Katalagari came and went and now it seems like a long time ago already. We didn’t get to go the olive grove so we are doing that tomorrow at our new place. But first I need to catch up on the stuff in between.
From Katalagari we went to a port town called Rethymno, in one of the four major regions of Crete, a tourist spot, but very cute. We stayed for two nights and all of it was free time. So, we did a lot of shopping, mostly browsing the many jewelry and shoe stores…and got some ice cream. Ingrid and I went for a fun in later afternoon along the pretties spot in town, a venetian wall that is on the edge of the water, it overlooks large rocks where waves crash up. We decided we needed to go back and take pictures and play in the rocks. Some of us decided to go to the aquacenter/gym affiliated with the hotel the next morning, and it was great to just dink around in the gym for a while. We then spent the rest of the day on the beach. Yes, we were the only ones…again. We got many stares, but that is expected. A guy from the U.S. stopped by with some bad jokes and wished us happy vacations, they really like to find other Americans. I think this is weird because there are thousands that come every tourist season, if I lived here I would be totally annoyed with them. But perhaps they miss us J We met a very cool jewelry store worker and returned to the store twice. She knew very good English and had studied abroad in California when she was in school. I bought some ridiculous sandals with a friend here…I will show you all sometime.
After Rethymno we went to the Orthodox Academy of Crete, which I was totally surprised by. With no explanation from our proffesors, I thought it would be something like a school for monks, monastery style. It was nothing like that . It is actually a very modern center of a nonprofit organization with an Orthodox Backbone that promotes education in science and theology and conservation of the environment. They hold many conferences for important scientists and theologians and also camps for children in order to increase awareness about environmental issues and discuss scientific and theological ideas and issues. It was amazingly beautiful. The place was situated right on the shore, and the buildings themselves were architecturally modern and gorgeous. I took more pictures of scenery here than any other place. My Concordia roommates (Michele and Kelly) and I are taking pictures of pretty things for our house and we plan to make a wall of flowers from the ones we find on this trip, we have so many great ones so far! We had a very long first day here, one of the founders of the Academy gave us a long lecture followed by another one from a theologian who was to speak at the ceremony the next day. The next day was Orthodox Sunday, a very special day in the Orhodox church. We attended the service at the monastery associated with the Academy and it was so full of people we could not squeeze inside! So we sat out in the courtyard and listened to the service broadcasted through speakers to the outside. I heard the service starting when I woke up that morning at 8:00 but we didn’t go until 9:30 and it was not over until after 11:00! That is over three hours of worship! At the end of the service everyone filed out of the church into the courtyard in a procession of the icons. The monastery dignitaries carried around their most prized icons and chanted in Greek. It was really cool. There was also a monk dinging the very large bells at the top of the monastery, by hand, he was getting quite a workout! After this we had snacks and then fell asleep in a greek version of the lecture we heard the night before. Then we snuck out early to get a good seat at lunch. The lunch was the traditional meal of Orthodox Greeks ever year on Orthodox Sunday. We had fish roe salad, which is a sauce made from fish eggs…very salty. The main dish was a very fishy rice dish with shrimp. I thought it was absolutely disgusting, I couldn’t get over the fish smell. But the Greeks loved it!
After lunch we got to see an iconography workshop where the icon writer of the Academy taught us about the process of icon writing. They don’t call it painting icons, even though technically that is what is done, because icons are a form of telling stories, and the way most people of Orthodox Religion learn the theology of the church. They are the central form of teaching and therefore are “written” in order to be “read.” They are very special and expensive, the backgrounds are made of 18 karat Gold leaf. She was young and actually from Germany, but went to school in Macedonia (Northern Greece) and Crete to learn iconography and because of this had a mixed style of both, which are very different. Apparently anyone can order their own personal icons through the Academy and she paints them and sends them out. They are very expensive, ranging as high as $500 or more.
We then walked up to a chapel built into the rocks of the mountain where the saint of the Academy was a hermit. An art project was inspired by his story and is displayed throughout the academy. His story is that he was walking along one day when he came upon a skull on the ground. He asked the skull who they were and he told him “so and so” and I am in hell. The saint then asked the skull what hell is like and he told him basically the same as what the living people assume, with flames and torture. Along with this, the worst part is that the damned are bound back to back, and only when people in the living world pray for them are they able to loosen the ropes and look at each other. So, when artists attend the academy, they are asked to read this text and create a piece of their own inspired from it and their reaction to the text. Some artwork was really cool, but a lot of it was very scary, with morbid pictures of skulls and death.
The rest of our day we just hung out, I really liked that place. Our balconies connected to each others so we could just walk from room to room outside and hang out. The dinners were family style and we were served traditional foods they eat at this time, which contain no meat or animal products, like a vegan diet as the Orthodox Greeks are observing the Lenten fast now. For dinner the second night we had mini octopus for an appetizer…they were tasty but the texture was disturbing, and we could see the suckers on the tentacles, which were not very appetizing. We also met a scientist who came from northern Europe to Crete and started a project of collecting all the indigenous plants of the island, which number over 3000, documented them, and then donated them to the Academy as part of their conservation awareness mission. A younger scientist is working as his assistant, he is from Madagascar. The museum is not opened yet, but by this summer visitors will be able to see the plants, we got a sneak preview and it was pretty cool.
From here we went to the city of Chania, which is a very big tourist attraction for its shopping and rich Cretan history. It has a U.S. naval base along with much military history and was actually the capital of Crete for a very long time. The bay was gorgeous and the buildings along it have been converted from early times into restaurants, hotels and bars. The city does not allow renovations of these buildings so some of them look very run down, but the overall looks is very cool. We did A LOT of shopping in Chania, they had jewelry store after jewelry store…I am now sick of looking at jewelry for at least a week… J All of the jewelry was very pretty and mostly original, but of course, the stuff I really liked was very expensive so most of the time I decided I could live without it. The islands are where its at, so I am told. We stayed in Chania for 3 nights and it was our least favorite accommodations. The hotel was a tiny cracker box sandwiched on a city block and the rooms were randomly shaped and awekward. We were spread across six floors because there were only 4 rooms or less on each floor. The showers were the basic 3 inch lip but a step down with no shower curtain. We flooded our bathroom each time anyone showered. Our rooms were almost creepy, but we spent little time in them so all is well. In Chania we went to our first Jewish synagogue, it was pretty cool. They actually welcome people of all faiths to attend services, but they are traditional Jewish services. We went and were given a tour, it was very small and actually built originally as a Roman Catholic church and was abandoned for many years. It was tucked away on a side street right across from a tavern and parallel to a street we shopped on all three days. There was also a really cool lighthouse here that we ventured out to, we had to walk around the bay to get to the end of the pier it was built on in order to walk all the way out the end only to discover it was locked. But the view from there was great! We also saw from here the hill/mountain where Zorba the Greek was filmed, a movie based on the book by an author we are studying, Nikos Kazantzakis, wrote. He is a very important historical figure here on Crete and his name pops up everywhere we go.
We left Chania this morning and are not in a small town in the countryside called Vamos. This is the strangest accommodations yet. We each have our own little apartments, like Katalagari, only they are spread across town and much less structured and very old. I like them very much, I feel like I am staying in a traditional Greek family home, minus the family… Our apartment is a maze inside, but I will try to take pictures as best I can! We don’t actually have a common base so we meet in the tavern where we get wireless internet, we didn’t have any in Chania so we are ALL here checking e-mail and facebook all day. Tomorrow we are doing some fun cultural things in town!
