Episode 76: The One Where Our Heroes Find Pleasant Surprises in Greece

So this story starts on Friday morning. We woke up, bright and early, ready to do some more research about how exactly we were going to get to Philippi. This is how Nathan and I usually travel you see. We wake up, figure out what bus to get on and go. Well, Mama and Daddy weren't too keen on 6 hours of bus rides, so we decided to see if there was another way than the via Thessaloniki route we were planning on.

We turned to Pavlina, the international student coordinator and all-around wonderful person, to help us. She found us a direct bus route, but we'd have to not come back until Tuesday. We asked about a cab (because we have classes and whatnot on Monday and Tuesday) and, lo and behold, it was only 10 Leva more to take a cab. Hurrah! Pavlina arranged the cab and the four of us crammed into a cab with our super delightful driver.

Our driver--wonderful. He, however, had never driven to Philippi and when parts of the road were blocked off for some unknown reason by the police, we drove in a few circles and stopped more than a few times for him to ask directions of the old men that seem to hang out at gas stations in every country in the world. Seriously--why do old men love to hang out at gas stations? Are they waiting to help lost travelers?

Anyway, we made our way into Greece and Nathan had found a hotel on the internet that claimed to be only 600 meters from Philippi. That's all we understood--everything else was in Greek. Our wonderful cab driver found the hotel, got us two rooms and promised to come back and get us on Sunday. Really, he was awesome. So we settled in and got ready to walk around a bit.

We first visited Lydia's baptistry:That of course is not the ancient baptistry. We saw the ruins from the first one and this is the modern construction outside of the church for baptizing in the river.

Then the sun started to set so we went to have dinner in the hotel restaurant which they opened just for us. You see, there is NOTHING in Philippi except for ruins, so no one really visits except tourist season. Off-season we got a great deal on our rooms, breakfast and a delicious meal that first night. No pictures because we forgot our cameras, but we had huge, delicious Greek salads, baked eggplant and Daddy and Nathan had some meat of some sort. Mmm....

The next morning, these guys were outside our window while we had breakfast:
After breakfast, we set off into a field to see if we could stumble upon the ruins of Philippi. We weren't expecting too much and before long we came across the ruins of columns and stones with inscriptions in the field:
We kept walking up a hill toward the archaeology museum. Beyond the museum lay a land of surprises! They uncovered the entire city of Philippi. You can go to 4 churches, the forum, the theatre, the shopping district and the episcopal complex. So cool. Here is Daddy in what is commonly attributed St. Paul's prison:
It is actually a cistern that was turned into a church, but still very, very cool.

Here we are in the stone archway that leads into Basilica B:
And here is Mama and Daddy:
The city was ruined in an earthquake in the 7th century and abandoned, so everything is really well-preserved because it was torn down to make way for new construction. Here is just a portion of the site with the mountains of Greece in the background:
On Friday afternoon we had seen a castle on top of the mountain across from our hotel. We knew it was Philippi's citadel, so we decided to climb the mountain to check it out. Whoa. It was a strenuous one hour climb (complicated by the fact that we had to find the trail by wandering through the grass). On the way we passed this little terrapin:
Here is Nathan sitting at the top. We could see everything for miles around. So beautiful.
Isn't the farmland so pretty?
We found the tower and decided to climb around in it a bit. Nothing was marked or patrolled at these sites. Here is Mama and Daddy (picture taken from the spiral staircase going to the top of the tower).
And here you can see how big it is. See Nathan in the archway?
Here's a panoramic view of the towers of the citadel.
This little guy climbed the entire mountain with us and made sure everyone stayed together. He got upset whenever we did something he thought was unsafe. He was excellent traveling companion, but unfortunately we had no snacks to give him. We only packed Fruit, Seed and Nut bars which, by the way, are delicious and chock-full of protein.
Going up the mountain, we had been counting all of the flocks we could see. At the base, we stumbled into this flock of sheep and upset this sheep dog with our presence. His shepherd had to reassure him that we wouldn't steal his sheep.

Seriously--read that again. We climbed a mountain and then stumbled into a flock of sheep. Sometimes in the Balkans you fall into a time warp.
After we showered we headed to Kavala to dinner. We had another excellent cab driver who stopped his friend who we passed to ask what the best seafood tavern we could go to was. We went there and it was excellent. Daddy and I had calamari, Mama had the biggest shrimp I've ever seen and Nathan had spicy Greek meatballs.

