The Odyssey 11: Book 2

Yasas everybody!

Welcome to Round 2 of Alex's Odyssey in Greece! I've actually been here for a while now, but was so busy helping to organize the Temenos film screening in June that I had no time to write. After that was finished I went immediately on the shortest vacation ever to Tel-Aviv (2 days only, but so worth it) then met up with my friend Lisa in Athens and we chaoticly-but-surely made our way up to the village of Karitsa where I will be for the next 5 weeks.

Before I go further though, I've uploaded my photos from this spring onto my Flickr account, so you can see them by clicking here http://www.flickr.com/photos/alextsocanos/collections then on the "Greece" collection. Then choose from the various albums to see the photos.

For now, I'll try to sum up things:

June:
Athens—I stayed with my cousin's friend in his beautifully located apartment in Kolonaki. It's the very chi-chi neighborhood and is so quiet and clean and has so many trees that you don't think you're in Athens at all. That combined with everyone in the city seeming much more relaxed (I think because the Greeks know they will escape to an island or elsewhere on the weekends, they're more pleasant people during summer weeks) and having an actual job made this Athens experience much more enjoyable than the first. (One thing I must say though, to all those Arcadia people out there: our Pangrati hill was NOTHING compared to staying on the Kolonaki tree line of Lykavettos. That is some leg burning if I've ever felt some.)

Temenos- For the last 3 months I helped to organize the accommodations and transportation for the roughly 200 people that attended the event. It's a film screening of Gregory Markopoulos' experimental ENAIAOS series that was made in the 70s. The films are only shown now every 4 years in this particular spot in the Peleponnese. It's in this gorgeous field outside of this tiny village surrounded by towering mountains 5 hours away from Athens. The setting, very intentionally, influences how one experiences the work and is meant to be a kind of pilgrimage. It was an incredibly unique and special thing to be a part of. If you're interested in more information you can visit the website www.the-temenos.org

July:
Tel-Aviv- A total side note, this trip. I decided about a week and a half before I went to visit some of my parent's friends who live there. I had such a good time. The energy of the city is so vibrant and relaxed all at the same time. One of the nights I was there the city hosted a White Night, so there were concerts everywhere and galleries and bars and restaurants were open all night. Everyone in the entire city must have been out because the streets were packed with people. Except for the 4 massive jellyfish (or Meduzas) that washed up on the beach whithin the hour that I went (the water's really warm there, so they swim near by and get washed up onto shore by waves, or so I'm told. Also, for anyone who doesn't know, I've had my fair share of stings and am already not keen on anything touching me in the water, so this put a damper on things…) I completely fell head-over-heels for the city.

Back to Athens- Because of a slight car-rental crisis we were delayed in our departure which, in the end we turned it to our advantage by going to visit the sea turtles at the turtle rescue center (Erica, I thought of you!), the beach and had a really nice dinner at my favorite souvlaki spot, Kalamaki Koloniaki.

Then, we were on our way North!

We took a little detour through Delphi to pay homage to the gods and ask for divine guidance from the Oracle. It all went quiet well, although as Lisa can attest, the oracle did not exactly reveal herself to me—I got really confused as I played tour-guide—strange, seeing as how that was my 4th time there…hmm.

And now…Karitsa!

This is the village where my dad's family is from and where I'll be based as I work on my photo documentary project. I'm so glad to finally be here. My crazy relatives are endlessly entertaining and I'm excited to get started on things. When we arrived, we were greeted by my very vocal aunt, brought our bags to the house and went to the platia (square) to eat local sausage and Greek salad and greet a few more relatives down there. This morning we went with my aunt to get fresh bread and halva. Then we spent the afternoon scrubbing 4 years worth of dirt and dust off of the kitchen and it was so wonderfully satisfying. Tomorrow we'll head to the beach and begin checking out the new road (a large subject of my project). All I'll say about things right now is that it's some bizarre combination of Eat, Pray, Love and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

I hope you are all doing extremely well and having great summers thus far!