Among the Ancients

The Story
Greece

Yet again I am far behind on updating the blog, I can only hope your forgiveness can extend beyond my inconsiderate nature ;-). At least I have some pictures to supplement my stories (look at the last blog entry for access to the pictures).

From Marmaris, Turkey, I took a ferry to the island of Rhodes (Greece)that stopped right next to the remarkably picturesque old town where I would spend almost an hour trying to find my hostel. The hostel was well worth the search through the many cobble stone alley ways as the owner was very hospitable with sharing home made pizza and his original music. I spent the first day on a rented scooter cruising along the coast, visiting old ruins and small towns that made me smile from their combination of tranquility and remarkable history. At one point the strong winds from the approaching storm made me reconsider my route through the mountains as I often was blown from side to side. The storm proved to be quite ready to transpire for as soon as I returned to the hostel it started to rain; and rain it did for the next day as well. After exploring a little more of the old buildings in the old town during the few dry pathes, I prepared myself to catch my 3 am ferry to the island of Santorini.

After the long ferry ride, having spent most of it conversing with a Canadian English professor, I arrived to Santorini late in the evening to find the first accomodation available; unfortunately the local hostel didn't pick up their phone and I didn't have their address to give to the taxi driver. After a good night sleep I hitchhiked to the other side of the island to book a room in the quite cheap hostel and rent a car (most people always rent a scooter or car when arriving to the island, the car was the same price so I decided on the latter). I met a chinese couple who shared in my explorations of the island; after dropping them off at a black sand beach they wanted to visit I made my way to the famous location of Oia where the famous pictures are taken of white dome like houses with blue doors overlooking the dark blue sea. I don't know if there is anywhere in the world like it. It is exactly what you would expect it to look like from the pictures, it meets the greatest of expectations. I bought some groceries and had a fantastic picnic watching the sunset from one of the empty roofs of the houses. Quite an evening. Sadly, three days after I left Santorini I found out that a cruise ship sunk only about a few thousand meters off shore. Luckily everyone made it off board but all of their luggage went down with the boat (happened right before Easter, quite a mess). I met other travelers who saw it happened, quite a sight, even though it took about 20-some hours to sink (it made international news).

After two nights on Santorini, I took a ferry to another very popular Greek island, Mykonos. After negotiating a reasonable price for a room with a guest house owner (still in the bargaining mood from SE Asia), I rented a scooter and was off to explore the island. Besides the beautiful rocky coast line and rolling green hills, I most enjoyed the pleasant maze of alleys in the main city portion. Its a fairly touristy place but luckily I was there before the summer season starts, so I had the benefit of enjoying the well-kept buildings without the crowds.

From Mykonos I took a ferry to Athens to meet my cousin for the first time. Angelica, 7 years older than myself, and I hit it off right away, we could relate on so many different perspectives and interests. My father is originally from Austria so there are many relatives that live in Europe that I have never met. It was weird to see the connection of my personality to the Smerecnik family , especially in my cousin. I visited many sites in the city during the day (the highlight being the Acropolis) and Angelica and I would hang out at night. After two days in the city, we made our way down to Corinth in Peloponnesus to meet my aunt and other cousin for the easter weekend. Again, in my aunt, I could see so many ways in which I am like the Smerecnik family, many of whom are also travelers. My aunt was so hospitable in always making me great food and showing me around and giving some indepth history lessons on all of the ancient sites in the region. My highlight being the Corinth Canal (see pictures). As about 90% of greece is orthodox, they took me to an easter midnight service (on saturday) in a church where Peter and Paul from the Bible taught. There are many fascinating practise in the orthodox faith that were interesting to observe. One of the most interesting was the lighting of the candles from a flame that was brought from Jerusalem. I am fairly uneducated on it but basically they light a candle in Jerusalem, fly it to Greece, light other candles from the Jerusalem flame upon arrival, fly those candles to main cities by helicopter, and then from there they get distributed to even smaller villages. Congregations then lights their candles at the beginning of easter and take them home.

After a few days of being utterly spoiled by my aunt, I moved on to see the historic six monasteries of Meteora, daiting back to the 11th century, which are lodged into massive rock cliffs with some incredible views. Upon further research of the location, I found that the band Linkin Park named their second album after this place...after finding this out, the euphoric memories I had of this significant location were slightly scared (lets just say I am not a big fan of bands that remix their debut album). I hiked up to two of the monasteries near the town I was staying in and explored the mountain side until my legs were too tired to go on.

The next day I took a train north to the city of Thessaloniki where I ended up only spending half a day before taking a night train to Bulgaria. The city was fairly average, nothing that stood out too much in my mind. On the train ride to Thessaloniki I met a Croatian guy who was living in Bucharest, Romanian that I ended up staying with when I made it there.

The Reflection

I am short on time, as seems to be usual these days while I am rushing through Europe, so no time to express a full reflection. One thing I have been considering, coming from Turkey which was 95% Muslim and arriving in Greece which is about 95% Orthodox, is religious pluralism. In my experience, it seems religions are derived as a cultural means of attempting to connect with the mystery that is beyond us (as some may have recognized, I really like that phrase). If this is the case, each culture will have different value systems which are tied into their religious dogmas. I have been researching some interesting cultural values gathered by Geert Hofstede that seem to often compliment the manner in which the predominant religion of a country is practicted. Here is a good website where you can see some of Hofstede's research in cultural values:
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/geert_hofstede_resources.shtml

For example some interesting correlations can be found if you look at the uncertainty avoidance of certain countries and then compare that to the manners in which the predominant religion's dogmas are followed. Arabic countries often have a high level of uncertainty avoidance. Compare that to the way that Muslims are often very strict about observing the literal translations of the Koran. Or even if you look at the very structured liturgies and very specific practices of the Greek orthodox and compare that to their countries high level of uncertainty avoidance. Perhaps these are simply correlations and not causes but still seem interesting to me. You could also make the argument Hofstede is creating an unrealistic dichotomy with his study that is simplifying the complexity of human identity and cultural identity. Just some thoughts, no real conclusions thus far.

One observation in Greece was that a large majority of older men have these things called worry beads (at least thats the translation a greek guy told me they were called). They look like rosary beads or some type of orthodox prayer beads but really have no religious significance. They are simply used to keep your mind off distractions or maybe as some type of anxiety toy - men will flip them around in their hands, count through the beads, click them together, or just hold them wrapped around a hand. In some ways it seems so silly that grown men need these little things to play with, it reminds me of a child who needs his toy to keep him/her from getting bored. But my concepts of "silly" are derived from my own cultural values which are incredibly limited. And maybe there are a lot of health benefits to flipping around some beads in your hand, they can possibly keep you more focused and provide a release from stress.

So those are some thoughts. I am currently traveling with an English couple in Romania (after coming up through Bulgaria) and will be leaving for Hungry in a few days. I will try to update soon on these other travels.

And in the words of Bobby McFerrin:
"Don't worry, be happy!"

KS