Our Pilgrimage 2008

Vatopedi

2008-07-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Calm Haven of Vatopedi Bay

Vatopedi Bay, an inlet of the Aegean, spreads out like the blue calm of pure contemplation.

For the past week, free of all cares except those of travel and attending the long hours of prayer, following the rule of sleep and fixed regimen of the trapeza, moments of talking with other pilgrims and moments of solitude, and I have arrived at this calm bay.

The lack of the presence of any women, also, I must admit, had an effect. It is not that I think of women primarily as a distraction, or according to any pre-conception at all. And yet I am a man, and the psychic and biological dynamic exists, and I would be foolish not to admit it. But it is not simply that there are no women. There is also no talk of women, no crude insinuations such as one often finds in male companionship, and frankly, not a thought at all. Not a thought at all. It never occurred to me what this would be like.

And this is only one factor in a state of relative passionlessness such as I have only tasted during times in Great Lent. There was no anger, no anxiousness. Slowly, unexpectedly, almost without notice, I have entered this quiet where the main thrust of desire is in prayer. I find myself praying more for other people, and with eagerness. Even the moments talking with my fellow pilgrims have become more prayerful.

This is the place where contemplation can begin.

The sun goes down, on this northeastern shoreline, not into the sea, but into the rocky spine of the Athonite ridge. The horizon is still and immense. Soon, the sea and the infinite northern sky will melt together into nightfall – there, where Jason sailed northward in quest of the golden fleece. It was found in the spiritual riches with which Byzantium clothed the sacrifice of the lamb.

“So long as the mind holds sway and is active and influential, the will remains constrained and subject to human desire. The will always remains fastened to the mind. But, when the mind begins to calm down and give way, the will is thereupon released and heads straightforwardly to God.” (from Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way, by Matthew the Poor, p.62.)

I speak of contemplation in its literal sense, of simply prayerful awareness from a place with a wide view, not in the more exalted spiritual sense of theoria, Divine Vision.

This Bay of Vatopedi, wide, blue and calm under a high summer sun, attracts not only the eye, but also, from the first immediate sight of it, the soul.

Gray stone houses, shingled with stone slabs, line the incurving shore between tall, shady chestnuts, olives, feathery pines, figs, graceful cypresses. An ancient yellow-stuccoed basilica, the cemetery chapel, stands quietly in the sunlight, and other lead-roofed domes mark small chapels. Stone walks, walls, and stairs wind through the narrow shade between the buildings. A walled pool under the western wall, like an ancient moat emerging from a stone arch under the entry stairs, stores overflow from the springs for watering the gardens. A culvert out of this, now in its dry season, runs in a channel past buildings that once housed water-wheel driven mills and down to the cove.

Eastward a road winds up the hill into olive groves that overlook the developing sea cliffs. At the crown of that hill sits the ruin of the former school. To the west, on the rising peninsula ridge that reaches oceanward enveloping the bay, are two churches, surrounded by vast gardens and beehives. Near one of these St. Gregory Palamas was for a time in seclusion in the vastness of theophanic prayer. Rocks cut into that shore, dropping their massive anchors farther out.

All this is outside the walls.

I sit on a balcony high on a wall which is itself a monument of Byzantine fortress architecture. What is within is astonishing.

There have been more than six hundred commemorated saints here. Everything has been built and used by them. The church itself is over a thousand years old. The “pious legend” that the original church was built by Emperor Constantine the Great in the fourth century has been given weight by the archeological discovery of a very old and quite huge church foundation beneath the present church. The oldest chapel within the walls was built by St. Sabba of Serbia and his father, St. Symeon the Myrrh-Gusher. Miracle-working icons are everywhere. Here is the skull of St. John Chrysostom, with the incorrupt ear into which the Apostle Paul whispered his interpretations of his epistles.

We were able to give confession here. Since I had been thinking about this ever since I arrived on Mt. Athos, my confession was swift and to the point. I was able to take communion in the chapel built by St. Sabbas…!

We were able to stay in Vatopedi for three days. It is here that we truly relaxed into the monastic rhythm, and here that we found a spiritual home. Fr. Nicholas made the kind of contact he had been seeking – this is certain to be a benefit to our parish life. Scott could not stop reflecting on the beautiful and powerful prayerfulness with which the monks chanted – it seems to have completely overwhelmed him.

Varopedi was renewed by one of the disciples of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, as were many of the monasteries on Mt. Athos. It was Joseph the younger who came here with his own disciples, including the present Abbot Ephrem. Fr. Theonis, the gate-keeper and office manager, who has been especially kind to Fr. Nicholas, was one of these who came here twenty-five years ago to re-establish the coenobitic rule. This means that there is a common life: no personal property, common worship services and meals, all work distributed and appointed under the guidance of the abbot. Meanwhile, it is primarily a training ground for the interior life. Only those most experienced in interior life are given a blessing to retire to a hermitage. The dangers are vividly illustrated by the life of St. Hilarion the Georgian (see The Orthodox Word), who encountered demons as tall as the mountain. This was one of the saints who lived in the cell now occupied by the elder we approached on the ridge above Dionysiou.

During the period of Turkish rule, which lasted half a millennium, the monasteries, plagued by taxes and pirate raids, suffered extremely. Some were destroyed; most entered a period of depopulation and decline. Monks were forced to abandon the order of the coenobitic rule and became idiorhythmic. That is, each monk followed his own rule and lived by his own means. Coenobitic rule has now been re-established in all the major monasteries, but only during the renewal of recent decades.

To see men that are this angelic in demeanor – to see what man is capable of becoming in the transformative loving hands of God – this alone is worth a pilgrimage. Actually, it is perhaps the whole point of it, in order to desire such transformation in one’s self.

To begin with, there was the monk whom Fr. Nicholas met at the administrative office at Karyes, the one who encouraged us to go to Vatopedi a day earlier than scheduled and who gave us the note that really got us past the gate. It turns out he was one of the original disciples of Elder Joseph the younger. When one first encounters these men, the passionlessness of their quiet gaze is difficult to read. The degree of their guarded interior concentration makes them appear almost angry; it is similar to the expression one sees in icons of hesychastic saints. But if one has the opportunity to speak with them more freely, it is as though they open their souls, and one begins to see in their interior vastness a glimpse of things that brings tears. The countenance is transformed into a smile of otherworldly sweetness.

Fr. Gregory, a young deacon, was such a one. I was brought into his office to view his plans, in the auto-cad computer program, for a power plant incorporating solar power. He went to Stanford and spoke warmly of Fr. Basil Rhodes in Palo Alto. This was one with a very angelic demeanor.

Also I was fortunate to encounter Fr. Gavriil, a Russian monk from Valaam. As the sun went down, he sat on the balcony with us and with Fr. Matthew, the American monk in Vatopedi who has been our principle guide here. Fr. Gavriil spoke of the youth of the present very large monastic renewal going on in Russia. He said that Russian monks often needed to come to Mt. Athos to find their way deeper into their calling. Fr. Matthew agreed that monasticism is a vocation with tremendous depth, that even on Mt. Athos there were brotherhoods that were relatively young; but there are also experienced elders. Fr. Gavriil mentioned the many very experienced elders in Simonapetra, about whom we have heard repeatedly in our journey. We never received permission to go there. But it was during this very sobering conversation that we gained a perspective on our own Orthodox life in America, which, though growing, is frankly infantile in its maturity. Simply put, the Christian life is an exceedingly deep well, and we have known only a few drops from it. We were here informed of our need to mature, under experienced guidance, in order to give Orthodoxy in America any real chance.

Here, I think, by the tremendous Grace of God, is where we encountered what it was we were searching for on the Holy Mountain.

We had encountered many perspectives. The elder from Grigoriou had been an example of maturity, patience and wisdom. Others, perhaps, were less so. We had encountered several monks – and pilgrims on Mt. Athos – with strong political opinions, both in sacred and secular matters. The strength of these opinions surprised me; perhaps it is part of the Greek character. Most seem relatively balanced, but one will certainly come across zealots, especially among the younger. Some of these made me uncomfortable in their condemnations of those who are not Orthodox enough, and, therefore in their implications, not really Orthodox at all. Fr. Nicholas reminded me that the Holy Mountain has always had a responsibility to maintain purity in the faith. Of course I accept this fact. May it be blessed. Nevertheless, one wonders about the maturity of some of these views when they are vented with a certain amount of heated intolerance and, especially, when they are thrust upon one in the form of unasked-for, and frankly unwanted, personal advice. It seems to me that the purity of the faith is something of a different quality than this.

