The Chronicles of Berry: Thursday & Friday of Week One

First, I have to say thank you to my most faithful reader, Mama Flynn, for coming up with the great name I can use for my blog while I'm here. It was only genius enough for me to not come up with it. Anyhow, this update is a two-for-one because Thursday and Friday weren't terribly eventful. Here we go!

Thursday morning, the four of us and Dick walked down to the Old Olympic Stadium (which is by the way a beautiful and amazing piece of architecture!) to meet up with Iris. After we found her, we got on the bus and headed down to the National Archaeological Museum of Greece. After we got off the bus, we had a little bit of time to kill before we went inside, so I did the obvious when I have free time. EAT! I got this bacon, egg and cheese pastry which once again seemed to be better than anything that I've had in the states that is similar. After that solid breakfast, we sat down to get a quick lecture about the different historical time periods in relation to Ancient Greece. Then we were off to experience the museum.

Once we got inside, we found out just how much history there was in ancient Greece. Almost too much for four students to digest in a few hours! There was definitely some interesting things to look at though. By the way, if you want to check out some pictures from the museum as well as some other pictures on the trip, click on this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023375&id=51502193&l=f5cb3ea636

Among the various things we saw at the museum were how statues were used in ancient times and how they varied and became more detailed as time went on. They were initially used as tombstones would have been used today. Essentially, imagine going to a cemetery and seeing statues and the grave sites instead of tombstones. As time went on, the statues would get more and more lavish until they were eventually outlawed. After that, the tombs featured much more subdued images. It was really interesting just to think how much extravagance has been a thorn in the side of society for thousands of years; it's not just something that started with "bling-bling".

Something we saw that plenty of people would have liked is weapons that were excavated from the Battle of Thermopylae. Not ringing a bell yet? If you remember the movie 300, you should remember that is the battle it is based off of. They had some of the weapons from that battle and you can see those in the picture album. Just in case a few of you readers did not realize that the movie was based off a real life event, here you go! No excuses now.

We also saw how the ancient people used various materials to make these wonderful sculptures. At first, it was mostly marble. However as time progressed, they obviously realized that marble can't be sculpted in certain ways or else it would probably fall off (arms and legs sticking out for instance). A picture in the album shows Zeus (or Poseidon, it's been debated) with his arm sticking out in a position to hold what would have been a bolt of lightining. That would not have been able to be done with marble because the arm would have fallen off. One of my favorite statues had to have been of the minotaur (the head of a bull and lower body of a man). It just looked really cool.

Something else I saw that I liked was the images on the pottery which showed the goddess of Athena Nike (which means victory for all you ignorant Nike heads out there). She would be judging different competitions. It was cool to hear about how the athletes would clean themselves off with olive oil and then scrape it off after their practice or competition. You know something having to do with sports would catch my interest.

The museum was huge, and it felt like an accomplishment when we got to the end! Afterwards, we got on the bus and headed back to the apartment. We had another great quiz from Dick and that was about it for the day.

Friday wasn't too eventful at all, and we would need it to be like that because Saturday promised to be extremely busy. We just had another quiz and chilled for the day. It felt good just to be able to rest for a little bit. Until next time, stay tuned for the "Chronicles"!

P.S.- Happy Mother's Day to every mother out there, especially mine!!!! Love you!