his back painting these frescoes, and they are magnificent. Later that night at the B&B we read all of the information the audio guide didn't have time to tell us and studied the little postcard I bought with great intensity. Michelangelo sure knew his scriptures. He was a pretty big deal (you may have heard of him?), as he also did the main design for St. Peter's and the ever-famous Pieta. The Pieta is actually housed behind bullet-proof glass! Apparently a loony with an axe tried to go at it once, and they're not taking any more chances.

That day, Thursday, was the last of our time in Rome and Friday morning we flew out to Athens!

But shall we leave that for another post? Yes, let's!

P.S. Today I hiked for eight hourse and it is now near 12:30 a..m. I claim no responsability for typoes, etc... ;)

Blogalicious

On the ferry to Aegina--missing our port of call as we took these pictures!
The next island the ferry visited before returning to Aegina was actually quite beautiful.
Again, the ferry.
And eventually we made it and took a trip to see the medieval ruins of the island's former capital. They built it on a mountainside to avoid pirates :).

Kalo Pascha! Happy Easter!

So, the adventures in the last week:

Going to Sami
Greek Easter
Bazoukia dancing
An Easter potluck
Writing a 10 page final

That’s it, have a nice week!

Haha, just kidding. I’ll fill you in a little.

Last week we found out that our break has been extended by two days—right after I bought my ferry ticket. I wanted to try and capitalize on the extra time, so I went back to the office to see if I could change it. No luck. Go to Sami, you can change it there, they said. Sami is the port town/village on the other side of the island—about forty-five minutes by bus. So Thursday afternoon, I hopped on the bus and went to Sami! Now it was the afternoon, but since we were arriving at 1:45 I hoped to make it before the dreaded siesta time. No such luck! Although the posted sign said that lunch break was from 2:30 (45 minutes later than I arrived!), they were already gone. *eye roll*. Naturally. So I went to my favorite gyro shop, where they told me the ferry people would be back after six (the posted sign says five). My bus left at 3:45, leaving me with an unchanged ticket but delicious gyro.

Making the most of my time, I wandered around and took a picture of the bench I fell asleep on last time. I strolled through the residential area, stealing a lemon as I went :). It was outside of the fence! Well, halfway. And I could see that the owners had let some fall, so they obviously didn’t need them all. As my departure drew nigh, I stopped by a little bakery and picked out a pastry I’d never seen before. As I sniffed it my entire face was filled with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Delightful!

It was a lovely adventure. I should leave Argostoli more often.

Saturday night was the Greek Easter celebration. As promised, the town smelled of lamb and firecrackers abounded, but I have the feeling I missed something. We saw the end of the procession with the priest and everyone holding their Easter candles, but we were told there would be midnight church services, and didn’t find them. Too bad.

But midnight was not the end of our night. Oh no, not in Greece! Apparently Greeks are the most hard-core of all the night owls, even in the famously late-living Mediterranean. So as a group, we went to Maria’s brother’s Bazoukia. Maria is our dance teacher, and a bazoukia is where they play live, traditional music and have traditional dancing. When we arrived at 2:00 a.m. we were told we were too early, and by three we couldn’t stand it anymore, and the Americans hit the dance floor. We actually danced the most of anyone there, even in the traditional dances. We saw guys do the traditional zebekikos, the solo, interpretive dance of pain so traditional to Greece, and some of our guys tried it as well. When someone does one everyone else kneels on the floor and claps, throwing carnations when they’re impressed.

I don’t know if I should tell you this, but when we left the sun was rising! Sometimes life amazes me. And if you’re wondering, we weren’t the last to leave ;).

After a bit of sleep, we had an Easter potluck at our professor Nikos’s home. Nikos is a prof at Western Washington, but this year he and Cynthia are on sabbatical, living in the home they built in his ancestral village of Troianata. They have the most perfect, lovely location. It overlooks a surreally beautiful valley of olive trees and pastureland, and just over the hills is the sea, which we discovered on our hike after dinner. Also seen: the cycloptic walls! Apparently these walls, snaking across the hills like the Great Wall, date from Minoan times or before, and are made of such large stones that no one but a race of giant Cyclops could have moved them. I hope to visit them soon.

For the potluck Katie and I made Baklava—Ashley’s recipe—from scratch, without a basting brush and with only a toaster oven! ‘Twas fantastic, and turned out to be quite a hit :D. (for those of you who don’t know, baklava is richly sweet Greek dessert made with layer upon layer of philo dough, cinnamon sugar, and walnuts, and our recipe puts a lemon syrup on top. MmmMmm!)

This entry is getting long, but I would just briefly like to record for posterity the strange sight I saw yesterday. As I was walking to the classroom I glanced up and thought I saw a string of flags across the street that had never been there before. On further inspection, I saw that it was a row of perfectly spaced pigeons (those nasty flying rats) on a telephone wire, sitting in what I can only assuming was mourning for a fallen friend, who lay squished on the road below. LOL.

Yassas!