In Vatopedi we encountered nothing of this sort. The general perspective seemed to be very mature, even while the monks who had been there since the beginning of the present renewal of coenobitic life admitted their own relative immaturity.

On Sunday, Fr. Matthew showed us the grounds outside the walls. Sunday evening, after Vespers and the meal, I slipped out of the gates to find a quiet place to pray. There in an English garden established by Prince Charles, outside a chapel he provided. This had been a smoke-house, which he had converted, by the labor of specialists in ancient building techniques, into a chapel for St. Evdokimos. This is a Vatopedi saint about whom nothing is known, except that his skeleton was discovered in the ossuary holding an icon and emitting a fragrance of myrrh. It is conjectured that he was a holy man who did not desire to be remembered, and so he crept off to hide among the bones of the deceased monks and die. The monks who found his skeleton, from who knows what century, named him “the one who lived well”, Evdokimos.

Here I sat on a bench looking out into the olive grove and prayed for what seemed more than an hour. Fr. Theonis had warned me when I went out that the gate would close early, but that it would open again after eight. When I returned to the gate, it had just closed. I really did not want to wait outside for another full hour.

So I started eyeing the scaffolding all around the east side of the walls.

By the time I climbed up to our fourth-floor balcony, Scott was sitting so quietly writing that I was afraid I would startle him. So I greeted him from underneath his elbows. It took him a few minutes to get any comprehension of what I could possibly be doing out there beyond the railing of the balcony.

I had climbed the walls of Vatopedi like one of the pirates, seeking to plunder its richness.
This journal reflects, perhaps, a glimpse of the value of my stolen treasures.

Christopher

Iveron: Prayer

2008-07-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

There is a kind of prayer in which we reach out and touch the overwhelming reality of God. That touch is wondrous, healing, freeing. There is further degree of prayer in which we invoke and invite God into the heart. This is the beginning of the All-Transformative, the Metamorphosis.

At last, at Iveron, I found a quiet balcony where no one could see me, no one disturbed me. In front of me was a wall of large chestnut trees bathed in full sunlight. Beyond it was the base of a hill of such trees; down below the balcony was a fruit orchard. There was nothing else but the sky, and, far to my left, a small corner fragment of the huge eastern expanse of the Aegean Sea.
I was fresh from a nap, fully awake, and as thirsty for solitude as I have ever been. I eagerly plunged into the exercise of interior prayer, and for the first time since speaking with the elder yesterday.

Since the last time that Fr. Mo’een had instructed me in this prayer three years ago and given me permission to try the breathing exercise in the heart with the prayer, there has been nothing to stop me from doing this. There has been nothing to stop me from advancing, with God’s help. What has distracted me for so long? What has been so important that I have essentially forgotten what I am to do? There have only been a few times when I put my attention to it, and every time was fruitful. The later poems of Mysteries of Silence are a sketchy chronicle of those few experiences.

How have I been so foolish? How can the wasted moments add up to years? At least there is another chance to begin.

Fr. Nicholas had assured us that in this particular monastery, the slow, quiet pace is ripe with such prayer, that it might creep up on us unawares. I sought it out; it found me.

Christopher

Dionysiou

2008-07-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

It sits on a tall rock like the monasteries in Meteora. The climb was similarly arduous. We were installed in a room in the wall over the precipice and slept through the rest of the afternoon.

Fr. Nicholas did not nap. He went looking for Fr. Modestus from Kent, England, whom Fr. Damian from Grigoriou had recommended. He was standing outside the catholicon when a monk passed.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?”

With a British accent: “Certainly!”

Fr. Nicholas immediately opened his heart, he told me, concerning the difficulty of finding hesychia (“stillness”, “quietness”, but in the sense of intensely concentrated and, when possible, continuous prayer) in the modern world. Fr. Modestus, in turn, said that it is difficult to find even in the monasteries any more. He complained about the growing numbers of pilgrims – scores of them passing through every day – the construction equipment everywhere, and even the tour boats that pass several times a day with loudspeakers that are particularly disturbing. One can hear what they are saying, pointing out the monks and their life as though it were a quaint curiosity in a museum or even an exotic zoo.

The entire Holy Mountain is one giant construction zone. Heavy equipment and scaffolding is everywhere at the main monasteries. I heard rumors that the European Union is pouring large amounts of money into restoration of medieval sites, and this is one of the largest. The EU also is trying to apply pressure to open the monasteries to tourists.

Mount Athos is an independent self-governing monastic republic. Its influence, devoted to the purity of monastic life, has been essential in the history of Orthodoxy. The number of pilgrims, large as it seems, is limited. Women are not allowed at all. This may seem strange at first; it is the only such place I know of, even among Orthodox monasteries. This has been the case since the earliest centuries of the Christian era. One hears that the EU wants to change it.

Traditionally, the monasteries depended on Orthodox kings to support their upkeep. After the fall of Byzantium, the kings of Russia, Romania and Serbia were key benefactors. Today, Prince Charles has become an ardent supporter.

Much of the construction work is necessary. Many buildings are old and in poor repair, and there is no denying that they have tremendous historical significance. But some of the monks feel that the scale of construction is completely out of proportion to what is appropriate for the environment of the Holy Mountain.

However, Fr. Modestus said, there is a hesychastic elder who lives halfway up the ridge.

“You and I are going there in the morning,” I said when Fr. Nicholas informed me of this news.

“We may not have time to get back before the boat leaves for Daphne,” he said.

“If we miss the boat, we miss the boat,” I said. “We’ll have to stay here another night. But this is what we came to Mt. Athos for.”

After Vespers and trapeza (the meal), Fr. Modestus showed us the frescoes in the church. They were of Theophan the Cretan and his school, but had been plastered over and re-painted in the Western decadent style influenced by Romanticism, far inferior. So the newer plaster had been removed and the original damaged frescoes had been cleaned and painstakingly restored. It is a monumental task, almost unthinkable. The restorer has to study the technique and style and match it. The result has to be the work of Theophanes, not the work of the restorer. The results were stunning.

He also showed us particular portable icons. One was a Virgin of mastic and wax, exceedingly ancient, attributed to the hand of St. Luke himself. This was once stolen by the pirates that plagued Mt. Athos after the fall of Byzantium. Their boat, however, would not move on the water, and a voice from the icon said, “Take me home!” This so terrified the pirates that after returning it one of them became a monk.

I am sorry to say that I lost track of how many miracle-working icons we venerated.
Next he took us to the cemetery. This is beautifully perched on a terraced shelf cut from towers of rock above the sea and shaded by tall, slender cypresses. An old stone wall met the tumbled boulders of some ancient avalanche so seamlessly that one could hardly discern where the hand of man had been fitted into the hand of God.

Finally he took us up higher to the cave of St. Niphon.

St. Niphon, once a monk at Dionysiou, later became Patriarch of Constantinople. He returned to the monastery after retiring; but in his age, no one recognized or remembered him. He entered as a novice, never mentioning his former rank. He was assigned to shepherd’s duties, and also to watch the sea for pirates. He slept in the cave; but most of the night he was in prayer. Repeatedly the abbot saw a column of fire in the region of the cave at night, and did not understand until he was commanded by a voice to go receive the saintly Patriarch with honor. When the whole brotherhood came out to reverence him, he tried to run away, but they restrained him.

We climbed a set of precarious stairs and came to this cave by a cell, on a terrace of the cliff above the cemetery. Fr. Modestus began speaking of the Elder Porphyrius. He said that there were many holy elders in the twentieth century, but that Elder Porphyrius was perhaps the greatest mystic the church has seen since St. Seraphim of Sarov in the eighteenth century. I did not even realize that St. Seraphim was a saint of that stature.

