Life on Lesbos: 3 Amazing Days

Whew. It's been a pretty crazy weekend, LOTS going on, so much that I always go straight to bed at the end of the day without writing in this journal! Whatever.

Friday night we had a barbecue here, which it seems like we do every weekend. We invited the excavators from our dig site at prehistoric Thermi. They seemed to enjoy themselves; it's not hard to do, because the hotel has awesome cooks and we can always eat outside, by the sea. We shared a carafe of wine at our table... can I interject and say how nice it is to be able to share a bottle of wine with friends and not have to worry about being "shady" or pretending I'm 21? It's very nice. Especially by the sea.

Georgia and Vicky, two of our friends who were Thermi excavators, took a few of us to their favorite bars after dinner. We went into Mytilini in Georgia's car, and listened to the Cure on the way. One bar was called Musiko Kafeneon (Music Cafe) and it was this very groovy, low-lit place that played the Smiths and other low-energy alternative American rock. It was full of these weird little statues, and at our table there was a lamp shaped like a slice of watermelon. It felt very "French" for some reason. Georgia carried most of the conversation; she's really funny, and we call her "the girl with the hair" because of her purple, short in the back haircut. Vicky is quieter, she's "the bone girl," but she's really nice and smiley. There were probably more silences in the conversation than were comfortable, but you know, it was a pretty full week and we were kind of tired. Anyway, after we left Musiko Kafeneon we went to this place called Hott Spott, which was right next to a bar called Monkey which we'd already been to a few times and which was a bit too expensive for us. Hott Spott was okay though, and much louder than Musiko Kafeneon. We ended up sitting outside, and talking about politics and international relations. (Which is fun when people speak different languages and have had a few beers.) We went home at about 2, and went to sleep.

Saturday was a really full day. We went all over the island on a bus, first to an olive museum in the center of the island, which made me crave olive oil like mad. Then we went to Petra and saw a mansion and a church. I feel like I look at a lot of churches. There's lots of candles and lots of silver. Basically. I'm starting to notice differences between kinds of icons though, and that's kind of good because maybe I'll do my final paper on iconoclasm? I dunno. Lunch was great, we ate in a groovy taverna and had a LOT of food, most of which was fried. Awesome. I was pretty sleepy afterwards, but there was still a lot of places we were to go to. Then we went to (Molyvos?), a town where there was a big castle on a hill above the town. Basically, our bus dropped us off up by the castle, and our professor told us to walk down to the bottom and meet up at the bus there, and people took the opportunity to shop for souvenirs. So it goes, I guess: "Oh, we're not learning? Yay, free time! Let's buy things!" Oh well. After that we went to a church which was famous because apparently a saint told someone there to make an icon out of earth and blood and worship it. So we saw the icon, and there was a wedding going on at the church so we got a lot of people-watching in. Finally, we went to a place where they made ceramics and lots of people did more shopping. I didn't do any shopping, so here's a picture; I'm not buying any breakables for gifts! Anyway, our bus returned to the hotel at 7:45 p.m. and I barely made it to my bed in time to fall asleep, completely zonked.

I got up at about 6 this morning, Sunday morning, and saw the sunrise. I would have written a journal entry, but our power went out and so did the internet. It was going to be another day of excursions, so I just sat and prepared myself. We spent most of the day at a small family farm in the middle of nowhere. It was actually really, really cool; we got a tour of the place and saw where they ground flour using a water mill, and took turns at the wheel of this huge olive press. It's really cool to know how olive oil is made, remind me to tell you when I get home, okay? We also saw some newborn baby goats; they were brand new that day! Awwwww... Then we got to learn how to make Greek food, I worked mostly at the cheese pie station. So now I can make you all some excellent, if fattening, cheese pie. We also did a grand cheese and olive tasting. Mmmmm. Then we went into a village called something like Aghios, and saw the church there. Again, our assignment was to walk to the bus which was parked at the bottom of a hill. I stopped for a Greek coffee, which was an AMAZING wake up call. If you've never had Greek or Turkish coffee, I suggest you get on that. Wow. When we got back to the farm we ate the food that we'd prepared, and had a Greek dancing lesson. I really like Greek dancing, there's a lot of free style involved. After dancing - and this was perfectly planned - we went to the Thermal baths for which the town of Thermi is named. They had segregated baths for men and women, because you were encouraged to go in the nude. It was amazing; a hot tub full of natural hot spring water the size of a swimming pool where you and all of your friends could just go and sit and get clean? Classic. Now I'm back at the hotel, feeling nice and clean. I'm still full from lunch, which is amazing considering it's almost 9 now and lunch was at like 3:30. Sweet. I'm going to bed soon; I'm pretty tired, and tomorrow is my last day at the dig site at Thermi so I want to be wide awake for it. Cheers!