Olympia

The last days of the Greece trip were spent in Olympia. It was crazy to think that we were already reaching the end, all we had left were a couple sites, one museum, and then a 24 hour trajectory to make our way back to campus....

Olympia was a very small, very clean little town. I had expected something more like Athens for some reason, and after Nafplion it seemed like a very dull place, nonetheless it held a treasure: the first Olympic stadium.

We made our way into the Olympian archeological site, extremely excited for the traditional races. Every single semester UD students, professors, and even accompanying priests, join together to run a race on the Olympic track. For some reason I got really nervous for it. I still don't understand why, but I was extremely jittery and felt as if I was about to undergo a serious athletic competition.

Dr. Lisot, Dr Osborn an Dr. Hatlie spent some time lecturing on site, but most of our minds were on the race. As we sat in what used to be the old locker rooms and walked through the gymnasium and saw the temples (or lack thereof, and saw the site where the column drums are laying) I don't think I can recall a moment when we were less focused on our professor's words. May have been because it was the 7th consecutive day of listening to lectures, may have been because all of our minds were elsewhere...

Drums of columns

I for one was busy picturing athletes from all over, stretching, worrying, being nervous about their competition. I was picturing visiting girls walking around giggling, as they made their way into the stadium to wait for the events, and the men as they flexed and focused... and waited to have glory added to their name.

So there we were, walking through the olympic arch and unto the track. For a bystander, I suppose the track really would not look like much. It is about 300 meters of dirt surrounded by grass that is not greatly kept... but to all of us it held history. It didn't hold only the old olympian athletes that ran there, it also held years of UD students running with the same thoughts, and similar experiences.

The guys ran first, and then the girls, and then a co-ed relay. Every single race contained energy, nerves, laughter, speed, slow runners, cheering... every race was just us.

Of course most of us ran just to say we had ran in the Olympic Track, but in the end I think it meant a lot more.

The Olympic Track

Since that was the last night of the trip, they gave us a special dinner followed by a presentation of traditional Greek dancers. That was a lot of fun, since after their dances they asked us all to go in the middle and dance with them. At least 70 of us were dancing on together in circles, repeating the same motion with our feet over and over again, laughing at the awkwardness and soaking in the music.

After this, most of us headed into town in search of a discoteca, and we found a place similar to the one that hosted us in Delphi. Another fun dance of UD dancing and running to get in time for curfew.

Traditional Greek Dancing

The very last day of the Greece trip (not including the second ferry which took 5 extra hours to "park" and the bus which hit traffic and was an extra two hours, added to the original 7... ) we visited the Olympian Archeological museum. It was great since there were so many pieces that we studied in Art and Arch.

Hermes and the Infant Dyonisus

I feel like I should write a conclusion to this trip, but I wont. I think I'll save the concluding remarks to next week. We're leaving for our Northern Italy trip tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be better about blogging about that.

Wish you were all coming with me!