The sun was going down. We were quiet; everything was quiet. We all prayed for a while as dusk pulled its drape over the Holy Mountain, leaving a glow upon the waves. It was dark by the time we climbed down, but we came to the gates in the wall just before they were shut.

Christopher

Note: Chronologically, the post entitled "The Springs of the Holy Mountain" should follow this post, and then "The Ruined Monastery".

Holy Monastery of Grigoriou

2008-07-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

On the boat again to the little port of Daphne, where we met the pilgrim Stratos. He was extremely excited about meeting Orthodox Christians from “the great prostitute of the apocalypse”: America. I admit being a little shocked that someone I had never met should say this to me. Athonite monks who came from Western cultures roll their eyes at this assessment of American culture, considering how secularized even Greece is becoming. But Stratos was generally excitable in all his descriptions. He told of the Holy Fire of Jerusalem in the tomb of the Savior at Pascha, and how it is flown by airplane to Greece then met by vans to be distributed to every village in the country. He spoke of the many holy elders in the monastery of Simonapetra.

We passed under the high walls of that fabled monastery, perched on its precipice on a steep incline far above the shore. I prayed as we drifted past it, begging for a few drops of the blossoms of its lofty blessings to fall on me.

The sun was high, near noon. I made another attempt to study the Mediterranean color of the waves. Deep blue ran along the crests, with luminous greens in the wave-runs. Other hues, many, ran across the undisturbed surface. But what poetry could really describe these colors? Do they come from the sky, or some mineral pigment brushed in from the island shores? I understand why one has to see the color of this sea for himself.

We docked at Grigoriou and were given a room right over the boat dock. The guest master was a quiet monk with extremely quiet, almost expressionless eyes under thick black bushy brows. How could one known that he was a priest, or that this was Nikos Vlachos’ spiritual father, Fr. Christophoros?

Our room for two nights faces the steep rocky cliffs at one angle, a corner of the towered monastery at another, and the sea wide between. A forest descends the slopes, with magnificent rocks and old ruins. I sat on the dock and tried to enter prayer. My three-hundred-knot prayer rope which I had purchased at the great basilica church of St. Demitrios in Thessalonica I said to the Theotokos, asking Her help again, as I did when I first attempted the practice of this prayer – more than ten years ago.

It occurred to me that I have not pursued prayer as single-mindedly as one must at least try to do since I moved away from my own spiritual father in the Bay Area. Actually, I was overwhelmed with this realization. It was a gift. Later that afternoon, when I talked with my parish priest and fellow pilgrim Fr. Nicholas about this, I knew that I had come to the Holy Mountain for this reason.

The Catholicon (Church) of St. Nicholas at Grigoriou was beautiful and inspiring, and I felt at home here. The antiphonal singing of the Vespers stichera was ornamented, according to the practice of the Holy Mountain, with interjected refrains, on an ison note, of short supplications by the canonarch, who walked back and forth from choir to choir on either side of the iconostas. Heart and mind soared in prayer. There is an immense throned Christ frescoed in front of the inner narthex, to whom I addressed my prayer. Then I moved into the nave at the Lord I Have Cried psalms to hear the splendor of Byzantine chant. There is also a beautiful icon of St. Gregory of Sinai, the monastery’s founder.

After the meal, we returned to the church for the Akathist hymn. Though I could not understand the Greek, I knew the hymn well enough to know what was being chanted – perhaps the most beautiful and inspired poetics ever written. The service began with the veneration of the relics of St. Gregory Palamas, St. John the Theologian, and others.

It was a beautiful and lofty experience of prayer. I stood in front of the narthex fresco of the Mother of God, companion icon of the throned Christ. I was aware of the tremendous power of Her presence, and I wept silently. This is where the heart finds its home, where the human creature tastes the sense of its purpose, while hardly even knowing it!

Afterward, we talked with young Miloch the Serbian, named for the hero of the medieval Battle of Kosovo. He is a theology student and son of a priest. There were also two young Romanian schoolteachers, very pleasant, extremely interested in Orthodox America, in Fr. Seraphim Rose, and in our own stories. Everywhere we went, the name of Seraphim Rose came up! We saw the book on his life in Greek. A monk from London, Fr. Damian, was also extremely attentive to us.

Fr. Nicholas went to speak with the abbot about the question of spiritual fatherhood in America. The abbot agreed with him, he told me, that the situation was particularly difficult in America, and he sympathized with that search and gave Fr. Nicholas a prayer rope. He was not, however, in good health, and the conversation went not much farther than that.

I was so inspired by the Vespers that I determined to rise early and be at the beginning of Matins next morning at 4 AM. I did not entirely succeed. By the time I got there at the end of the Six Psalms, the service had already been going on for three-quarters of an hour. I prayed eagerly through the early morning darkness, when the candles are extinguished for the Six Psalms and the kathisma. As it began to grow light, I paid the price for my zealousness, fighting sleep through the remaining hours of the long morning service. I was in the church for four hours. No complaints – I knew that is what they do, and I looked forward to it – but one keeps nodding off until the floor begins to move…

Christopher

Grandma Coco's Memories

2008-07-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Shirley/Macrina's blog pretty much covers it all! Some of my most memorable moments, though , were:

our first taxi ride in Rome (driver's training is a waste of time!)
graffitti everywhere
the mis-leading building fronts - when you entered the building through an iron "door" and arrived at our room, it was really quite nice
our four hour walking tour the first full day in Rome, in the hot sun - and I didn't get heat stroke!
the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican, in general!
retrieving Emilia's backpack that was left at a restaurant, and was there the next day! (That was not the only time we had to retrieve it!)
the mosaics in Ravenna Italy
breaking my camera in the park next to the hostel!
carrying all our luggage and Shirley/Macrina leading the way pushing a stroller! Downstairs, walking a ways, and up stairs to catch a train or bus! (We were so glad to see "lifts" in Greece when we arrived there!)
the overnight boat trip to Greece, coming downstairs and the loudspeaker saying "Basil would like his parents to pick him up at the reception counter!" He has a mind of his own about what he wants to do - without asking!
the wonderful hospitality of the nuns in Zakinthos and Lavrio!
Katrina who took us to the ferry in Zakinthos from the monastary. They all made us feel so welcome!
Cracking nuts in Lavrio.
And of course the many roads (narrow and steep) leading to the beautiful monastaries and churches.
Shirley/Macrina's driving - 4 different cars, without a scratch! She did a great job.
Shopping, of course.
The phone call that Al had finished the half marathon with Diana (who came from CA with Alex and Lilly )to walk with him in spite of some setbacks (for Al) from probably too much sugar!
Meeting up with the men in Thesseloniki -
Father Nicholas so pleased with his new vestments recently purchased in Athens with the help of Niko and Meredith
Gabriel looking through his camera lens, (apparently) making sure he had gotten the best picture;
Scott and Ethan from eastern WA - such nice people
Christopher reading about the next monastery we would be visiting or a particular saint while we were riding in the car
riding in the back seat of that very small car with the kids, luggage and a stroller!
The wonderful hospitality of Niko and Meredith in Rafina (Niko's family summer home) and Athens (in Niko's apartment) and for taking us shopping before coming home and taking us to the airport last Thursday!

There are many more memories - and yes, I did keep a journal - but these are a few of the main ones!

I am so glad Shirley/Macrina allowed me to go on her spiritual journey with her and the kids. It was truly that for all of us. There are many gorgeous Orthodox monastaries and churches in Greece. And just the scenery while driving is gorgeous! But it is also wonderful to get back home. As is said so much - it's great to see new places, but there is no place like home!

Thank you all for your prayers and support for this trip! It for me was truly a trip of a lifetime!

Love and Blessing to you all!
Colleen

The Ruined Monastery

2008-07-24T00:03:00.000-07:00

The Ruined Monastery

Within the gate – huge wings of four-storied brick buildings with broken windows, roofs half fallen in. To the left, the entire middle section of one building has fallen to the foundation. Iron reinforcing bars lean out into space and droop groundward like the numerous branches of a weeping willow. On the top floor of the remaining structure are the ruins of a basilica-like structure running along the great width from front to back, of which only the front and rear facades remain, trimmed in decorative brickwork. It almost looks like a crumbling crypt, with low blind windows and one round corbelled window in the peak; and the setting sun behind it in a pavement of decorative cumulus clouds, shoots great rays across the sky from behind its high projections.

