Date: May 22
Partners for the day: Katherine (text) Peter (images)
Site(s):
Museum(s): Paros Archaeological Museum
Principal Buildings/Monuments:
Time Spent on Each Site: from ca. 2:30 to ca. 3:00 [ _.5___ hours]
Weather:Sunny, warm, very few clouds – wonderful beach weather
We boarded a boat this morning and left Santorini behind. Our destination, Paros, was several hours away. Professor Rutter and Abby used this time to listen to presentations on the Siphnian Treasury frieze (from Delphi), so most of the group used the ride to finish preparations for this task. Outside, Santorini disappeared from the horizon and other islands came into view. Our boat stopped at Ios and Naxos, and the faces in the chairs around us changed as new passengers arrived and old passengers departed. This all happened to a soundtrack of Elena Paparizou’s “My Number One,” Greece’s winning entry in last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, which was playing on several televisions in the main cabin. As the morning TV commentators analyzed her performance for the 14th or 15th time, we arrived in Paros. We left our luggage with Abby at a café, and ran over to the Paros Archaeological Museum, for a whirlwind tour in the half-hour before it closed. When we returned to the café, Abby had arranged accommodations for the night. We piled into vans provide by our hotel owner and his colleague with our luggage and took a short ride along the shore.
After we arrived, the rumor of an unexpectedly free afternoon spread down the hall of the hotel in a matter of minutes. “Wait, we’re done for the day?” “We really aren’t going anywhere else?” “Did someone say we had the afternoon off?” Such phrases were shouted back and forth in our bustle to move into our rooms. The rumor turned out to be true, much to our delight. As it was a sunny afternoon and our hotel was near the water, we made the obvious choice and went to the beach. Every member of the group spent at least some time at the shore today.
Some chose to stick primarily to the sand, to relax and soak up some sun, hoping to even out farmer’s tans acquired from weeks of exploring ancient sites clad in shorts and t-shirts. I myself hoped to add a little color to my hopelessly pale, sunburn-prone Minnesota skin. This goal proved unreachable; my paranoia about sunburn overrode my desire to be tan, and I slathered on the SPF 30.
Others ventured into the water. The water was so cold on our last beach day, on Samos, that we couldn’t do more than shiver, yelp, and scamper back to the beach. The water was slightly chilly, but we were determined to enjoy it. Inch by inch, we waded out, until we were up to our necks and adjusted to the water temperature. The top six inches of water were warm from the sun, so we floated on the top, trying our best to avoid dropping our legs down into the icy depths.
The sand was fantastically sparkly, due to a high mica content. It gave the whole experience an unreal feeling. Tiny crabs and fish moved along the bottom, visible through the clear water. We found a small fish with a clear tail swimming on the surface. It reminded me of the neon tetras my mom got me when I was a child, to teach me how to be responsible for pets. We felt like kids, playing in the shallow water and chasing fish.
As I lay on the beach after swimming, I turned my head to the side. My eyes focused first on the sand in the foreground and transitioned to the mountains of the island in the distance. It hit me that lying on a beach in the Aegean was not something I typically (or ever) did in the spring. It still surprises me after all these weeks in Greece to find myself here.
Posted by Abby Gillard at May 22, 2005 03:33 PM