Our ferry left the port at 9pm and we were on our way instantly. I have never been on an overnight ferry, but our rooms were similar to those on a cruise ship (just smaller and no windows). Either way, it was a place to lock our belongings up and sleep. Also, they had the best showers ever!! Kylie and I roomed together and we spent most of the night chatting about life and our dogs (common topic from here -on-out), and working on our class presentations. Mine was about the terracotta disk found at the palace of Phaistos and is undecipherable. I have decided that I must purchase it because I am clearly the chosen one to decipher it (DAD-hint!). Anyway, we slept for a couple of hours, woke up, packed, and disembarked the ferry. Our bags were then driven to our hotel and we proceeded to walk to Hotel Olympus in Iraklion (the main port city of Crete). It was around 8 am at this point and we could not check into our hotel until noon, so the class went to the Iraklion Archaeological Museum and began our Minoan quest. We saw my Phaistos Disk, frescos, vases, wheel-made figurines, and my favorite: more pottery. After being interrogated by the security guard about my picture of the Phaistos Disk and whether or not Lo and Zoe were "posing" with it, I decided to sit outside for the sake of my professor's teaching license and my status in Greece. Then we all walked to a park where Jacquelyn and I gave our presentations, grabbed a quick lunch, and headed back to the hotel. We still weren't able to check in, so we all chilled in the lobby, reading or getting wifi. Eventually, Nessa, Cori and I were given our room; we napped, and then met up with most of the group for dinner later that evening. To top off the night, we all huddled in one room, ate snacks, drank wine, and watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".
The Phaistos Disk and apparent criminals "posing"....you decide :)
Sunday morning we woke up early, bought food for later in the day, and jumped on a public bus to the palace at Knossos. This was our first Minoan site of the trip and it was okay....not my favorite. One might understand why if you saw it (it is very complex and the person who originally excavated it decided to reconstruct it incorrectly in concrete). Therefore, it is ridiculously difficult to try to imagine what the original palace looked like. This would be a good time to note that the professor posed the question as to whether or not these Minoan sites were really palaces or temples? I decided that if people with degrees in this stuff aren't sure, then I should probably not even begin to build an argument either way. After checking out the site we ate lunch right outside of the site with the peacocks. We returned to our hotel for the afternoon and made plans to go to dinner later in the evening. So until then, I decided to nap (my common routine-but today I had a killer headache so don't judge me). The place for dinner was pretty cool and we ordered some new items that we have yet to try here in Greece. This included shrimp saganaki, Cretan jet-fuel known as Rake (pronounced like rockeee), and snails. The snails were a bit disturbing to eat but they weren't bad. Afterwards, we met up with some more of the group and went gallavanting around town, had some cocktails, and called it a late but fun night.
Knossos palace/temple/the unknown
Monday was another early morning and long day of sites and traveling. It began at the palace of Phaistos-my favorite Minoan site. Then we bussed over to Agia Triada-a Minoan villa site (not a palace). It had a really interesting chapel that is still in use today on site. From there, we stopped at a site being currently excavated by the CIG at Komos. It has ruins from the Bronze and Classical Age, which is pretty rare. After that, we experienced our first beach. The professors let us run and swim and act like children (aka we all basically beached ourselves in the sand for 2 hours). A few brave souls-not I-went swimming in the bitter cold Aegean Sea. It was pretty cool, actually. On the side of the cliffs there are Roman tombs that hippies and gypsies live in currently. We met one woman who hand-makes jewelry using stones she finds on the beach and avocado pits. I bought a bracelet and have been wearing it since that trip. After we all got plenty of sun, we returned on our coach bus to the hotel where I packed up for our traveling in the morning, grabbed a crepe for dinner, and headed to bed.
The palace at Phaistos: me in the room where the Disk was found-I am just lacking proof at the moment
Komos Beach and the Roman Tombs in the cliff
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