A Day of Work

So, here's how a day of work goes on the farm. We wake up at 6:30 and have some breakfast/coffee. But I've only got one picture of the table, strangely enough, so we'll have to reuse it from the last post. Work begins at 7.

Riding the pickup truck down from the hill for work.

This has only actually happened once or twice, but I took a bunch of pictures because it was fun.

 Usually we just walk to work--it's not far away.

Most of the time, the work is clearing the brush around the olive trees.

This is necessary because, in addition to diverting nutrients from the trees, the bushes get in the way of harvesting the olives. 

Not our farm--yet.

To harvest the olives, you spread nets on the ground all around and then hit the tree with a stick. Or if you're technological and posh (like I think we are), you hit it with a machine. Either way, all the olives fall out.

To facilitate this process, we wield snazzy choppers like the ones pictured here.

There's a lot of brush to go through.

But we take breaks every hour or so, more often if the supervisor (Mikalis) is there.  He has a strange objection to hard work...

Every now and then, we burn some brush.

It's important to be careful with the fire, though, and keep it low. It never rains around here, so all the grass is tinder-dry. Add to that all the fuel we have to pile at the perimeter in the burning queue, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Someone on Chios recently left a fire before it was fully extinguished, and it flared up again, catching the dry, oily olive trees that cover the hills. Chios was burning for five days.

SO, Mikalis watches the fire, all the time.

When we end work at 11, olive trees make great racks for holding our tools overnight.

Lesvos at Last

Aaand off to Lesvos at last! I had to wait in Athens for three correct buses to pass by, all overflowing, before one opened its doors directly in front of me and I could shove my way on. Not the most comfortable ride I've ever had, but the metro was still down, and you get what you pay for, I suppose.

The ferry was yet another matter. Scheduled for departure at 2100, it was delayed by storms (somewhere out to sea) until 0300. I think I was told where to go when I embarked, but because they told me in Greek, I surmised that they intended me to have the run of the ship. It was a good ride with only one brief stop at Chios (Χίος).

Artistic homunculus outside a shop in Mytilene's market

I reached Lesvos in the early afternoon, giving me some time to wander around the capital city Mytilene. Not a whole lot to see, but there was one castle (two would be rather excessive.) From Sappho Square (Latin class, anyone? Sappho was a Greek poet who lived on Lesvos, giving rise to the word "lesbian") I caught the last bus out to Koudourdia. Then I climbed into a tiny boat, paid a euro to the ferryman, and made it across to Perama, the closest village to the Tragakis farm. The owner Dimitris picked me up from the dock and brought me back to the farm, maybe a 15 minute drive. 

When Dimitris's pickup pulled in, the other two wwoofers were sitting outside under the grape vines--Charmaine and Tawfique, of New Zealand and Bangladesh. The four of us sat and talked, nibbling on cookies and fending off the cats as the last glow of daylight drained from the sky.

Actually sunrise the next morning, but who's keeping track?

A rare moment of stillness for this little puppy we're calling Tony. His chief mode of transportation seems to be hopping sideways, but he has at least been getting bolder as the weeks pass.

But you just ate, little cat!

Olive trees, oh yes--3800 of them!

And they've got actual olives on them! Try to contain yourself; I know how exciting this is.

One of the last wwoofers left two of these crocheted spider webs in the front yard. I don't know what they mean, but they're wicked cool!

The Acropolis

You can see the Acropolis from just about anywhere in central Athens, which was a little strange to get used to. A big, important monument in the middle of the city, yes, but this one somehow makes me think it's growing out of the cliff beneath it--there's just a giant, unhewn pile of rocks downtown with a crumbling building on top.

It looks either organic or unfinished, maybe a bit of both.

So I climbed it, of course.

The Theater of Dionysus, at the base of the hill. It was built in the 5th century BC for, well, plays. The ones performed at the festivals of Dionysus.

