Delphi

On our third day of traveling, after the quick stop at Thermopylae, we arrived at Delphi.

Although I still had the marvelous mountains of Meteora on my mind and I was sure those would be the most amazing thing I would be seeing, Delphi really left me aghast.

Remains of the Temple to Hera

We got to the Archeological Site of Delphi a little later than we had planned for, but it only gave us an even nicer weather with the sun starting to set. Starting at the middle of Mount Parnassus we saw the remains of the Temple to Hera, where both Dr. Hatlie and Dr. Lisot gave us lectures on its function and architecture, respectively. Then we made our way to the Temple of Apollo, which we could see in the distance.

On our way up the mountain next to Mount Parnassus we stopped for a while so a second group of performers could read a passage from Aeschylus' Eumenides. Every time we had a group perform, our whole class was involved. We had all read this passage before, we had the background and knew what would happen afterwards, we had all sat in Dr. Osborn's class as he explained its significance and now 5 or seven people were making it come alive at a place where it would have taken life before. (If not by the ancient Greeks, at least by some previous UD students jaja). We all saw as people from different groups of friends joined to make up a scene from a Greek Tragedy, and we all became the audience together.

Hiking/walking around the Sanctuary of Apollo.

After a short hike we stopped again for a lecture on everything we would be seeing once we got to the top. Dr. Lisot talked to us about the importance Siphnian Treasury, the Oracle of Delphi and how it worked (I really need to study this, especially because it's on my Midterm this Friday!), the way that Heracles tried to cheat his way into having the Oracle before all the others in line, talked about the Pythian games (a Panhellenic precursor to the Olympics) which happened at this site and its gymnasium, the sanctuary to Apollo.... and more that we later hiked up a bit to see.

Looking down on the Symphian treasury, with the Temple of Hera in the far left.

Once again we had an amazing vantage point, this time both over the Temple to Hera and to the right over the city of Delphi. The sight was incredible, took my breath away. Seeing the buildings (which were pretty well restored for their age) was also pretty cool, but I couldn't take my eyes away from the mountains. Even when we got up to the theater and listened to our philosophy and literature professors lecture us.

Beautiful, eye stealing mountains

Dr. Nelson talked about Socrates, and although he had told us this before, talked about the oracle of Delphi which had said he was the wisest man alive. Because of this Socrates, made it his goal in life to prove this, and to talk to anyone that thought himself wise in order to do so. Of course, anyone that knows about Socrates knows that this got him in trouble with the politicians and others in power who thought they knew when they did not and were shown so by Socrates.... and so he was eventually convicted to death for this "crime".

Dr. Osborn then talked about Dantes Paradiso, which is part of the trilogy of the Divine Comedy which we all read last year. Cool fact for anyone that has read it: Mount Parnassus is Mount Purgatory! The very mountain I was looking at is the one that Dante imagined himself going up with Virgil as he made his way up to Paradise.

All the (lucky) people (that got this hotel) staring out their balconies at the amazing sight.

After a couple more lectures, we headed to the hotels in Delphi. Since we were about 120+ people with our group and Delphi is not the biggest of cities, we had to split up. Luckily, I was in the fortunate group, that got the hotel with THE most amazing view out our windows and porches, aand we had hot water. Honestly though, I do not think I have ever stared out a window and seen anything close to what I could see in my hotel room in Delphi. It was paradisal. I imagine that if Eden could be compared to anything, it would have been this sight. I could have stayed out in the porch and stared for weeks, especially knowing that as the sun started to set and the stars and moon became more visible, the beauty before me only morphed into different sets of art. There was nowhere that the sun could move to make this sight less marvelous.

The view from our hotel window/porch.

However I had to peel my eyes off from the mountains and water to go to dinner, and then we all went to a Discoteca. While paying five euros to go into a small Greek "club", which looked more like a small rented party room with a bar, with the same 100+ students that you are with all day long may not sound like much... it was actually one of the highlights of the trip.

We completely took over this place for almost three hours. We all danced in our own UD way, very clean and very sober, and everyone went around dancing (or jumping with flailing arms) with people they perhaps didn't talk to as much. Some Greek guys arrived at the club at one point (probably knowing that some American College girls had arrived at their city once more) and tried to dance with us, but it was very sweet to see that all of our guys (though not many) made somewhat of a circle around all the girls, and were on the look out for creepy guys all night. All in all it was an extremely fun night, and to top it off Dr. Osborn was there dancing all three hours with us! When it was almost time for the club to empty, as we all had to go back for curfew, we put Dr. Osborn up on the small stage and he crowd surfed over all of us.

Indubitably, one of the funnest nights of the trip.

Dancing in the Discoteca. Dr. Osborn is the third from the left on stage.