Update in pictures

Well, I officially suck at keeping up with this blog (so does Cam, but we had this alternating post thing going, so I feel it's more my fault than his). I hope you have all been at least periodically looking at the official blog of the trip, which can be found here. Anyway, I thought I'd try to catch up by posting a few pictures and highlights that didn't necessarily make it into the official blog.

Here's a view of Delphi, the famous sanctuary of Apollo where there was an oracle that allegedly told the Greeks to do all sorts of weird stuff. I had to hike out on a cliff to get this picture. It's a beautiful site, and very interesting as well.

This is the area of the Meteora, where there are a bunch of Byzantine monasteries on the tops and sides of these sandstone pillars. The landscape reminded me a lot of Utah. Cam went running for a lot of the day (it was basically a day off with semi-mandatory education). I spent most of the day hiking with PCC (our prof for that part of the trip) and two other students, finding caves and exploring cliff dwellings.

 

 Here's Cam at the highest monastery (Grand Meteora). My group ran into him when we followed a random supply path up the mountain from a cave.

After a while more in Northern Greece, we went to Istanbul, which was pretty freaking amazing. Here are some crazy tiles and stained-glass windows in Topkapi Palace, the residence of the sultans.

This is the dome of the Selimiye Mosque at Edirne, near the Greek border. I was part of small group that took a side trip up there on our day off in Istanbul. It's a really amazing building, considered the masterpiece of the greatest Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan.

Me in Selimiye wearing mosque-appropriate clothes.

After our time in Istanbul, we spent our last days with PCC (aka Prof. Christesen, aka the prof who wears vests all the time...but not in Greece) on the island of Andros. Half of the group, including myself, stayed in a beautiful house far away from the beach with no wifi (where this photo was taken). The other half stayed in a hotel near the beach with wifi. I think we got the better end of the deal...

...especially because PCC brought us groceries twice a day, and there were fresh eggs and a huge fruit and vegetable garden at the house. Awesome.

We're on Crete right now with Prof. (Emeritus) Rutter, one of the foremost experts on Bronze Age archaeology in the Aegean. This is the Grand Staircase at Knossos, the largest of the Minoan palace complexes on Crete. This thing would have been 4-5 stories high, which is pretty cool for being so old.

Well, that's all I can think of for now, plus we're supposed to be meeting to celebrate one of our group's birthday's (shoutout to Rocio Cara Labrador for turning 20!). So long for now,

Laurel