Hey everyone, its hard to believe it
has been a week since we arrived on Crete. Its amazing how different the village
we are staying at, Alikianos,
is from the busy streets of Athens. Time seems to move slower here, and I’ve
already done so much. I never thought I’d be spending a birthday in a foreign
country and I really liked visiting Chania for class and having the opportunity
to explore the city. Peter, Dr. Vamvakas, and I ended up at a coffee/music shop
that local musicians frequent. When we sat down, a group of local guys (who had
clearly been drinking for a while) noticed us and began to sing in Greek. What
they were singing about I don’t know since we’ve only been taking Greek for
five days. The shop had instruments such as guitars, violins, and Bouzoukis
sitting around for people to play and me and Peter began to play along to the
songs as best we could. In the past week we’ve been learning about geopolitics
and energy while also trying to learn Greek, and it has honestly been one of
the best weeks I’ve had. Going to the beach every day for a week seems to make
everything better. I was really interested to learn more about Cyprus and Crete
as they relate to geopolitics. I never considered the geographical importance
of the many Greek islands, but they allow Greece to dominate the Aegean Sea
while shutting out Turkey. It will be exciting to go to Cyprus and Athens in
the coming weeks. So much has happened so quickly. Time really does seem to
move slower here, and the people are really inviting and nice. Alikianos feels really authentic and I’m excited to learn
more and explore in the next month.
Ειρήνη,
Ματθαίος
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