I’m a competitive person. Ask anyone. I’m the most competitive. Put me against any other competitive person and I’ll be the most competitive every time times infinity. I’ll trash talk anyone. I’ll trash talk my own mother. I’ll trash talk the competition into the GROUND.
This is the attitude with which I entered the site of Nemea. I was in the place where thousands of athletes had walked before, cheered by even more spectators. The changing rooms, mostly in ruin, stand before the entrance to the tunnel where the athletes walked into the stadium. Dr. Glazebrook herded us, rowdy as we were, into the tunnel. Around us were kalos inscriptions, praising one man or another. The walls reminded us that we were retracing two thousand year old steps.
The few of us who were competing today ran out to the sound of “We Will Rock You”, pushing each other as we ran for the best spots on the starting line. Everyone else gathered along the sides and at the finish line, the guard blew the whistle, and we were off. Running in 30 Celsius is not easy and Will runs like Hermes’ sandals are on his feet, so I came in second. We posed for victory pictures, with Will crowned as he deserved.
We walked to the Nemea sanctuary next and wound between the fallen column drums. Nemea was a nice site because we were allowed to walk on the old temple of Zeus. Usually, the guards blow whistles at you if you touch the temples, but here we were allowed to stand on the temple. Three of the columns survived upright to the modern day and they reconstructed several more so I really got an impression of the height and majesty of the place. I tried to catch several lizards and skinned my knee but it was worth it. I mean, I didn’t catch a lizard, but I was close. People were impressed. I was definitely the closest to catching a lizard.
We were back at the hotel by noon, a true rarity, and our bus driver offered to drive some of us to the beach at 2 if we wanted to go. We quickly ate, changed, and eight of us headed to the bus and Panos, our super cool driver, took us to a beach on the other side of the mountain.
The water was warm and clear. It became an intense competition to drag everyone under the water and an hour and a half passed without us noticing. We went back to the hotel covered in salt and tired.
Later, my friend and I explored the city of Napflion and went in a very cool small bar called Lathos full of interactive art made by the owner. The two of us were the only ones in the bar and we danced to the records the owner played and talked to him about his bar.
This day summed up my favourite parts of this trip. We had fun living history and also exploring the culture of modern Greece. We learned about the past through physical experience and I had a time to bond with the amazing people I’ve spent the past two weeks with. The beauty of Greece is in its history and in the people you see it with.
