eath-shattering nothingness

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I left Corfu on saturday the 7th of april for the peloponese city of Patras. As i carfully stepped over borken peices of pottery, which had been hurled from windows as part of the easter celebrations, and doged the horeds of people and fire works that were randomly being set off, I considered trying to stay on the island for a bit longer. But I had already booked passage on on a ferry that would sail for 8 hours to the main land, and besides i had spent almost a week on the Island and I was getting a little to comfortable there. I took those all as sgins that it was time to move on.

As I sat starring out the window on the ferry i started wondering what I was going to do when i got to Patra. I had no place to sleep for the night and only a small map in my tavel book to go by. Add to that that i was getting there on the biggest holiday in Greece it was doutless that anything was going to be open. Then I saw it. A reflection of a canadian flag in the window, I turned around and imeadialty approached the two girls that were standing there, whom it turns out were from vancouver. They were traveling with 3 americans and we were all in the same boat, metaaphoricaly and figurativley. they were going to Patra as well and had no where to stay. We agreed to pool our resources togeather to try to find a place to stay.

Finding a place wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. We rolled up on the Patras youth hostel and Booked a dorm room for all of us. Its about 10 euros per night and you get what you pay for, a dirty room with no sheets and peptobismal pink paint on the walls. But after The expenses of Italy I was happy for the budget break. The only thing that really went on after that was a candle ceramony at a church at midnight, where all the greeks of the area stand around with lit candles while the priest comes out and says/ chants some words. The whole thing didnt take more than half an hour and ended with some churh bells ringging and fireworks going off while bats swooped around over head scared by the noise. It was all very dramatic.

After that it was a ghost town. Nothing was open for the next two days, so I spent allot of time staggering around an empty city and surfing the web at internet caffes, the only things that were open besides coffee shops and restaurants. Today things got back to normal and I was able to go and see some sights. I wandered through a massive fortress that was built on the ruins of the Patra acropolis in about 600A.D. I couldnt go into the actual keep but had a good time climbing around the walls and walking through the garden that takes up most of the place. After that I walked down to a roman odeon, one of the best preserved theaters from 160 A.d. As I was sitting in the theater bakinng in the 33 degree heat the theater started to shake and rumble in a small earth quake.

I dont know if any of you know this, but greece is one of the most siesmically active places in the world, with the merging of three plates, the euraisa, African and arabian techtonic plates. this was actually the 3rd earthquake ive felt in four days and some people in my room told me that there were at least 2 more while i slept.

tommorw I leave for Olympia, the place of the very first olympic games.

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Photos

me in the apatheater
this was moments before the whole place started shaking in the 4th earth quake