I need a dagger - Crete part 1

Our trip to Crete began Monday evening, when the entire program boarded the overnight ferry from Piraeus (the harbor of Athens). After an eventful evening of coloring books, the Greek version of Jenga, and motion sickness, we arrived at Crete early the next morning. I can't really say what my first impression of the island was, since I was half asleep when I got off the boat and onto our bus. But given the fact that I left the island thinking that it was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen, I'm sure I was wowed from the start.

The first site we visited, Knossos, is home to a very important Bronze Age palace site, and is one of the few remnants of the great Minoan civilization, which existed in the 3rd - 2nd millenium BCE. The site is intact enough that you can try and imagine what the palace as a whole might have looked like, although our professor made it clear that the site was actually a mix of original remants and modern-day reconstruction. We didn't get a chance to see the throne room, which is one of the most famous parts of the site, but it was definitely awesome to walk through the site and see passageways, courtyards, seating areas, storage spaces and evidence of some kind of infrastructure. There is unfortunately little sense of how the palace related spatially with where most of the Minoans (non-elite) lived, but the palace seemed to act as a mini-city of sorts.

After Knossos we drove into one of the main cities on Crete, Heraklion, and checked in to our hotel. The city looked a lot like Athens as far as traffic and cleanliness, but it did have a beautiful waterfront. After a lunch of gyros and sorbet, our group went to the archaeological museum to see some of the objects dug up in Knossos and around the area, which was nice, but I have to admt that we were all so exhausted by that point that we were anxious to leave.

Later that evening, before dinner, I decided to explore the market around our hotel, which was fun but pretty touristy. I almost bought a Cretan dagger (they are too cool - traditional Cretan men are known for carrying them), but then reconsidered when I thought about trying to get through customs with it. There was a coffee shop that smelled great, so I wandered in looking for some gifts. The two men working in the store were very nice, and insisted that I try to speak in Greek. After talking for a little while the owner offered to show me how to make Greek coffee, whch was absolutely delicious, and then we sat around for a while talking about politics in Greece and the U.S. They were both supporters of the New Democrats (the conservatives) in Greece, but only because N.D. isn't the party that had been in power for so long before that. They didn't have a whole lot of faith in the Greek political system as far as social reform, and explained how Greece was still really struggling after switching to the euro (they said that the core of the problem is that salaries have yet to rise enough to meet the rise in the cost of living).


The view of the mountains from the site at Knossos - I think that the one to the left is Mt. Ida, which is where the Greeks thought Zeus was born.


A surviving wall of the palace with a reconstructed doorway.


A real peacock! Just wandering around Knossos...


Me in front of some ruins and reconstructed columns.


Some of the storage vessels found at the site.