Beside this, another three-storied building, also with a sagging and partially demolished roof and eaves rotting into dark holes, appears, from its curtained windows, to be in use.

No one was in sight.

We tried a stair that led to locked doors. Returning to the ground floor, we tried another door that led into a long, long hall, lined with beds piled high with blankets. We passed room after room of eight to twelve beds, all made, but with no occupant. The floor was weak, ready in one place to give way.

We went back out into the heat and proceeded toward the rear buildings, looking for someone. In the central courtyard is the great catholicon of St. Andrei’s Skete, the largest church on the Holy Mountain, locked and entirely chained in scaffolding. At last a worker climbed down from behind a roof where a dome was being re-framed and sheathed. He directed us to the rear building in the three-acre-plus complex. This was accessed by a bridge – the basement level descended from the ground across what could have been a moat, were their not windows in the lower level. We passed under an overhanging shelf of exposed brick, held up by iron framing dissolving into rust and appearing ready to fall, and entered the building.

Down another long, long hallway, part of which was shored up with wooden beams. Here the rooms’ side walls had been stripped to the brick. These leaned dangerously both ways at once, as though intoxicated. The hall ended at last in a stair which we climbed. Here at last was the guest-master’s greeting room. There was a pitcher of water, empty glasses, and a half-empty plate of Turkish delight; but there was no one in the eerie quiet.

After perhaps three-quarters of an hour waiting here, another pilgrim came in and sat. Shortly after, a massive novice with unusually disheveled hair and appearance came in, stared around at us, and grunted that he would bring someone.

This was the last person we saw for two hours.

I needed to find a bathroom. Across the hall in the rear of the building I found one, filthy and in poor repair, but the plumbing functioned; and so did I. After I was done, I saw a door that led out onto a balcony. I have never seen a balcony off of a row of toilets, and I was not sure I should trust the under-support, but there was a breeze and fresh air out there – and a view of wide and stunning magnificence.

We were far above the Aegean that spreads north of the peninsula. A mountainous island floated dimly in the northern distance. Cells and churches were scattered across the forested hills around Karyes, halfway up the gently sloping ridge from the shore. Those nearest must have belonged to the skete, as they sat in advanced stages of ruin.

The last pilgrim who had come in got tired of waiting, and went out to find someone. We wondered if we would ever see him again; but he came back announcing that everyone was in the trapeza below the main church.

With a meal in us, our perceptions began to change. The stair we had tried earlier, as it turned out, led to a very elegant Russian Baroque church on the top floor of the front building. The Vespers and Akathist were prayerfully conducted. Afterwards we were assigned rooms, and we set off through the labyrinthine halls searching for a shower.

No shower was to be found. I did not give up. I looked in every connecting wing of every floor. Coincidentally, each time I passed a window and looked out, I saw Gabriel and Ethen exploring the grounds outside. The first time I passed a window and saw them, I pressed my face to the glass to distort it and drooled at them. They seemed a little taken aback. The second time, I limped heavily with a hunched back and pointed down at them. I was really beginning to feel the gothic impression made by the place. When I checked the first bathroom I had seen earlier, I went out on the balcony – and there they were, far below, down in back of the monastery. I pointed at them and grunted loudly, shaking my finger. By now they were laughing uncontrollably.

After performing what self-washing was possible, I went out into the courtyard to try to sketch descriptions of this monastery. The problem here, as I learned later from the fathers at Vatopedi who are responsible for the re-building, is not the age of the buildings. By Athonite time, they are new. Most are a little more than two centuries, with the exception of the old church in the courtyard opposite the great catholicon. But during the period that the monastery was abandoned, the roofs fell into disrepair. Water then traveled down into the iron webbing in the brick and rusted it out. This caused all the damage.

Fr. Ephraim, a younger British monk, talked with me for more than an hour.

As the sun was going down, the bats began to come out of the buildings.

No one could make up this place.

Christopher

St. Panteleimon's

2008-07-24T00:00:00.001-07:00

There is one fishing boat on the blue sea.

A small breeze comes in the curtains of the guest house window. The other pilgrims are asleep since early afternoon.

Gentle waves on the rocky shore insist that the secret of unceasing prayer is here.

Coming down offshore on the boat, the pilgrim is introduced to the beauty of the Athonite peninsula. He passes a few ruined stone structures. Then, how fittingly picturesque is the boat dock for Zographou – named for “the painter” because of the miraculously painted icon which determined its dedication. A portion of ruined wall towers over the dock and boat-house. This and the little church are the village outpost for the walled medieval city out of sight in a high ravine. The dock is in a cove flanked by natural rock slabs with water caves. This and the forested ridge above are like a landscape painter’s dream.

This is only the beginning of splendid sightings of medieval walled monasteries. It is the Feast of Peter and Paul, and the bell tower of Docheriou sings out with complex antiphonal explosions over the water. Xenophon is even larger with its watchtower and beautiful red church domes and high stone walls with wooden bump-outs high up, supported on angular beams and plastered green and red and blue.

Then one comes around the point and within sight of the immense spreading structure of St. Panteleimon’s.

Mt. Athos is an independent Greek republic existing since the Byzantine era; but tonight we will feast upon a vigil of Russian church chant.

My first sunset on the Holy Mountain left the sky the color of a great candle. A half-moon was hung over the sea. I was standing under the huge bell-tower when the largest of its bells was struck.

The largest bell on the Holy Mountain. The one they can hear in Ouronopolis.
It hurt.

The All-Night Vigil promised to live up to its name. Having slept only a few hours the night before, I did not make it even through the two-and-a-half-hour Vespers. And though I had been disappointed with the predominance of Obikhod chant, it was sung so well and prayerfully as to be impressive.

Christopher

The Springs of the Holy Mountain

2008-07-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Springs of the Holy Mountain

The sound of a rivulet had begun to fill the gorge. If one stopped to look up, one saw that the path had entered under branches of overhanging trees. Another path branched off to climb the steep ridge to the right. Looking backward, one saw the valley widen down toward the sea, with the walls of the Holy Monastery of Grigoriou perched on a rock at the base of the mountain that would lead up at last, if one had strength to follow the ridges, to the great peak of Athos.
We stood, then, in a glade in the garden of the Theotokos.

But one could not stop to look up, except to catch breath. The stony path was too precarious and uneven. All one’s attention was on the next step.

We had been climbing for almost an hour. Father Modestus had assured us that the elder’s cell was only an hour from the monastery. But he was used to walking these paths. It was an arduous climb for us, steep with switch-backs. At times, the path was almost eroded by landslides. One had to step cautiously to avoid a precipitous slide down the slope. The views, of course, were astounding, view upon view, at every turn changing; but there was no time for the view. We need to get to the elder’s cell our questions, and still get back to the monastery in time to catch the boat for the Athonite port of Daphne. We had started at first light. A strong breeze had developed during the night, and clouds had crept out of the curtains of darkness before dawn, removing the oppressive heat and making the morning pleasant.

At the bottom of the gorge, it widened under the walls of the monastery into a narrow plain. This was filled with gardens and, strangely enough, wide roads terminating in a cement plant for the monastery’s ambitious construction projects. These were most notable at the docks, which were new and complex, with bays and boat launches and roads for large vehicles to be driven up to the monastery gates.

But there was no water in the bottom of that valley, not at this season just past midsummer.
Fr. Modestus had pointed out the immense new concrete cistern. The old one next to it was no longer large enough for the water needs of the number of pilgrims who now come.
Just past the new cistern, the rivulet’s course narrowed. One could see that in the rainy seasons it would be a torrent, but now it was dry. A new concrete bridge crossed over and stood along and empty with no connecting road on either side. Obviously, a new road was planned here.
Fr. Modestus lamented the scale of construction all over the Holy Mountain. This area, where the gorge widened into a valley, had been a meadow with wildflowers, butterflies and dragonflies everywhere. Now it was a construction site with bare dirt, rubble and equipment, and wildflowers can no longer be found. They have to grow roses in their own gardens to put around the icons at the feasts. Especially the new roads for cars, he said, are destructive to the ancient footpaths, often wiping them out entirely. He insisted that the footpaths are the only way to experience the Holy Mountain.