The seating inside. At one point, the marble thrones in the front row were inscribed with the names of their occupants.

If anyone was wondering where portrait busts come from...

A top-down view of the theater.

This is why we have security, people! Why did no one catch this demon at the airport?

Biiig, beige city.

Wooo, Parthenon! See that hint of a triangular space at the top of the building?

Well, if you go to the British Museum, you can see some of what's meant to be there...

The pediments at either end of the building show scenes from the life of Athena. The first is her birth from the head of Zeus with the help of Hephaestus and his ax.

And the second is her competition with Poseidon over the city of Athens (olives > water)

It seems to be slow going (like most things in Greece, honestly), but they are working on repairing the Parthenon.  The first restoration attempt used iron joints which have since corroded, so part of the current work is removing the past failures.

The Erechtheion, a smaller temple beside the Parthenon on the Acropolis. 

Porch of the Caryatids (Erechtheion). Although cool, the statues are actually reproductions. Five of the originals are in  the Acropolis Museum undergoing gradual cleaning; the sixth is in England.

Old lady with a dog... 

Well, I thought it was cute... Like this one:

NOT Greece, unfortunately

Acropolis at night

I snapped this last picture before hurrying off to be squashed onto an already crammed bus down to the port of Piraeus.

Temple of Zeus Olympus

What I really love about ancient cities is how well-incorporated the points of interest are; there's no need to take a bus 10 km out to find the cool ruins. These remnants of a temple are right in the middle of Athens.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus

This place has a crazy history. It was completed 600 years after its construction began, having seen three (well, four, but Augustus didn't make much of an effort) different sponsors. The first was a Greek tyrant in the sixth century BC; when he was overthrown, nobody felt like continuing his work. But in 174 BC, the king of Syria took up the task...work continued until he died. The next to touch the massive project were the Romans Augustus and Hadrian.  

The temple was finally inaugurated in 131 AD, the largest of the ancient Athenian sanctuaries. It contained a gigantic statue of Hadrian, who was worshiped alongside the similarly proportioned chryselephantine statue of Zeus (new vocab word for me--chryselephantine means plated with gold and ivory.)

A violent storm toppled one of the 16 remaining columns in 1852, allowing an unrivaled view of its construction. Also, it looks like sliced cookie dough.

Worship continued in the temple for at most 300 years. After 600 years of construction.

But in any case, the people of Athens were so happy that they built Hadrian his very own arch.

First Site in Athens

I arrived in Athens at 10pm, with worker strikes in full swing. The Greek government was voting in unpopular austerity measures to raise the retirement age, lower wages, and make it easier to fire employees. Hard to stomach, yes, but what can they do when the country is out of money? Anything except take it out on the citizens, say the thousands of striking workers. So the buses were down, the metro was down (except to briefly shuttle everyone into Syntagma for a protest), the ferries were down, and the garbage collection was down.

Not pictured: piles of garbage bags on every other street corner

Eventually the airport started running its own shuttle into the city, so I got a ride.

The Panathenaic Stadium, where the bus dropped me in the city center.

Built entirely of Pentilic marble, the original was  constructed 2300 years ago.

There are special seats for the king and queen--actually, two seats for each so they always have the best view, no matter where the action is.

Ancient herms, two-faced busts associated with competition. My audio guide  informs me that the young face is looking toward the judges, focused on the competition, but the old face is looking wistfully toward the arena  (: :\

The tunnel for the athletes to enter the arena.  "As we climb upward, we penetrate deeper and deeper into the passage, which now looks more like a cave due to the collapse of its roof over the centuries."

And you can see the Acropolis from the top! ...Which is really not such a  big deal; you can see the Acropolis from most of Athens.

I made it to the finish block days before anyone else, to have my picture taken by some random tourist  to whom I might have lied about my intentions regarding the coming Marathon. I don't think he actually believed I was entering, but I'm not entirely sure. He very sincerely wished me good luck.