Closer to God

In my last post I had mentioned my upcoming trip to Meteora and at least one person was paying attention and eagerly awaiting a summary of my experience, (hey Danielle!) so here goes.

On Thursday afternoon my friend Jamie and I took the train from Athens Larissa station to Kalambaka, which is the town just under the cliffs. This was my first Greek train ride experience and while I had heard that the train system here is usually inconvenient, I thought it was actually pretty nice and very easy. So we arrived in Kalambaka around 8:30 pm (the ride took about 5 hours) and we hopped in a cab to our hotel , Alsos House. The hotel was very nice - clean and comfortable - and we had the entire place to ourselves! I guess absolutely no one travels in Greece in the wintertime because I have not taken a trip yet where there are any other people around besides CYA kids or various other foreigners. The manager/owner of the hotel, Yannis (John), was not there but his assistant, Nelly, was and she got us set up in our rooms. After we dropped our stuff off, I asked Nelly (in Greek!) if she knew a good Greek taverna. Instead she offered that her husband would drive us to a good place in town, so obviously we accepted. The dinner was delicious and I spoke more Greek during that meal - with the waiter of course - than I had in the previous month I think. Getting away from the CYA crew is just great because I can pretend like I actually know Greek, whereas when I'm surrounded by a huge group of Americans, there's no hiding my true identity. Oh well, it was fun for the night.

After dinner, Jamie and I went back to the hotel and watched some Greek television (always amusing) before calling it a night. The next morning when we woke up the rest of our crew had arrived because they had taken a midnight train, getting in at 6 am . When our friends finally rolled out of bed, we ate some breakfast in the hotel and then set out for the monasteries. However, to get to the monasteries, we had to hike up the cliffs for about an hour - straight up. It was definitely one of the more physically challenging experiences of my life, but it was totally worth it because when we got to the top the views were incredible.

The first monastery we went to, Agia Triada, was a rather small one, but it was seated highest in the cliffs and the view over all of central Greece was breathtaking. We walked around the gardens and the church inside - which was my first Greek Orthodox church. The frescoes were beautiful and I began to become acquainted with the typical Greek Orthodox icons...some are seen here.

The next monastery is actually a nunnery now and it was similarly beautiful inside. There were also painters restoring the frescoes, which was really fascinating to watch because the details were so intricate and the paintbrushes they were using were so small. These frescoes though were much brighter than the first because of this restoration. I also squeezed by in my horrible Greek to speak with one of the nuns about the history of the nunnery. From what I could gather it used to be a lot bigger, but now it's smaller - why, I'm not quite sure. But I also learned she has a sister in Australia! Whatever, I understood something at least.

Since it was about 2:00 by the time we left and all of the monasteries close pretty early in the day, we decided to hike back down the mountain and grab some lunch. We were all really exhausted so we ate relatively quickly and headed home for a long nap. After we woke up we started celebrating my friend Josh's birthday - the big 2-2 - and headed out to dinner. And guess where we went?! The same taverna as the night before. Seriously, the options are limited in a lot of these towns this time of year, so we figured since we knew that place was good we may as well go back. However, this time it was with a bigger group, which meant more wine, and a lot more silliness. After dinner we went to a local bar for a little while, but again, we were all so tired that we called it a night pretty early.

The next morning we woke up and hit up three monasteries - by taxi. First we went to Roussanou, which is also a nunnery. In the church we met a woman who works in the nunnery and asked up if we spoke French - clearly her French was better than her English. Of course I say "un peu" which meant she quickly launched in an extended soliloquy about the Greek Orthodox religion, the church, the frescoes...anything you can think of really. It was actually pretty fun though to practice my French and I learned a lot. For example, all of these churches have a standard set-up where there is a smaller outside room with frescoes depicting the violent deaths of all the martyrs and then a larger interior room with frescoes of Jesus and Mary and all of the saints. Our Greek/French tourguide explained that this outer room was for all of the unbaptized followers so that they could imagine what would happen to them if they weren't baptized in the Church, while the inside room was for worshippers such as the priests so they could be surrounded by his Holiness. Harsh eh?

Anyway, eventually we pulled ourselves away from our lovely tourguide and made our way to the Great Meteoron, which from its name obviously is the biggest, best and originally was the first monastery in Meteora. There was a lot to see here including a room containing the skulls and bones from a lot of the saints of Greek Orthodoxy. Apparently those in the religion believe these remains have healing powers - especially if you smell them. I think that's a little too creepy for me, but whatever floats your boat. There were also some exhibitions on display, including one about the expulsion of the Nazis from Meteora in WWII. The monks are very proud of their stance against the Germans I guess.

Finally, we went to Varlaam, our final monastery for the trip. At this point the grounds and churches were looking pretty typical, but finally I got to speak with a monk. He was a very nice man, probably in his late 30s/early 40s, who explained to us the establishment of the monastery (by two brothers) and the architecture of the standard Orthodox church. This was actually really cool I thought. Basically the church is shaped like the human body. At the top is the head, where Jesus is depicted because he is the head of Orthodoxy. Next is a series of windows with paintings of the Old Testament prophets interspersed because they are the "eyes" of the religion since they foresaw the coming of Christ. After that there are depictions of the 12 apostles because they were the voice of Christ and, therefore, represent the throat or voice. Finally, the saints of Greek Orthodoxy encircle the room since they are the support for the rest of the body. I really liked that idea.

After we finished with the monasteries, we took a taxi back down to Kalampaka and grabbed a fast food lunch...which in Greece means absolutely delicious gyros. Then we grabbed a coffee for a little while and finally went back to the train station so we could catch our train back to Athens.

Now back in Athina for the week, I've mostly been going to classes and doing work. I did have to get a TB test and an x-ray for my visa extension, but I seem to be healthy so that's good. Tomorrow (as in less than 24 hours) I leave for London. I've never been there before so I plan to do all the touristy stuff plus whatever my friends have in mind as well. I know a lot of people studying abroad there right now so I can see both school friends and home friends in one trip. Awesome! I'll make sure to update next week when I get back.

Until then --

Filia polla,
Mollie