Final Comments: June 4

As an addendum to my final text entry, I’d like to sum up with a few statistics for you: We met in London on March 23, 2005 and have spent seventy-four days on the program. These seventy-four days have included six days in the United Kingdom, eight full days in Turkey, and sixty days in Greece. The group has survived writing papers of at least forty pages in length, climbing numerous hills and a couple of mountains, and visiting more sites and museums than we want to consider right now. We have seen all four of the sites of major Pan-Hellenic athletic competitions: Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea. We’ve visited Greece’s three largest cities: Athens, Thessalonica, and Heraklion. We have learned so much about the history of Greece during every period from the present all the way back to the Neolithic period, but with a definite focus on the start of the Bronze Age through the early Roman period. We’ve eaten whole minnows, experienced a Turkish bath, and haggled for jewelry, statuary, rugs, clothes, and just about anything else you can imagine. We’ve developed a more complete understanding of the world in which we live and a savvy for dealing with people who come from extremely different worlds than we do. We feel very accomplished and proud of ourselves and grateful that we had the opportunity to participate in this program. And now we WANT TO GO HOME!

* Yesterday, Caleb wore Laura’s pants. The group has not stopped talking about it since. Caleb insists they were quite comfortable, and a tongue-in-cheek debate over whether Laura or Caleb looked better in the pants ensued. Only in Athens, people, only in Athens!