July 1. 2010
Yiassou! Greetings from Greece!
Today was our exploration of Delphi. We boarded our gigantic tour bus and drove through the Grecian countryside for a couple of hours. Quick fact: there’s 10 million peeps living in Greece, 5 mil of which live in Athens. The countryside is absolutely pristine with soaring mountains and quaint little farms. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed baklava, a famous Greek dessert , and a Greek-style apple pie, which turned out not to be your average granny’s pie, but fairly good. We climbed some crazy mountain roads and passed through a tiny ski town on the side of Mount Panassus and it was adorable! But there was only about a foot between our bus and the actual shops: the road was that small, and let’s just say the Greeks don’t drive slow… But we finally arrived at Delphi and so far this has been my favorite spot (Jenny). Our guide was absolutely fascinating and she led us up the mountain and explained the site and the history. There’s actually 4 oracle sites throughout the world, but Delphi is the most famous and visited because of its ideal geographical location of a mountain by the sea. The travelers camped in the valley and awaited the 7th day of each month for their visit with the oracle. Basically there was methane leaking from the network of underground tunnels and a young girl from the town of Delphi would be the “epiphania” that would go in and breathe the methane which they believed to the be the gods and the methane poisoning would cause hallucinations and the priest would interpret her groans and answer your question. However at one point one little girl inhaled to much methane and died (she got too much god) and so they switched to 50 year old woman that were then dressed to resembled young girls … (Even in B.C. days ladies were workin on disguising that age!)
So Delphi is the seat of human nature. The temple was the home of 2 gods, Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo was held the seat for 9 months out of the year and was the god of sun. Which represented reason, logic, basic needs, etc and then the 3 months of winter when Apollo left, Dionysus came. He was the god of wine, theater, passion, and pleasure, essentially everything unreasonable and caught in the moment. These were the gifts of the gods: Reason and Emotion. The philosophers saw these two gods as the very essence of human nature: reason vs. emotion. They said that life is not about choosing which one to live by or glorify, but to learn the balance between them and when to live with reason and when to let emotion guide you. That’s the nutshell version, but it was very inspiring. I bought the guide book. I know. Lame. I was also the only one that asked questions.
So we re-loaded the bus, stopped at a beautiful little restaurant on the Ionian Sea and ate a late lunch on the vine covered patio and then waded in the incredibly clear water. Marc Willey would be impressed. We drove the coastline (with it’s crazy hairpin turns that Costos, our greek bus driver, manipulated like a Nascar driver!) to arrive in Patras, where we’re now awaiting our night ferry to the island of Corfu.
Gonna Greek beach it tomorrow. Be jealous. Love y’all!
-J & L -