Here we are with yet another Nathan and Rachel Ann by the Mediterranean picture. For real--this is the life!
And here is Mama and Daddy:
This was a darling little house by Muhammed Ali's. Uh huh--he lived in Kavala.
And as we were walking to get ice cream, tea and coffee, we passed this excellent view of the Kavala Old Town, complete with castle!

Hold Your Horses...

I've heard that some of our dear readership is getting a bit antsy for a new post. So sorry to disappoint you with my lack of posting.

Here's a rundown of the past few days:
1. Mama and Daddy arrived safe and sound in Blagoevgrad. They've been catching up on their sleep and commenting on how parts of the town looks like filmstrips they watched as children about Communism. They keep saying, "It's different."
2. Nathan and I have been sick and have had no appetite for the past few days. We've also been running around in our free time trying to coordinate Mama and Daddy's sightseeing.
3. We've also been trying to figure out how to Philippi in Greece. We're going to attempt that today--so wish us luck.
4. We were gifted some fun Bostonian paraphernalia by the dear siblings in Boston, so stay tuned for a picture of us rocking out (once we clean up and don't look sickly pale anymore).

So that's that! Hope to post exciting pictures of Greece in the next few days!

Istanbul, Not Constantinople....

We had lots and lots of fun in Istanbul. We thought a few times that we would be trampled, someone tried to pickpocket Morgan, my professor said we passed at least 10 radicals on jihad in one day (although he told us this afterwards), but all in all, it was an excellent time.

We left Blago on Thursday afternoon and got stuck in the mud on the way to bus station. Nathan almost lost his shoes as we had an exciting adventure of climbing up riverbanks and trying not to slip into the river. Please, don't worry about us too much--we just make bad decisions sometimes.

So our mud adventures made us miss our bus and we had to wait with a million other people for the next bus to Sofia. Have we told you about lines in Bulgaria? They don't exist. It is definitely each man for himself and two people weasled onto the bus in front of us and we didn't get seats on that bus either. Thankfully, another bus to Sofia loaded 5 minutes later and we hopped on that one. Sometimes you can really luck out with buses because timetables also don't really exist in Bulgaria. I mean, they have time tables, but each one says a different time and none of them are really accurate. You pretty much go to the station, hope for the best and it always (so far) has worked out.

We finally got to Sofia, met with the other students and hopped on the bus to Istanbul. We fell asleep and slept the entire way there except at the border. The border with Turkey is kay-ray-zy. It took us 2 hours to cross the border. We had to disembark the bus 4 separate times. The Americans had to buy visas. We all had to have our luggage searched. It was cold, rainy and 2 in the morning. Traveling this much has taught me that borders are exceedingly creepy and this border was no exception. Ugh.

So we finally arrive in Istanbul around 6 am. We can't check into our rooms until 1 pm, so we decide to walk around the city a bit. We went to the Grand Bazaar to walk through before all of the shops opened. Here is Nathan and I at 7:30 am in front of the Bazaar:It was very rainy and slightly cold and we were all a bit cranky so we stopped in to a tea shop for tea. Whew! Turkish tea is super strong. You know when you leave the tea bag in for too long and the bitter tannin of the tea comes out? That's how the Turks drink their tea. Good, but rather odd tasting.

Speaking of cranky, it was at this point in our trip that Team America (that's what I call all of the study abroad students collectively) began to get a bit miffed at one of our traveling companions. I won't go into everything, but the long and short of it that you can't make blatantly rude and judgmental statements that are sweepingly general about our country without offending us. Look, I think we all carry a good bit of guilt around about the US. For crying out loud, we are white American college students. We are taught to feel guilty about our country. See: Stuff White People Like--Guilt. Still, we draw the line at people attempting to make us feel guilty about decaf tea (chamomile was the tea in question) or trying to tell us that we ONLY eat processed food (this person was shocked to know that we eat fresh fish--seriously). Also, it is best if you want to form grossly inaccurate opinions about another country, ie the United States, that you actually go to this country at some point in your life. I'm just saying....

