Kos, day one (Greece, the twenty-second day)

[hawkwing_lb]

Remind me, at some point when I feel less like a wrung-out rag, to tell you all about my exciting navigation of the metro strike in Athens and plane trip to Kos.

For now, I am in Kos. It has castles, and sea, and column capitals, and I can see Turkey from my window. And now I am needing to fall over. Thud, like that.

Comments

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

You absolutely MUST go see the castle on Kos; it has the Creepiest Statue Ever.

Headless, and surrounded by bright purple flowers. Like something out of a surrealist horror novel. I should dig up my photographs.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I have seen the castle at the port, before I came back to the hotel to go crash-thud. None of the statues and column capitals seemed particularly creepy, tho' I have at this point seen so many Classical and neo-Classical bits of stone, I confess I may not have been paying the most perfect attention.

(Creepiest statues I've ever seen are in the tiny museum at Mycenae, from Grave Circle A. Bizarre, them.)

I have great hopes of seeing the castle in Bodrum. Castles provide interesting diversions from the knee-high archaeology that is my period.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

That's the castle I mean; the statue may have been peculiarly creepy to me alone. I was reading a Stephen King novel at the time.

The Bodrum castle is the best part of Bodrum, which is otherwise awful.

(You're doing my itinerary in reverse, looks like!)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Bodrum will be a tiny day trip: I hear they have part of the Ulu Burun shipwreck in the museum there, and I did a lot of my undergrad with a Bronze Age Aegeanist who is all for shipwrecks, so I really can't pass up the opportunity.

The port castle is most excellent, but it definitely suffers in comparison with the Palamidi at Nafplio. I think all castles may fall short for me, hereafter. ;)

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

Having never been to Nafplio, I will just have to believe you!

(It's been lovely to read about your adventures, incidentally. Other graduate students doing thesis research are just -- encouraging to know about~)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

If you get the opportunity, go. Really pretty town. Really sodding impressive fort. (Far too many steps.)

It's very reassuring to know that one's not alone. Particularly in the humanities, these days! I've lucked out with the very small Irish research community in Athens, where I have met several - oh, at least three! - postgraduates in commission of thesis.

Mind you, two of them are sherd nerds. But someone has to love pots, I suppose, otherwise none of the rest of us would be able to date things.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

I'd love to. I didn't get to mainland Greece at all this last time (couldn't justify it, I was operating out of Istanbul and the international trains weren't running) and I regret it.

Ha! Well, I'm turning into Manuscript Girl, which is insanely weird for me, considering that I'm a historian, not a codicologist or an archeologist of any stripe.

Thank god for the people who love pots. And the ones who love coins. This way I don't have to.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Istanbul!

...Unless someone holds a really relevant conference there, I'm resigned to it being a city I'll never be able to afford to visit, not unless I grow wealthy in my old age. There's so much elsewhere I ought to see first.

Manuscripts are cool. One of the few things I regret about having had a non-ancient-languages-focused education - I'm picking up the basics of Greek, slowly, but manuscripts will always be someone else's playground.

Thank god for the people who love pots. And the ones who love coins. This way I don't have to.

This. Most fervently this.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

It is one of my favorite cities ever, and someday I am going to convince ARIT they want me to stay for three months or something.

I'm not good enough at Greek for what I'm trying to do. But I keep trying. Masochism, probably. But oh my god, touching the old manuscripts is the best thing.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I wish you both luck and joy. :)

[clarentine]

::engages vicar mode again::

You make me hungry for some of these places, you know. Thank you for sharing!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Come away, come away, O human child!

I will have more to say about Kos tomorrow. But no focus, me, tonight.