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Published: March 17th 2008
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A church
This is some church that we stopped at on the way to the academy We are at the Orthodox Academy near Chania, Crete right now. It is a lot different than I thought it was going to be. But first, I’ll start with the last town we were in… Rethymno, which is about 30,000 people, so decent sized. We didn’t have any group activities there, which was great. We didn’t get there til later in the afternoon on Thursday, so when we got there we just wandered around town for a little while. Then we had dinner at the hotel, which was really good. There was a big variety; it was a buffet. Pretty typical food. Lots of different salads, some cucumber and tomato, some cabbage based. And then there was really good meat patties (like big meat balls with no sauce) and then I dipped them in tzatzaki (a cucumber, yogurt dip) which was delicious. It was Alicia’s birthday so the hotel gave her this huge cake, which was amazing. It was pretty much all frosting and then white chocolate pieces on the outside. It was delicious. Then later that night, Ingrid, Brock, Erik, and I went to a little café and had some wine. The red was really good, but the white tasted
like peanut oil, it was very interesting, and not that good. And then we just came back to the hotel and hung out for a while. Then on Friday we had a free day so Emily, Molly, Ingrid, Brock and I went to a fitness club and worked out for a while. It was great and much needed. The gym was very similar to American ones, but it was smaller than most. But, the swimming pool (I didn’t go in it, but some of the others did) was salted, so I found that pretty interesting. Then, after we all worked out for a long time, we went to the beach and had a picnic. It was amazing. And we just hung out at the beach for a while that afternoon. So it was an awesome free day. Then, yesterday we didn’t leave for the Academy til the afternoon, so we went out shopping in the morning. I got a necklace that has the Phaestos disc on it. The Phaestos disc was found at Phaestos and they have no idea what it says on it. It is a bunch of symbols, but no one can decipher it. It is compared to
Monastery
This is where we went to the service on Sunday morning
the Rosetta Stone. So I was pretty excited about that. And then I just bought a few more souvenirs for some people. And then we had gyros (souvlaki in a pita with veggies and tzatzaki and fries) which were really good. Then we left for the Academy. I don’t think anyone knew what to expect, but we were all pleasantly surprised. The academy is not a school, it is more of a conference place. It is right on the coast, which is amazing and the rooms that we are in actually aren’t that bad at all, so that’s nice. So yesterday, we had a lecture about the academy. It started out interesting, but it lasted three hours, so then it was not so interesting anymore. And the guy who was giving it didn’t speak English fluently, so that made it even harder to understand. Then today we went to an Orthodox church service at the monastery that is connected to the academy. That was really interesting, except for the fact that we couldn’t understand it because it was in Greek. But it was still really cool to observe this service. And it was their first Sunday in Lent, which is
when they do a procession of the icons, so after the service was done, most of the attendants had brought icons from their homes and they processed around the church. So that was interesting to observe that. Then we went to a lecture in Greek, so I have no idea what it was about. But there were a few hundred people there, so it must have been important. Then we ate lunch with all those people. Our professors wanted us to be immersed in the culture, so they wouldn’t let us all sit together; we had to disperse so we were all sitting among Greek people. It was a great idea, but almost all of them were over 60 years old, meaning that they do not know any English. So the conversation failed miserably because we were trying to talk to them, but they didn’t know any English and our Greek vocab is very limited. Then this afternoon we got to see where and how they paint icons. There is one lady here who paints icons, and it is not just for this place, but for anywhere in the world. Apparently you can order icons by her on a website.
But that was really cool to see what the process was for them to be painted. First they have a sketch of the icon and then put it down on wood that is covered in a white paint type thing and then trace it through a carbon paper. And then they add the gold for the background (almost all icons have gold in the background to symbolize paradise). The gold is actually 23.5 carat gold. Then they go about painting the rest of the icon. The paint that they use is all from things found in nature. They made a powder of different things and then add a liquid that consists of eggs and vinegar to the powder, because apparently this is what they used to use a long time ago and the icons have lasted centuries, so they have continued with this method. Then we met with a botanist who explained to us that they are trying to start something here at the academy dealing with plants. They have collected over 8,000 species and it is all thanks to one guy in particular. This lecture wasn’t that exciting because they really haven’t started analyzing much, they have only collected
different samples throughout the years of plants. I was a little confused about this whole thing because they already had this many different species, but they said they haven’t started much here, and there wasn’t much to the lab at all, just a microscope and all of the species filled. So I’m not quite sure what the deal is there. But anyways, they we walked in a little church that is in a cave near the academy. The view from there was gorgeous. Inside the cave there wasn’t much. Just a small alter with icons and candles. And then this evening we are just hanging out and we leave for Chania tomorrow morning. So that’s pretty much a summary of what this academy has been like for these two days.
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