So anyway, this person routinely brought up lies about the US throughout the entire weekend and could not be persuaded that she might be wrong. Needless to say, it got to be really old very quickly...

Moving on....after breakfast we visited Hagia Sophia. That's right--on Good Friday we were in Hagia Sophia. It really is as majestic and beautiful and elegant as I've always been told. It was amazing to stand in this building that for hundreds of years was THE center of the Christian world.
Across the street is the mosque that was built to compete in greatness with Hagia Sophia after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. We didn't get to go in there because we were there around the time of noon prayers.
One of the most famous mosaics in the world...saw it with my own eyes.
What was so beautiful about Hagia Sophia was the care that they put into designing and decorating it. There was really nothing more important for the Eastern Romans than to build the grandest Christian temple in the world to assert their faith and the claim on the mandate of Heaven. Here's a prime example of this idea--below is a picture of wall composed of 10 marble slabs. The marble was sliced in sheets and then mounted so that the entire wall would have symmetry. Beautiful.
We went back to the Bazaar after Hagia Sophia to do a bit of shopping before it got way too crowded. Isn't it beautiful? Nathan haggled and bought me a beautiful pashmina to add to my collection!
Here is a pottery shop in the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar was, at one point, the largest market in the world and goods from every part of the known world from Chinese silks to Italian glass was sold in its stalls. It has survived numerous earthquakes and business is still done there in much the same way as it was thousands of years ago.
When we finally got to our hotel this little girl was waiting for us outside of our room. We had fun playing with her. We also made a cat friend in Hagia Sophia. There were cats everywhere in Turkey and unlike in Bulgaria, France, Italy and Greece, they actually let me talk to them and pet them--very exciting!
The next morning we started off our day by going to the mosaic museum. It houses the mosaics that hung in the Byzantine palaces. This was my favorite--look at those geese!
Prettiest. Bathroom. Ever. This was at a smaller bazaar.
I think the coolest place we visited in Istanbul was the Byzantine Imperial Cistern. It was awe-inspiring to think of people 1500 years ago building this water system. It was also really cold and dark and creepy because it was underground.
After the cistern, we walked to Topkapi Palace where the Ottoman sultans lived. The treasuries were filled with insanely ornate, diamond-encrusted items. Also, remember the trees that the French compulsively trimmed? They have the same trees in Turkey and here's what they look like when you let them grow for a few hundred years:
I have no pictures of Topkapi because they weren't allowed, but we saw a gorgeous palace grounds, the sword of David (as in, David and Goliath), the rod of Moses, the arm of John the Baptist and the beard of Muhammed. I don't generally believe in relics, but there sure were a lot at Topkapi that they obviously thought were very, very real.

We walked down from the palace to the Bosphorus and I finally got to see a stork flying! There were a ton of storks nesting and wild parrots! Here's a shot of fisherman lined up along the Bosphorus. You can see Asia on the other shore.
I asked my professor what kind of fish they were catching. His reply? Poisoned. Oh well, I ate a Bosphorus fish sandwich. It was delicious--grilled fish, raw onions. lemon juice and salt on freshly baked bread. Here are Kim and I about to eat the most delicious meal I've had in the past few months:
Speaking of food, we ate really, really well in Turkey. Lots of yummy spiced vegetables over rice and fresh baked bread and stuffed grape leaves. Mmmm...

I'll leave you with a shot of the Turkish flag against a beautiful blue sky. Mama and Daddy arrive on Wednesday so I'm sure we'll have many more adventures to report on soon!

What I just learned from my Bulgarian midterm:

If you set the bar low enough, you can achieve your goals.

Here's to a passing grade!


...I hope.

Puddles

There is still snow, snow and more snow coming down from the sky. The flakes are huge and wet and not sticking at all. That means that there are puddles everywhere just waiting for little American girls named Rachel Ann to stumble upon.

Things have generally been puddly this week. We have so many decisions facing us and it can certainly be overwhelming at times to have just enough boxes checked off that you feel real panic at the others being left blank.

Was that too cryptic? Oh well. Thank goodness we have better friends than we could ever deserve. The Princess really helped a lot yesterday. (Side note: Did you know that two of our best friends are, professionally, a Princess and an Environmental Cop? Seriously--they get paid for these things).

