Grumpy Nuns, Missing Monks, and a Three Island Cruise

Our second week in Athens started out with a bit of disappointment.  Our beloved professor, Sheri Benvenutti, had to leave us a week early because of health issues. We were all sad to see her go, but we know it was the right decision for her to make.

So instead of having class in a classroom this week, we headed out for some adventures on a tour bus.  This was the first time our group had traveled by bus, or had any of our arrangements made in advance for us, so we had some trouble actually making it to the bus on time or listening when our tour guides were talking, but we saw some fascinating places.

It is hard to believe that we only have 3 more days left on our adventure.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we took an overnight trip to Meteora.  The word Meteora means "hanging in the air."  Here we visited ancient monasteries that  were built on top of almost inaccessible  rock spires.  Before the 1940s, when they built stairs up to the monasteries, the only way to access them was to be lifted up the side of the cliff in a basket! The first place we visited was a convent.  Now, we have met nuns all over Europe, and they have been some of the sweetest people we've encountered.  But I guess living on top of an isolated rock, constantly attempting to keep your holy places holy despite the incessant  flow of tourists can pretty much take the sweetness out of you.  Our first run in with the grumpy nuns was when Ryan threw my beanie that Auntie Mary made me years ago over the bridge leading to the convent's front door.  It fell a hundred feet or so into a deep ravine.  We have some daredevil guys on this trip, so they instantly made it their mission to retrieve my beloved hat.  They scaled down the sheer rock face, got the hat, and proceeded to climb back up using a garden hose as a rope.  Then they were promptly greeted at the door by an nun who chewed them out in Greek.  I have to admit, we probably deserved that tongue lashing! But the grumpiness continued.  Do you remember the part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the main character complains that Greek sons can do no wrong.  She wasn't exaggerating.  The Greeks LOVE Ryan!  People go out of their way to touch him or talk to him. They often just stop for a while to watch him play, and they are ultra forgiving and understanding when he misbehaves or touches something he shouldn't.  So when he was riding in my backpack in the convent's church and touched the hanging candle holder extinguishing the flame I just smiled and said sorry expecting to get a gracious reaction... Wrong!  The nun attending the church pushed some of our girls out of the way and glared at us until we left. Oops!

The next day we visited a monastery.  Hoping the monks would be nicer than the nuns, I taught Ryan a new song: "Shake a monk's hand. Shake a hand next to ya..."  Unfortunately, upon arrival we learned that only 8 monks currently live at the monastery and they don't make it a common practice to socialize with the tourists.  But the buildings and the church were amazing!  We saw the platform and the original pulley system where they used to raise materials and people into the monastery and saw some more fascinating Byzantine art inside the church.  I finally feel like I got a satisfactory explanation of the argument between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches over paintings versus sculptures.  Our tour guide explained that the Greeks did not want sculptures in their churches because it reminded them too much of the  pagan sculptures made of the ancient Greek  gods.  The Catholics, on the other hand, did not want paintings because they thought the detail put into them made them into graven images and idols.  I learned, once again, that much conflict can be avoided by simply listening to your opponent's point of view.  Our visit to the monastery ended with Ryan being given a little icon of Mary by the guy working in the gift shop.  Once again, it amazes me how many gift this little guy has received.

On Friday, a few of us took a cruise to three Greek islands.  It was a great day that included spending several hours at sea, learning traditional Greek dances from a dance instructor with the a comb over to rival Donald Trump, 'pillaging' a castle, taking a great nap on the upper deck of the ship, and having many hours of fun.  We were shocked and awed by the "entertainment" on the ride home. The Greek dancing was great, especially when the male dancer (with the great hair) pulled several of our girls out of the crowd to give demonstrations, but the comedian who did really poor lip syncs kind of scared me.  Ryan loved the music and dancing; he even got to say "Opa" into the microphone!

It is hard to believe that we only have 3 more days left on our adventure.  We land at 6:10 PM on Monday, so feel free to give us a call and say hi. We will be exhausted since our bodies will be telling us it is 4:00 am, but we'd love to hear from you anyway.  Talk to you soon.