Greece: Athens & Olympia
Writing to you live from the sunny coast of Catalonia: Bon Nadal, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas! From our current state of ongoing food coma, we offer you some highlights from our December travels:
One thing we discovered while we were in Italy is that despite our sincere efforts to speak Italian, more often than not Portuguese slipped off our tongues instead. Also, like many language learners at a beginning level tend to do, we overused the verbs that we knew to the point that we occasionally said "I am a pizza" instead of "I would like a pizza." Oops. Since Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are all within the same language family, our message was usually communicated without too many misinterpretations.
Greek, on the other hand...oh, boy. By the end of two weeks we learned to say "hello," "good morning," and "good afternoon/evening," and that's about it. Step one was learning to identify individual letters, followed by piecing the letters together to form words, and once that was accomplished we still needed to put meaning to the word. We felt like Sherlock Holmes and Watson trying to put clues together in order to solve a great mystery, when in reality our end result was "simply" ordering a falafel pita and chicken gyro.
Despite the language barrier, we enjoyed our time in Greece. We explored the ancient ruins in Athens with my brother as our guide during his final week of a semester studying abroad. He proved to us that he had learned a thing or two during his time there, including where to find the best kitty hangout spots in the city.
After Athens, our next stop was Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic games. This was Emi's turn to transform his university studies into real life as the ancient Olympics were a main component of his Physical Education curriculum. Besides the museums and architectural remains of the ancient games, we found our favorite Greek restaurant in the tiny town of Olympia. With the entire place to ourselves two nights in a row (hello, low tourist season) we filled up on cheese pies, stuffed tomatoes, stuffed vine leaves, pork souvlaki, potatoes, salad, and delicious desserts of apples and oranges with Greek yogurt drizzled in honey and cinnamon. We're certain that the best Olympic athletes have eaten the same thing for centuries on end.
We wrapped up our time in Greece in the port city of Corinth, located on the road between Olympia and Athens. Here we went for a number of strolls along the shoreline, watched ships come and go, marveled at the bridge that submerges underneath the canal to let boats pass through, and soaked in all of nature's beauty. From the coast we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance while still enjoying a mild seaside climate.
And with that, we end the year with a renewed appreciation of being able to communicate with the people around us back here in Spain. Perhaps we will even pick up some more Catalan during the remainder of our time here.
One thing we discovered while we were in Italy is that despite our sincere efforts to speak Italian, more often than not Portuguese slipped off our tongues instead. Also, like many language learners at a beginning level tend to do, we overused the verbs that we knew to the point that we occasionally said "I am a pizza" instead of "I would like a pizza." Oops. Since Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are all within the same language family, our message was usually communicated without too many misinterpretations.
Greek, on the other hand...oh, boy. By the end of two weeks we learned to say "hello," "good morning," and "good afternoon/evening," and that's about it. Step one was learning to identify individual letters, followed by piecing the letters together to form words, and once that was accomplished we still needed to put meaning to the word. We felt like Sherlock Holmes and Watson trying to put clues together in order to solve a great mystery, when in reality our end result was "simply" ordering a falafel pita and chicken gyro.
Despite the language barrier, we enjoyed our time in Greece. We explored the ancient ruins in Athens with my brother as our guide during his final week of a semester studying abroad. He proved to us that he had learned a thing or two during his time there, including where to find the best kitty hangout spots in the city.
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Here are the rest of our photos from Athens.
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After Athens, our next stop was Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic games. This was Emi's turn to transform his university studies into real life as the ancient Olympics were a main component of his Physical Education curriculum. Besides the museums and architectural remains of the ancient games, we found our favorite Greek restaurant in the tiny town of Olympia. With the entire place to ourselves two nights in a row (hello, low tourist season) we filled up on cheese pies, stuffed tomatoes, stuffed vine leaves, pork souvlaki, potatoes, salad, and delicious desserts of apples and oranges with Greek yogurt drizzled in honey and cinnamon. We're certain that the best Olympic athletes have eaten the same thing for centuries on end.
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These were the only non-dumpster-diving cats in Olympia that we found.
See the others among our photos from Olympia. |
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| Last, but not least, here are our photos from Corinth. |
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