Anyway, things are looking up, we are very excited about Istanbul and we won't have any communication until Monday so don't worry if we don't email you back!

Snow!

It is snowing! How crazy and exciting is that? Yesterday I wore capris and Crocs and today we're all bundled up against the cold.

Tomorrow we leave for Istanbul and I'm so, so excited. I was reading up on the city and I stumbled across a quote about its magic. The gist of the quote was that if you have only one thing to look at in your life then you should gaze upon Istanbul.

We're so excited to eat stuffed grape leaves and tea (Turkey consumes more tea per capita than any other country in the world) and bread and honey and mmmmm!!!!!!!

In other food news (because I'm sure you all care so much), my diet has been reduced to tomatoes, cheese, yogurt and salt bagel chips. All in all, I'm not sure it is such a bad diet beyond the lack of variety. Sometimes I eat white beans. Currently, I'm craving a salmon caesar salad...so if anyone would like to figure out a way to mail fish, I'd be much obliged.

Melnik and Rozhen Monastery

So yesterday my Bulgarian history class took a field trip to Melnik and the Rozhen Monastery.

It was a quick bus ride (only 45 minutes or so) to Melnik, a tiny village that is known both for its wine and for its National Revival Period architecture. The town is so cute and tiny and nestled amongst the sandstone cliffs (more about those later).

Here is a tree outside of the house we toured that has martenitsas hanging in it. The month of March is called Marta in Bulgaria. Baba Marta (or Grandmother March), as legend goes, has quite a temper and can make life quite hard just when you are craving spring. So, on March 1st friends and family exchange red and white bracelets (Baba Marta's favorite colors are red and white) and you wear them to make her happy. When you see a tree blooming or a stork flying, you take off your martenitsa and tie it on a tree. Really cute tradition, huh? So right now, as everything is just starting to bloom, all of the trees are decorated! I have yet to see a stork, but by golly, I'm not leaving Bulgaria until I do.This is inside the house we toured. It was really cool to see the intersection of Italian, Turkish and Bulgarian architecture and interior design. Below is a fireplace which is undeniably Turkish, but I think it would be darling in a fairy princess room too. You can laugh, but I'm pretty sure my nieces would agree.
The house museum makes wine it now sells to tourists, but you can walk through the original owner's wine cellar. Cellar is really not the correct word...I think cave labyrinth might be more correct. It was huge! I don't have a good picture of the walls, but because they are carved from sandstone and underground they are moist and everyone who visits pushes statinki into the walls. It was really cooling to see all of the coins glittering. Here is a picture of Natia, from Georgia (the country), walking into the cave.
We then had a leisurely lunch where I finally got to try mish-mash. Dee-li-cious. It is roasted red peppers, feta and some other breakfast, scrambly stuff all cooked together. It looked disgusting, but tasted wonderful. To work that off (and because the bus couldn't fit on the road to the monastery) we hiked 1 kilometer straight up hill to the monastery. Here's the view from the top:
You can see the sandstone cliffs really well in these pictures. They are gorgeous and this part of Bulgaria is called pyramid country because of the formations made when the sandstone wears down.
The monastery was really cool, but alas, you aren't allowed to take pictures. I never get tired of looking at icons and it was really cool to be with someone, my friend Costadin, who actually knows what the symbols mean. Also, it was really interesting to see how all of the Bulgarian students, most of whom would not identify themselves as religious in the least, purchase candles, say prayers and cross themselves immediately upon entering the chapel.

Sometimes I really crave that intense liturgy and symbology that Orthodox and Catholic Christians have. I think that powerful connection is really cool.

Also, we got to hear a really eloquent priest lecture on the existence of God and try to convert my professor. That, and meeting a Marxist Jew (a branch of Jewry I had no idea even existed), really made my day.

As a side note, it is pouring down rain while I write this. It hasn't substantially rained the entire time we've been here. Some days have been drizzly, but I haven't worn my raincoat since I've been in Asheville.

So that's that for today...we leave for Istanbul on Thursday and I'm so, so, so, so excited...because once we get back it is only 3 days until Mama and Daddy come to visit!

PS--Did you see the fun new gadget we added to the sidebar? It shows where all of our readers are from. Nathan and I love to see how many people are reading and where they are from!