Mount Pentelli--Greece

Today I hope to talk to a local. I have been improving my vocabulary (Greek that is). People respond so warmly when they know that you are trying to communicate in their language while conquering daily tasks.

Today we awoke at 7:00 am and ate pastries from down the street and washed clothes. We have pretty much been walking and traveling a lot in the past few days. I'm now sitting on Mount Pentelli. Today we took a day trip to this mountain because Pentellic Marble was quarried here.

It is nice to be out of the city and into the field where everything happened. It's very dry here and the landscape is a light tan, but the evergreen trees and flowers are pretty. We drove out here and hiked up to Mt. Pentelli. Many of the trees in this area are burnt. Dr. Elizabeth Walters, professor of art history and one of our guides here in Greece, attributes it to the fact that people can develop the land if it has been "ruined" and deemed useless by some random act (like a premeditated fire). So sometimes I feel like I'm walking through a winter forest but it's only burnt.

We studied Pentellic marble in class this past semester (Dr. Walters brought in pieces for us to study), but seeing the marble amazed me!! We all searched for pieces on our hike up the mountain...but by now—I am sending this from one of Cairo's Internet cafes on May 18—by now we have left some of our rocks in Greece because we couldn't travel comfortably with our "finds."

We can see Athens from up here on the mountain, and it is sinking in with the group that we are in Greece. We are getting along very well, and everyone is enthusiastic. I enjoyed the hike after traveling so much. Our day trip astounded me. Dan, one of the group members, tried to climb the side of Pentelli. Many people hiked high up the mountain and me, I am looking at the landscape. In ways, the Mediterranean does feel like the middle of the land.

Alissa Shirk
Geography and Economics
Greece—May 2001