Sara (Greece) - This is Sparta!

Well, everybody, I'm alive! I know, its hard to believe but somehow its true. And, an unbelievable amount has happened since I last wrote. First, I'll get the boring stuff out of the way, and then, I'll get on to Sparta! Classes are going very well, though a little boring. I suppose that is to be expected though. I mean, I am in Athens, which is the equivalent to New York City back in the states. There is always something to do and places to go see. Classes, as compared to that, seem very dull.
So far, I've been all over. After Meteora, I've been to Mt. Pelion, a tiny mountain village called Makrinitza, the Argolid, Mycene, Naplfiao and last weekend Sparta. I've seen more ancient ruins than I can count and they are still amazing. The food is still wonderfull (no change there) and I'm most certainly learning more and more Greek as time goes on. I've even had a few tentative discussions with the people here, which was pretty rewarding.
Ok, on to Sparta. We left at 7:30 this past weekend from Athens, and it took a total of about 5 hours bus ride to make it into Sparta. On the way, we crossed the Isthmus (a thin band of land connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese) and made our way down south again into Laconia. So, here's the 5 minute version on Spartan history up until Roman times. The first inhabitants of Laconia (Peloponnese) were the Messenians. Though, after a while, the Spartans came in and kicked their asses in the first Messenian war. After a few more battles, the Messenians were made into hoplites who ran around working Laconia for their Spartan warlords. The Spartans took up camp in Sparta and developed a whole bunch of governmental stuff with Kings and an Assembly and the Ephors, who I won't explain. By this time, Sparta controlled most of Laconia. Then they had some more conflicts with Athens, the Peloponessian war came about and tons of stuff happened. That's all you need to know, because I'm tired of writing it.
SO! We get to Sparta through the pass in Mt. Tiegetus and climb this monstrous hill/mountain thing to the Temple of Helen. Here, Nigel (the prof) reads us Herodotus' description of the temple. This part was amazing, as he was pointing out physical landmarks and traits about the land we were sitting right in the middle of. It was a very sobering experience. Then, only because we absolutely had to, we all stood on the edge of the mountain and screamed "This is Sparta" because...well...that was Sparta. It was great.
We had lunch on the ruins of Helen's temple, and then hiked back down to the bus. We arrived in the physical town of Sparta, checked into our hotel, and went looking at the acropolis and some more ruins there. The night was ours, so me and a bunch of kids went out to dinner and came back to the hotel to chill. Saturday, we wake up super early and head out to the Spartan Museum. The museum was small, but wow did it have everything...and i mean EVERYTHING to do with archaic, classical and roman sparta. Whoa.
The rest of the day was spent visiting more ruins. We had to, however, stall some because there was a communist riot going on in Athens on Saturday. Because the majority of our apartments were right in the middle of the riot area, we had to stall so as to not get back to early and get pepper sprayed. Crazy stuff. On the way back, we drove the Mt. Tiegetus again. That mountain range was amazing. I can not put into words the absolute beauty of this place. The range itself was huge and very long. The mountain peaks were covered in snow while we, on the ground, were in tee-shirts and flip flops. The peaks were so high they extended into the clouds. You couldn't see the tops of almost any of them and they ALL had olive tree groves around their base. They were the most amazing things I think I have ever seen. So after that, we arrived back in Athens and I collapsed into bed. The end.
Alright, this entry is already long enough, so I'll shut up and leave you all to it. I'm glad to hear everyone is doing so well abroad and at home. Love you all and miss you!
- Sara