A large plastic pipe ran above the stream bed and dived into the side of the old cistern. As we climbed alongside the narrowing gorge, we could see that this pipe maintained a gradual slope above it, supported on concrete piers, some quite tall, like an aqueduct. This kind of construction on a smaller scale, said Fr. Modestus, was more appropriate for Mount Athos The elder toward whom we were now climbing, he told us, himself had overseen the construction of this aqueduct thirty years before.

The springs of Mt. Athos give an abundance of pure water. Because of the thickness of undergrowth, we were no longer within sight of what waters had emerged within the gorge; but we could now hear their melodies.

We were approaching their source. We were climbing toward the solitary dwelling of one who had harvested their life-giving sweetness for the sake of his monastery. We dared to attempt this path toward an elder who, late in his life, had withdrawn into hesychia – into the life-giving source of pure, sweet prayer.

“The life of a hermit is the hardest life of all,” said Fr. Modestus. “It is best not to disturb such a one unless you have a specific question that really needs an answer. We benefit far more from their prayer.”

I had insisted, however, that Fr. Nicholas take advantage of this opportunity to approach an elder of hesychastic prayer. And since he, in turn, suggested that Scott and I might want to ask something, we were bold enough to tag along.

The path turned into the stream bed. It was shallow, but full and swift. We crossed it on stepping stones and made the turn that led out onto the ridge above the opposite side of the gorge. Emerging from the forest, we came out onto an open area far above the monastery and the sea, at the gate to the elder’s cell.

A monk was just leaving, climbing the shady ridge above. A pleasant garden was spread in front of the cell. Fr. Modestus informed us that St. Hilarion of Georgia had lived in this cell, as had another saint.

The elder took us into the tiny chapel to venerate the icons, then out on the narrow veranda to crowd around a small table.

Fr. Nicholas asked for direction concerning practice of the Jesus prayer. The elder insisted that work was necessary, and living according to the commandments of Christ, but that if this were done, God would provide everything. He pointed to the birds of the air with a smile, reminding us of God’s infallible promise.

Scott asked about the difficulty of raising children in America. His answer was that too much strictness can be a mistake, but that prayer was the key, and patience without limit. He spoke of the example of Blessed Augustine, and how his mother prayed ardently for many years before he returned to the Church as a young man.

I asked specifically about distractions during prayer, and especially of the difficulty of trying to pursue unceasing repetitions of prayer during the hours of work. I admitted that I had given up trying to do this. He reminded us again that everything is difficult in the beginning, but that if we make the attempt and pursue it, God will provide everything needed.

As he said this, I understood; and the prayer leapt up in my heart at that moment. It was by my own will that I began it, but I was surprised by the force with which it shouted in me. He seemed so full of joy. When I took his departing blessing, he gripped my arm with surprising strength and joy.

Christopher

Arrival on Mount Athos

2008-07-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

As the tale of my pilgrimage has ended for the time being, I am so pleased to contribute some writings from my husband, Christopher, and his experience of the Holy Mountain.

***

Dawn had not showed herself when we got the taxi. By the time we were dropped off at the bus station, the east was discernable.

The bus traveled its roads and off-roads through my sleep and half-sleep. We were climbing a mountainous ridge and came down into an idyllic village, narrow streets and houses of old stone. The sun came up in an orange blanket of sleeping dust. I dreamed. At a sharp turn I awoke and saw the sea. Sitting up, I saw the sea on both sides of the narrow ridge we were descending.

Ahead in the hazy horizon, an unmistakable mountain mass rose to a sharp and, from this angle, slightly leaning, peak.

The Holy Mountain.

Christopher

Hello, Athens!

2008-07-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Leaving Lavrio and St. Paul's behind, we high-tailed it up to Athens, only stopping for a quick bite to eat along the way. We had fair directions to the rental car office, however when the main road split into three and instead of street names the signs indicated far away towns or the city center, I made a wrong decision. We ended up going 90 degrees wrong for quite some time, miraculously finding the parks and hospitals along the missed road also on this one. Wishful thinking is a powerful thing.

At any rate, after some awful traffic jams, and maneuvering my way through the very heart of Athens in a car, even around Syntagma Square without a single scratch, we arrived, safe and sound. A couple times, truth be told, I did think of pulling over and telling the rental place they'd just have to come pick it up themselves if they wanted it intact. However, courage did not fail and we made it, by God's grace, only a half hour late. What should have taken us 30-40 minutes ended up about an hour and a half. Oh well.

From there, imagine our delight when the cab ride to Nikos' apartment was only 5 minutes away. We looked up to see Meredith-Maria's smiling face and hand wave to greet us as soon as we stepped out of the car. She grabbed bags and brought us up the elevator to Nikos' 4th floor main apartment where we were to stay. Two comfortable couches and a big double bed, a bathroom with a real live bathtub, albeit about 1/2 the width of the ones at home, a kitchen, and a nice deck. It was pure luxury for us. And to have both Nikos and Maria in shouting distance above and below in the apartments they are renovating, it was positively blissful.

I think Grandma really loved Meredith. Throughout the entire trip, Meredith-Maria was really the only truly American (not just English-speaking) woman past college age that she'd had to talk with besides me. And the added bonus was that Maria understood how a nice glass of red wine would comfort Grandma and how she really needed a little downtime and girl-talk to unwind a bit. The chocolate helped, too. After a couple hours, we were all happy as clams. The kids had found some cartoons, Grandma and Maria had made a dent in the bottle of wine, and we'd all had more than our fair share of some excellent extra-dark chocolate.

Nikos came up after finishing some work and the kids went crazy (they really love him). After awhile, Basil was showing signs of total defragmentation and Nikos got him to crash in the bedroom. One of my goals for the last day was to visit a bookstore suggested by the nuns in Lavrio where I could hopefully find some icon books. They are very difficult to find, even online. After spending usually about $100, it's hit and miss whether all the valuable color plates within will be from the right centuries or not. It's much better to see them in person.

Nikos decided he'd drive me up to a store that might have something like that. We went to a great shop full of theological books and icons. I was able to get many gifts for people and Maria got a beautiful silver icon of the Theotokos for Nikos' office. Unfortunately, the bookstore they suggested for icon books was already closed.

Leaving the little street, Nikos said he had a treat in store for us. As the car climbed crazily up steep streets, I realized he was driving us up Lycabbetos Hill. This is the tallest hill in Rome and has a church to St. George on top. I had read about how one solitary monk went up to the crumbling church (when there were no stairs, as there are today) and began to repair and rebuild St. George's. No one even knew he was there, until someone noticed a candle burning from up on the hill during the night. Eventually people began to come and seek him out.

The view from the top was stunning. You don't really appreciate how large Athens is until you see it from that hill. The sun was beginning to set and it was huge, golden, and then reddish, sinking towards the mountains. Obscured by the steam (probably) and fathoms of dust and smog from the city, you could look right at it square. What a magical night.

We climbed many steps up to the top, passed through the restaurant that is embedded in the hillside, and entered the church of St. George, venerating the icons, lighting candles, and offering prayers. It was a small church with icons and frescoes in a variety of styles, none of them particularly remarkable to me. But the thing I felt there was the layers of prayer. It held a sweetness and comfort, and I remembered that monk alone here all those years and what his life meant. Other faithful filtered in around me, crossing themselves, wiggling their lit candles into the sand, kissing the cloak of the saint.

I went back outside and we all stood looking at the amazing sunset, largely keeping quiet, the breeze blowing Maria's hair about. Emma climbed on the ledges and walls that she could. I stood near Nikos, glad to be here with him, looked at Maria's beloved smile, and her profile with Athens all around her far below.

We climbed back down and headed back to Grandma and Basil, Nikos and Maria both pointing out landmarks along the way: the Olympic Panathenic Stadium that was, in ancient times, the gathering place for all the Athenians, the great Arch and National Park, different ruins and wonderful churches all around us. I think I saw more in that drive, perhaps, than I did in the two days we'd been there previously.

