Day 12: At "The Center of the World"

Pictures: The first picture is of the Temple of Athena in Delphi. (Notice that the grayish parts are the reconstructed parts to give us an idea of what it would have looked like and the white part is the original Greek material). The second picture is all of us Fulbright-ers in front of the Temple, and the final picture is Amy and me in front of the mythical and healing waterfall (which, yes, I did touch....just for good luck!)

Hello! Today I am standing in the Center of the World, according to the ancient Greeks. The Greeks thought that Delphi, a small city in the mountains of central Greece, was where the center of the earth was. It's not hard to understand why: it's absolutely gorgeous here. I have the best view from my hotel room! There is the largest olive grove in Greece down in the valley of the mountains, the Gulf of Corinth in the distance, and mountains surrounding this town.

Delphi is also the beginning of the Pythian Games, which was the most famous festival in Greece after the Olympics. The Games commemorated Apollo's triumph over his oracular predecessor here, the snaky Python. Because Apollo (as you all know) was the god of music, the Pythian Games had more artistic contests than the athletics we have in the Olympics.

Within Delphi is the Temple of Apollo and a Temple of Athena. While the temples were made of columns, the ceiling have little knobs on it (making it look like a lego). This is because when the Greeks made buildings out of wood the place where they would hammer in the nail would not look pretty, so they would put a stud over it. They got so used to doing this and it made the ceiling look better, that even with the marble and lime of the temples, they would create artificial studs in the rock so the ceilings would look the same!

Sebastian -- Greeks do seem to know a lot about philosophy and history. It's so much apart of their history. Their history is really what binds them together as Greeks.

Maria -- No pyramids here...that's the Egyptians. There are lots of pagan temples though! If you see in the picture of the Temple of Athena, you'll see three reconstructed columns: Notice that the gray-ish material is the recently renovated part. The white parts of the columns are the original ancient Greek parts of the temple!

Adam -- All of the mythology stories are the ancient stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. All the Greeks are very knowledgeable in their mythology. I'm learning quite a bit about these gods and goddesses myself!

After Delphi, we all visited the cutest village every: Arahova. It is a mountain village 16 miles from Delphi. It is WAY up in the mountains and had beautiful views. This village is known for it's hand-loomed fluffy wool and all of the weaving takes place here in the village. After shopping we all had a 6 course dinner at a local restaurant. Yum! More fried zucchini! I can't wait to come back to Chicago and start cooking all this great Greek food :)

Hope you're all well!