Day 7
Kalispera!
Sorry I am falling behind on my blog, we are doing so much and there isn’t a ton of free time/internet access for me to post! But I will try to tell you guys about some of the last few days right now =]
So on day 7, after a quick gyro, we headed to Mycena. I was particularly excited about checking out this specific location because I’ve read about Agamemnon, the mythical king of Mycena, and the tragic cycle of his family Atreus, in my Reading Tragedy class this past semester (thank you Professor Pletcher!). Prior to leaving for Troy to fight for h, Agamemnon was told by the gods that he had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in order to have favorable winds to sail to Troy. As a result, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, wins at Troy, and sails back home only to be murdered by his vindictive wife Clytemnestra, who wanted revenge for her daughter’s sacrifice. In my class I had read Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which told the story ofAgamemnon’s murder by Clytemnestra, and her subsequent murder at the hands of her son, Orestes. There is just a constant cycle of violence in the trilogy. Since we couldn’t go to all the sites because of the strike, we could only look at the acropolis of Mycena from the outside of the site, much like we did at Olympia. Still, we could see some old tombs in the sides of the hills and some ancient ruins. We also learned about Henry Schliemann, a controversial archaeologist obsessed with Homer’s descriptions of Mycena and ultimately his discovery of Mycenean gold and treasures. Nani told th story so well and it was pretty wild learning about his story. He ended up accidentally finding the treasure by stepping close to a pit and causing it to collapse, revealing the treasure site. He had actually given up his search and was going to go home, but he felt he had to say one last goodbye to the ancient city. Imagine if he hadn’t, we may never have found the artifacts otherwise! After our visit to the Mycenean acropolis, we went to this Greek restaurant where many famous people have eaten, including George Bush Sr. and Jackie O. The food was delicious, we were given lamb and potatoes and it was incredible!
After lunch, we drove to Piraeus port at Athens to take a ferry to the island of Crete. We said bye to Nani and Chris and boarded the boat. I definitely did not expect the ferry to be so big, it was like a cruise ship! One thing about the ferry is that instead of buying expensive rooms, people can opt to sleep on the floors of each deck. I saw loads of sleeping bags set out onech floor, which was definitely different. I did like our room though, and I was glad we got one because the next morning I heard from some other tourists that their bag was stolen from them while they were sleeping on the deck floor. Thank goodness we got a room! I definitely slept very well in it =]