The next morning Nikos again offered to drive us around, so I abandoned my plans to take the subway in different directions. They dropped me off near the bookstore I wanted, and all went down to Monastiraki where they finished up some shopping. I had Maria's cell phone and instructions to call them after I walked back down to Monastiraki from the Public Square where I was. I relished my freedom from everyone else the moment I stepped away from that car. Though I love my family, it had been a very long time since I could take off on an adventure in a city full of wonders for a few hours all by myself.

I found the store and some books. I didn't realize there was a 2-volume set by Kontoglou on the technique of icon painting. Unfortunately not translated, I wished again and again that I could read it. The shop owner said it would be good incentive to learn. I ended up buying the second volume with more pictures along with a beautiful book of Theophanes the Cretan.

My walk back down was great. Two things were particularly interesting. One was the huge covered meat and fish market I walked by. It looked like a picture out of a book. A huge long building open on one end was lined with stalls of butcher shops. All manner of animals and body parts were on display from hooks or thrown atop boxes of ice shavings. I mean, it was amazing. I walked through this building and into the adjacent one filled with fish. I've never seen so many varieties of fish, nor squid that big. Anything you could want: sea urchins, octopus, I'm sure it was all there. The other thing was a tiny church you could almost miss among all the shops. Dedicated to St. Kyriaki, I went in and said some morning prayers, had a nice chat with someone else doing the same.

As I approached Monastiraki I suddenly knew exactly where I was, as we'd previously staying in this section. I headed for the little church Kapnikarea, wanting to try and venerate the relics of St. Philothei and St. Gregory in the Metropolitan Church Christopher and I had found on our midnight walk, but hadn't been able to visit during the day. I stopped to check my phone and make sure they hadn't been trying to reach me. I decided to wait until after I went to the church before I called them, afraid I might miss the opportunity otherwise.

Entering the massive church after passing through the wide marble square, I made my way to St. Gregory's relics on the right. I had read his life that morning and felt a reverence for his labors for peace, his gentless and patience in guiding his people as a good shepherd through some of their darkest times during the Turkish occupation. I was completely surprised to feel a tap on my shoulder and arms around my waist. There was Emilia!! Everyone else was on the other side venerating St. Philothei. How funny that we all convened here together. We couldn't have planned it better.

From there, I wanted to explore the liturgical shops a few block away. Nikos was familiar with the area and after stops through a few touristy spots he took us to an incredible little alcove. He was like a little kid grinning on Christmas morning, knowing that what he was about to show me would delight me no end. And he was perfectly right. A tiny alley filled with liturgical artisans. In one shop, we marvelled at the tiny miniature ivory carvings of saints. They looked to me like molds used to create the metal icons for sale all over, absolutely exquisite, with each tiny detail perfectly formed. These were true works of art that will someday end up in a museum, no doubt.

Another shop held a working icon studio and although it was closed we could see the huge wall covered in odd paint strokes, the same thing I do all over my clothes to get off excess paint. Half-finished icons leaned against the walls and all the paraphenalia of painting adorned the tables. Through another doorway, Nikos pointed out the man working in a bindery, telling me that the pile of manuscript waiting to be bound was a copy of the Gospels. Rich red velvet strips and carved brass icons waited to adorn the books. I saw a massive cast iron machine that reminded me of Christopher's hand press in our basement.

And to my greatest delight, there was a pigment shop that was actually open. After careful perusing, I bought five bottles of color, mostly greenish ocres that I can use to experiment with the Greek style of executing faces. But just for fun, also a very small expensive amount of pure red!

Delight is the perfect word to describe my mood at this place, but not so for Grandma. Alas, this was where she discovered, on necessity, another of the most grievous things she loathed with a pure disdain verging on hatred: the Turkish toilet. Needless to say, it was not visited by more than a glance from her.

We visited one more bookshop where I struck gold: a painter's manual full of step-by-step photos of various elements of Greek icon painting. Now all thoroughly worn-out by our morning, we groused our way over to the same restaurant we had eaten at while staying at Hotel Tempi. I was too tired for hot food and contented myself with a salad and fried cheese. Nikos got a shish kebap (no, that's not a typo!) and Grandma had a gyro. Emma had dolmathes. I hiked off to the internet cafe, Nikos collected his parking ticket and the rest all piled in the car to go home and rest. I arrived a couple of hours later via the metro, which was also fun to do all by myself!

That night Maria and Nikos took the kids on their promised trip to go swimming. They drove way out in the direction of Lavrio, stopping for a seafood dinner on the way home and arriving back at close to midnight. Grandma and I had stayed behind trying to fit all our things back in our bags like a bad jigsaw puzzle. Actually, she had her stuff under control. I was the one with the problems, but those books were worth it!

The next morning we got up at 5AM and again Nikos drove us out to the airport, even though we'd planned to take the cab. Grandma was very proud of herself for thinking of the perfect hiding spot for the 50E we would have otherwise spent and which she'd budgeted for: underneath the wine bottle in the refrigerator. She was sure Maria would not be able to find it and return it to her before we left. And she was right.

It was with more than a tinge of sadness that I said goodbye to Athens as it sped by my car window in the gathering dawn. At the end of our pilgrimage, looking over all the hills and valleys we'd made it through, I could see most clearly the hand of God's grace. I could see the many jewels and gems we would all have inside to contemplate in the years to come. Thanks be to God!

Most of our flight home was pretty uneventful: Athens to London, London to Vancouver Canada, Vancouver to Seattle and the drive home in just about exactly 24 hours. Having an individual TV on your seat can do wonders. The 9 hours on that longest flight passed relatively quickly. The only glitch was in Canada, where the directions were not too clear and we got going the wrong way for a long time. Having lost a half hour for being late then more from our own mis-guidedness, we had to almost run to catch the plane and left a bag behind in security. It looks like Christopher will be able to pick it up on his pass-through.

Now on the other side, having been home for a few days, we are finally working through the jetlag and are anxious to have Daddy back home again. He and Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel arrive tomorrow night and we will be there to meet them. I've been extremely cold since I've been home, but it sure beats the sizzle of frying in Athens. The normal routine returns more easily than I'd like it to. But I am profoundly grateful for the experience we had.

Macrina signing off almost at midnight in cool quaint Port Townsend

Icon Studio and Departure

2008-07-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

To my great delight, Sister Theangeli collected me the next morning for a tour of the icon studio, just as I finished up my breakfast. I was brought back into the monastic enclosure, between workmen, piles of tools, dust and disassembled doors.

As usual, I was immediately thrilled with the site of the worktable, rows of pigments and brushes, drawings waiting to be put onto patient panels, all waiting their turn. Half

-finished paintings and prototypes haphazardly scattered everywhere. Although I have not painted much over the last few years, I still find myself feeling "home" when surrounded by these elements.

We spent quite some time discussing technique. She was very interested in the more Russian-style painting with which I am mostly familiar, commenting that she has always wondered how Rublev acheived the luminescence in his painting. She seemed amazed that it

was done with light pools of color, carefully floated on top of one another, allowing many hours of drying time between each one. She loves the transparencies, and commented that one iconographer who visited (working in encaustic technique by the way!) said these frescoes in the church are not "true fresco" because they do not have the luminescence they should. That's probably not a distinction I would have noticed, but perhaps it's a point to consider.

I, in turn, absorbed the images around me, asking her questions about the process of tracing her images onto the panels rather than drawing, and looking carefully at the different tools and aids she had created to help her learn the "alphabet" of icon painting. One thing in particular, a large schemata of an eye, a set of lips, an ear, and a nose I

thought was most interesting.

We discovered that neither of us care for the highly-polished gold ground made with red clay bole, preferring rather the gold leaf put on with glue. And both of us have dabbled in some fresco, she more than I. She showed me a very unusual material she'd used to create a beautiful fresco of St. John the Forerunner. It looks like dried grass all compressed together, and must be some sort of recycled wood or paper product. It is very porous and both light and

strong. I've never seen anything like it. She offered me a huge piece to take home and I laughed to think of what the Customs officials would say. She cut it down for me.

