A crashing good day

Upon being woken this morning, Lea complained, “Is it morning already?  I only just closed my eyes!”  She hadn’t, in fact – she and all the children had a good nine and a half hours sleep last night.  Which is slightly more than some of the staff.  We are sharing our hotel with groups of Italians who, we have decided, must be deaf as they seem to be only able to communicate with each other by shouting at top volume from close range, with little regard for anyone else in the vicinity.  So we have decided we are not fond of noisy Italians - although we do like our own Italian Frederica, who is not noisy at all (well, not too much). 

Checking out of the hotel this morning was, surprisingly, a relatively painless affair.  The children managed to organise themselves effectively, nothing seemed to be left behind, and we were actually downstairs waiting for our bus a full fifteen minutes before it was due!  First on the agenda today was the National Archaeological Museum, where the children used their workbooks to pinpoint key items within the collections and bombarded Anna with questions to find out who or what the items were.  After setting the alarm off yesterday, the children were warned about touching the artefacts and exhibit cases – there are fierce museum officials pacing the exhibit rooms ready to scold anyone transgressing the rules.  Imagine our surprise, therefore, when it was Ms. Kinghorn who was first to incur the wrath of the furies: unable to contain herself over the curvature of one particular statue’s muscular calves, she was caught caressing said muscles.  Tut tut!  Actually, Elian gave a great summary of the museum: “ This is the most marvellous museum I have ever seen.” 

From Athens we headed out towards the Peloponnese, Corinth to be exact.  The Corinth canal pretty much marks the point where the Peloponnese begins, and we stopped there for photo opportunities 80 metres above the canal.  Ms. Govender and Ms. Kinghorn were interested in the fact that there is a bungee jumping company that operates from the bridge, but sadly they weren’t open today so the ladies couldn’t jump.  

Before lunch, we stopped in ancient Corinth for a whistle stop tour of what was essentially a Roman colony in Greece.  There were some interesting stories to be heard about the site, but of course what was of more interest – and disgust – to the children were the public toilets.  Essentially, a room with a series of stones around the edges, with holes in them, where you sat chatting to your neighbours.  The idea of sitting with others while going about your business seemed particularly abhorrent to our group.  They did have an interesting museum room here - a hospital exhibit, where people who were sick made a dedication to the god Asclepius.  Hence, we had a room full of clay arms, legs, hands and a few other body parts that would make you wonder quite how you would survive that ailment. 

It wouldn’t be a proper blog entry if we didn’t mention our lunch.  Staff consensus is that it was meal of the week so far: fresh bread, baked courgettes and tomato fritters for starters, fish and rice, baked vegetables and then honey cake with ice cream.  In previous years we have dined next to the sinking bridge in Corinth – it sinks to the bottom of the canal to allow boats to pass, but then rises again and is usually covered with fish.  However, this year we had our meal at a seaside resort of Loutraki.  Within five minutes of sitting down, our first batch of food was out, and it just kept coming.  As staff, we constantly jump up and down keeping the children from being overly noisy, but as we were eating two coaches pulled up and disgorged about 100 Greek students younger even than our own.  Noise levels rose several decibels and so we gave up and gave the children their reins.

There was great excitement on the way to Naphlio as we had an accident!  Don’t panic parents, before you start complaining about why the emergency tree wasn’t activated, you received calls, etc., it was a small disagreement between our coach and another at a very narrow bend in the road - our coach had right of way, but a coach coming the other way decided not to stop.  Consequently, there was a small bump - the most extreme effect on our coach was that Mr. Suter was woken from his post lunch sleep!  The other coach suffered a broken window, but we were soon merrily on our way.

In Naphlio, there was a split in the camp – half wanted to go shopping, and half wanted to go climbing with Mr. Piddock and Mr. Suter up the 812 steps to the top of the Venetian fortress.  Sadly, once we split and headed off in our different directions, several members of the climbing group decided they needed the toilet, and so our time going up was severely restricted .  We had to go because Aymaan has been nagging all week that her sister went up to the top with Mr. Whitaker in 2012 and she wanted to match her sister’s efforts.  Unfortunately, we only made 382 steps (although given the random nature of the counting, it could have been anything between 350 and 450!).  Put in perspective, however, those that remained shopping only managed one shop.

And then to Tolon, where we checked in and immediately left en masse for the beach.  As we were going, a student from a Belgium group checking in behind us asked where the swimming pool was.  Perhaps he hadn’t noticed the sea lapping at the base of the hotel, just below the lobby windows.  This was pointed out to him.  “Yes, but where is the swimming pool,” he persisted.  Well, our children found it (large and salty) , and we had a great time splashing around in the cold water.  A massive game of rugby/football/American football developed, with very loose teams of boys vs. girls and Talal against everyone – every time Talal got the ball he ran away from everyone and then proceeded to do a very unusual victory dance.

Dinner – most people went up for seconds (we won’t tease you with what we ate, but once again it was three course and delicious) – and then rather than strolling up through the town, the majority of children decided they wanted to go shopping in a little souvenir shop across the road.  The shop had been due to close for the night, but once we mentioned that we might be bringing 20+ students across to them they extended their hours!

And so to bed.  Tomorrow, we’ll be visiting the theatre at Epidauros, the Venetian fortress (driving up, not climbing) and then going on to Mycenae to see where Agamemnon reigned at the time of the Trojan War.  We might even take in a little bit of pottery making before heading back to Athens.  All in all, another quiet day in Greece.