Allllll Over Attica

The Rental Car - 6/20/07, Athens, 7:32 p.m.

SSo... my enter key is very, very broken. Not good.

Anyway, we have had a very adventurous two days! Yesterday, we rented (well, professor Ammerman rented) a car and we drove to the first of two caves of Pan for her research. Luckily, we had another woman from the American Academy here in Athens who wanted to get out of the city for a day come with us and show us the way. Otherwise, we NEVER would have made it. It involved an "energetic scramble" up and down a cliff, but it was a blast! It was also very, very cool inside. Both in the "neat" way and in the "not hot" way. We then drove to the second cave of Pan and saw some engravings and a statuary that was there. I don't know exactly what kind of research she is doing, but it was a lot of fun to do some amateur spelunking.

Then we dropped the other lady off and went to find the theater of Thorikos, one of the oldest remaining theaters. We were driving down the road and I said to my professor "Hey, that looks like a theater." And she said, "That may well be." Then we drove for another 20 minutes and realized that we had passed it. Turns out that I had pointed it out to her earlier and she thought it was a different one. Oops. Then we went to the beach for a quick swim before coming back to Athens.

Today was another early day. We got up at 8 and left Athens to go to Lefkandi, a burial site and possible place of human sacrifice. Professor Ammerman wants to use it for a class that she's teaching in the fall. Cool. We almost couldn't find it! And, it was a good thing we stopped at the museum first because they told us it was closed. She talked them into opening it for us, though. So we walked around for a bit, took some video and some pictures. We had lunch in Lefkandi and then went for another quick dip in the sea before heading out to Marathon. In Marathon, we were looking for another cave of Pan and we looked hard. We couldn't get to it, but I think we found it waaaaaaaay up in this mountain. I thought our little Fiat wasn't going to make it! It came out with some scratches on it (oops) but other than that, it's all good.

Now, I'm going to jump in the shower and then Jess and I are headed over to Professor Ammerman's for dinner and a glass of wine. It should be nice. Tomorrow, I am planning to go to the theater of Dionysus again (maybe) or the National Archaeological Museum in the morning so that I can be back in the afternoon to do some VPing, maybe?? Lemme know.

Lots of love from Athens!

Xoxo,

Ally