We also discussed books and brushes. She gets her brushes from Germany, so I knew I had nothing to offer her in that respect. Some of the brushes I use are also from Germany and the Daniel Smith Autograph series I told her about which is produced locally in Seattle she already knew of and has a catalogue for them. In terms of books, her shelf looked awfully familiar, and some of the Russian volumes she pulled out are among my top 5 favorites. The wonderful productions of Panselinos and Theophanes the Cretan I already have, and she showed me a few key others to consider from Greece.

She was very excited to show me something else, and I was most amazed. She opened a cupboard to reveal a large pile of variously-colored stones. "Here is ochre," she said. And it certainly was! Another of red ochre, another stone with a band of white and a glass jar filled with smaller rocks boasting stripes and crevices of bursting blues: malachite, cerulean, aquamarine. She told me that the hills here are extremely mineral-rich and that they mine and grind their own pigments, using a local miner as a guide. They have found many of the stones containing blue minerals, which are very rare and costly. She gave me one to take home. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to pulverize these rocks into pigment. She showed me photos of them with safety glasses and gloves, working away at the grinding. She also said they used many of these in the frescoes in the church, and that they discovered with the blue stones that if they grind them smaller, the color becomes lighter. She showed me a photo of the Panaghia's blue robe and pointed out the darker areas with larger grind and the lighter areas with smaller grind. She said they used no white to lighter the color, just adjusted the grind. Fascinating.

I was sorry to have to leave the studio, although I'd had a good half hour there. Basil was becoming restless and we needed to pack up our things and head on our way. The rental car needed to be returned before 2PM. I was most grateful to have this opportunity at the end of our stay, though. Sister Theangeli and I agreed to keep in touch and help each other out. She offered to procure images for me when I'm having trouble finding a prototype, particularly of an obscure saint. And I promised to send her some information and photos on the Russian style of painting. On my way out, I admired the striking St. John the Forerunner fresco that she did.

We were all saddened to leave Lavrio. The sisters had been very hospitable and kind. They almost all spoke English, and it was easy to communicate with them. We felt at home there. We relaxed and eased into the rhythm of their life a bit. Emma was a bit weepy as we were accompanied down by sisters Theophani and Theoctiste, with whom we had spent most of our time. They urged us to come back again, asking Emma particularly if she would. She had said the night before that she wants to return to Zakynthos and to Lavrio. In these places, she has really been touched by the sisters and their life and love for her. I am most thankful.

And we are off... heading back towards Athens!

A Little Rhythm

2008-07-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

The bell tolled next morning for prayers at 5AM, followed by the mellow sound of the talendron beating out its invitation.

I rolled over and slept some more. Yet I managed to get up an hour later and still be there for a good hour and a half of morning Orthros, greeting the mosaic of St. Paul over the door as I walked in. I stood at the same chair and listened to the sweet chanting of the handful of sisters. The time of quiet prayer refreshed my soul.

Afterwards, Grandma, Basil and I gathered at the table for breakfast at 8:30. Theophani brought us hot water for our Nescafe, a carafe of fresh milk, hard-boiled eggs, bread, butter and homemade apple marmalade, their organic feta cheese, and some cookies and sour cherry juice, which we really love.

She showed me the little kitchen next to the trapeza where we could wash up our things afterwards.

I asked her if there was some work we could do that day. She had

suggested that we may want to drive over to Lavrio, near which there were two interesting things: some garments and other secondary relics of St. Nektarios and the legendary cliff from which King Aegeus had jumped in grief over the mistakenly supposed death of his son Theseus, thus giving its name to the Aegean Sea. Emma and I were very familiar with this bit of mythology and I had been torn, wanting to see this cliff but also wishing to stay put here in the monastery for our one day there. Emma's lack of interest in seeing "just another cliff" made up my mind. Theophani said she had some nuts we could crack for them. And so we spent the day with the rhythm of the monastery, which was wonderful.

Basil was completely content all day long with his trucks as Grandma, Emma and I struggled over those nuts for about 4 hours. Grandma made a lot of headway with the walnuts. I, on the other hand, have a much greater appreciation for almonds than I ever have before. I found the nutcracker completely useless against the incredibly hard shell of the almond. I got through a few with the mallet,

but many more were impermeable and went flying in all directions, like little almond bullets, when the hammer slammed down on them. I was afraid I'd injure one of us, so I turned to the pecans, which were done in no time with their thin, brittle shells. Emma was having a great time throwing her walnuts on the ground to crack them.

We talked about the book Grandma had picked up from my table: Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom. Over the day or two there she read the whole th

ing. We talked about prayer. She talked about what prayer had been and meant in her life, not so much an ascetic practice as Fr. Anthony described with the Jesus Prayer, but more of a constant remembrance of God throughout her life, an awareness of His presence and a solid faith in Him that she has never felt needed to be tested or unduly examined. I had to agree with her that this is the kind of thing Orthodox prayer is moving towards in its discipline, too. At the end, it is the remembrance of God that we seek.

Grandma articulated the basic experience of that very well. For her, this is and has been her own faith and the unfolding of religious belief throughout her life. As most of us know, remembrance of God is often not something easy, and not to be taken for granted. But some seem to have been given the gift of faith, or this foundational remembrance of and belief in God, which comes to them almost effortlessly. Most of my own life I've recognized

this as well, with only a few times of struggle or doubt that passed relatively quickly. Perhaps this "gift of faith" is one of the greatest things I've inherited from my mother, something that has permeated and given shape to my whole life.

I tried to explain, not having really experienced it much myself, the deeper understanding of remembrance of God that Fr. Anthony is referring to in his book, the kind of remembrance that the saints seek, who spend their lives in interior pilgrimages much more arduous than what we have endured, just for a taste of that blessed awareness. I talked to her about the energies of God, the hesychastic way of prayer that is both an art and science for Orthodox Christians, and one that we all must try to embrace to the degree we are able. I told her about how those who reach a state of illumination, who are blessed with the constant remembrance of God not only in their subconscious, but in their conscious minds as well, about how the very bones of these holy ones are changed and transformed. We've seen this. We've smelled the fragrance from the relics and touched the myrrh-soaked squares of cotton from the miraculous icons.

For me, it is hard to just sit myself down in silence and attend to prayer. Services are much easier, with singing, rubrics, and many words to try and absorb. But practicing the Jesus Prayer, for me, has been a slow effort of fits and starts. At times, I build a rhythm and consistency, when the prayer becomes sweet to my mind and heart, and even an effortlessness can attend me sometimes. And then at other times I let go of that "thread" or habit of prayer and allow myself to be distracted again by the concerns and indulgences of the world around me, dropping a consistent habit of practicing the Prayer altogether.

If I sit down for a time of prayer, my second challenge is always keeping my mind focussed on Christ, keeping it away from the awareness of myself and all my questions, thoughts and self-imposed conundrums. It is a constant effort to re-focus my awareness on God. I realize how difficult it is for me to truly remember Him and sit before Him and in Him quietly without distraction.

One of the nuns from America, Sister Theodicte, came and told me they were starting prayers: Hours, Paraklesis, and Vespers. With some major repairs going on in the monastery, the normal prayer routine was being changed. More physical manpower was needed to help with the work and both Compline and Orthros the next day would be held in the monastery chapel rather than the main one accessible to us. She invited me to join them in a small chapel to the Archangels for this afternoon prayer service, however.

It was just Sister Theodicte, another woman who had obviously been there some time and taken on a rule of participating in some of the prayers, and myself. The chapel was quite new, it appeared to me. I was very surprised to hear the words: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy..." in English! She read several more prayers throughout my hour there in the mother tongue we shared. It was interesting to hear the other woman praying the Trisagion in Greek. Even as such a novice in that language, I could hear a very unusual accent, probably due to her Asian, maybe Japanese, background.

We were brought a tasty lunch at about 2PM: fried potatoes, a large Greek salad sans cucumbers with small feta cubes, peppery red onions and dark purple nicoise olives, some bread, and a sweet walnut cake infused with honey syrup. After all the nut cracking, which Grandma valiantly finished even after the rest of us gave up, it was nice to taste a little of the "fruits" of our labors.

