Ancient Olympia

Dinner in Delphi was a difficult event.  The place we went, Bacchus Taverna, was fine, but I was feeling a bit out of it.  Steve went back to the hotel and if I could have skipped out of the meal, I would have too -- I had no appetite after that extreme frappe.  After dinner (I only ate a kolokythokefte), I had meetings with three students about their presentations the next day.  ("But Ms. Broome-Raines, my teacher back at school said I didn't have to have notecards or an outline."  "Did your teacher back at school give you this assignment?"  "But Ms. Broome-Raines, my teacher..." Sigh.) 

Then I went to bed.  It was a long day (aren't they all) and we had to get up really early the next morning.  The hotel was quite nice, if you discount the bed.

  The bathroom was pretty excellent.  Unfortunately, I was sleeping on the bed and not on the bathroom floor.  (Hotel Phaethon, Delphi.)  At  7:00, we were supposed to be on the road towards Olympia.  We actually were moving by 7:20 which I think is pretty impressive.  The drive towards Antirrio/Rio was very uneventful.  I pointed out the kids ringing the triangles in Nafpaktos.  We stopped for a break at Antirrio at the castle and took pictures.  Then we got on the bridge and set off for Pyrgos and Arxaia Olympia from there.  We went directly to the Olympia Archaeological Museum, to which I had never been.  It was absolutely unbelievable -- worth waiting for.  The sculpture was amazing.   I wasn't able to lecture in the Museum because the guard asked me not to.  I took them to the gift shop afterwards, and then back to the town for lunch at a pizza place (they literally had frozen pizza and ham-and-cheese sandwiches and nothing else!).  After lunch, I took the kids to the site of Olympia, where we heard three student presentations, and then they wandered the site.

After the site, we went to the hotel (Hotel Pelops) where I had a single (the room was freezing and there was hot water only between 7 and 9 am, and 7 and 9 pm.  Anne, Cristina, and I sat on my bed and painted our nails, and then we went down for our big New Year's Eve party.  Susanna, the hotelier, cooked us a delicious dinner; Drake gave his presentation on the Greek New Year celebration; we ate the vasilopita and had a champagne toast.  I had three glasses of champagne and stumbled off to bed by 10:30pm.