The heat was rising again, and that familiar sticky feeling descended on us. We all went back to the room for a siesta and actually fell asleep. When we woke, it was cooler. I took Emma downstairs to search for the kitties and to collect our bags from the car so that we could re-pack a bit before our departure the next day. Later in the afternoon, Theophani again brought us a huge plate of watermelon and stopped to sit and talk with us for awhile. A few other nuns had passed by to chat throughout the day. Sister Theoctiste told us of how she had come from the Midwest twelve years ago, drawn by hearing someone from this area give a lecture in Pennsylvania. Her heart stirred, she came and stayed. Sister Theangeli was from Germany.

In fact, one of the things that marks this particular monastery and the sister monastery of St. John the Forerunner on Mt. Ossa, near Volos, is it's international community. There are sisters from Greece, Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, and America. And probably some other places I don't remember. As I told them, it reminds me of Elder Sophrony's monastery in Essex. Sister Theoctiste told me that they often use a variety of languages in their common prayers.

Although I understood that St. Paul's in Lavrio was Elder Dositheos' first establishment, the proximity of the newly-sprouted town of Plaka and the general growth in that area, just a 40 minute drive from Athens, pushed them to establish a second monastery in the more remote Mt. Ossa. They had finally moved all the animals that used to be here up there, where they had more space and less activity from outside. The establishment there is much larger, from what I gather, with maybe 20 or 30 nuns instead of the 6 or 8 here. They are working toward running an extensive farm there, with organic produce as well as homemade feta, marmalades, herbs, and other products from their own livestock and gardens. The two monasteries work closely together as one, shifting sisters back and forth as needed. Apparently the main port of Pireus which serves Athens will eventually be closed and replaced with a huge port already under construction out of Lavrio. This will certainly increase the traffic more at St. Paul's. Sister Theophani sighed as she told me this, but then said, "But God knows." In many respects, this smaller monastery nearer the centers of commerce is easier for people like us to make it to, for spiritual refreshment. I'm glad it's here.

I went to the church and took photos of all the icons, then worked on drawing as the sun went slowly down. Grandma read her book, Basil played and Emma chased bugs and other critters, then found a mama kitty behind the church with a tiny mewing calico. Most of the rest of her efforts throughout the evening consisted in ferrying bits of food to her.

Theangeli asked if I would like to see the icon studio later. Unfortunately, their work didn't allow her to get back to me, so I contented myself with more drawings, something I'd had little time to pursue throughout our trip. As we went up to our room for the night, I saw a perfect full moon, as if suspended in the mellowing blue dusky sky. Beside the bell hanging in one of the archways above our bannister, it seemed to betoken the utter sense of peace and deep tranquility here.

Monastery Agios Pavlos, Lavrio

2008-07-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

After our most dramatic adventure in and out of Volos, stopping at the stunning monastery of Taxiarhadon and having to leave it for lack of lodgings, our unexpected overnight in Almyra wrought some wonderful fruit for us. As I mentioned, Fr. Ioannikios was our "knight in shining armor" and one of his parishioners, Katerina, was a wonderful translator between us. They were very hospitable and most kind, arranging our next steps for us.

Katerina told me that this was the metropolis, or cathedral church in the town, and that Fr. Ioannikios had directed its establishment and building, taking care for everything from the iconographic program to the potted plants outside. She spoke with great love and devotion of his life among them, and his many labors for the parish. She told me he is a monastic priest, and that he has a brother priest and a sister abbess. He had a full gray beard, pony tail, and a rich, broad smile. I left him with a bottle of lampada oil from St. John Maximovich and he was very excited about it.

We left Almyra heading south towards Athens. For some reason, I got the impressi

on that Lavrio was pretty close to the city. Our directions were very simple getting from one freeway to another in Athens and then as we got closer to Lavrio just stopping to ask locals for directions to the monastery. We also had their phone number.

Of course we missed the first exit, not realizing it until we had passed under it. As usual, it took me long enough to decipher the Greek instructions that we missed our chance to exit. Getting off and going around the other direction was not nearly so easy as one would i

magine it to be, and in fact, we opted to follow some guy's instructions to drive down into town and through it to Attica. I really ought to have consulted a map, to realize how far Lavrio is from the city center. Instead, I just went with what he said.

The result was that we ended up driving into downtown Athens and wasting a good solid hour until we found a wonderful guy who actually consulted a serious street map and gave us perfect instructions for maneuvering our way through the city to the old freeway we'd originally left so that we could carry on the same instructions we were given in the first place, taking Marcopoulo out of town and down the finger of a penninsula toward Cape Sounio.

At long last we had left the city quite far behind us and pulled over in a small town that Fr. Ioanikios had mentioned. From here we called the monastery for directions. I had left Grandma and the kids in the car, pulling up in front of a flower shop in a square that had obviously been temporarily converted into a parking lot to accommodate a funeral at the large church across the square. Poor Grandma got cussed out in Greek by the shop owner. A pretty unpleasant experience to have someone yelling at you in a language you don't understand. But funny, if you consider it properly.

Before long, we were exiting the freeway and slowly climbing a small hill, quite unsure of being in the right. Thankfully, a local woman appeared out of the sleepy village ahead and assured us the monastery was straight ahead, on the other side of the hill town of Plaka. It looked to

contain a good handful of homes and a taverna or two.

We found the posted sign to the monastery and were so relieved that they were actually expecting us. We drove up and down a small dirt road that completely concealed the monastery. No church dome or building was visible at all, which seemed quite strange to us. But the big black gate embedded in a tall white-washed wall and crowned with a cro

ss was unmistakable, and we saw buildings rising behind it through the leaves of large trees. We drove around to the back where there was room to leave the car and walked back to the gate. Happily, there was a bell, which we rang.

Within a minute or two, our primary host, Sister Theophani opened the black gate and warmly greeted us, hugging Emilia to her and kissing her head, and picking up Basil, greeting Grandma and I enthusiastically. We went and got a few bags as she took the children inside the small

chainlink gate across from the monastery door where the kids delighted in a very friendly

kitten.

She apologized for all the stairs, but we assured her nothing could compare to our hike down and up at Aghia Triada in Meteora. St. Paul's is built into the side of a steep hill and has a very vertical-horizontal feel to it. The initial staircase led up to the main level where the church stands as well as a chapel and graveyard to the far right and the monastic enclosure to the far left.

Another staircase brings one to the next level with a passageway across to the nun's quarters on

the left behind the church walls, a lovely outdoor trapeza in the middle with a simple roof and vines overhead and a small children's playground on the far right. One more staircase up leads to another chapel on the right and a fourth staircase up to a large building for pilgrims on the left. We followed Theophani and the children down a long corridor with a rail on one side overlooking the church and offering a sweeping view out over the monastery towards the Aegean. An oddly conical small mountain lay slightly left between us and the water, and rolling hills towards the right showed the way we had driven up. The town of Lavrio fanned out around the sea, with white-washed homes huddling together, and a hook of land jutted out into the blue sea beyond.

All around us were green and growing things: pines dripping sap, bright red geraniums, roses, potted broadleaf plants, oleander, jasmine, ivy. The air was coolish and very comfortable. Theophani told us that their elder built this monastery 30 years ago in what was the

n a remote pine forest. Now the homes of Plaka came right up to monastery property and we could hear dogs barking and children playing.

We settled into our room with 3 single beds on either side, separated by a bathroom and the door in the middle. The mothball smell was so strong you could practically taste it. But

the room was sweet, made sweeter still by their attention to us as guests. Four glasses stood atop four napkins, perfectly folded in triangles. A large thermos of very cold water sat beside a

tray holding 2 bowls of candies and a tub with biscotti-like cookies and four foil-wrapped chocolates. The walls were adorned with lovely icon prints and each room had an electric fan. Grandma was a little shocked to find that the "shower" was simply a hand-held shower head attached to the sink. Presumably one used it right over the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. I explained to her that this isn't uncommon in monasteries, probably, as many follow a rule of little washing. I was surprised we had a mirror. That's another thing often absent.

Theophani left us to settle in a bit. First off Basil and Emma wanted to explore the playground, so we all went down to the level below. Filled with dry dirt, plastic trucks, pots and pans, and pine needles, it was Basil's idea of paradise. And Emma enjoyed testing out all the swings. In fact, they were both happier and more carefree than I'd seen them in awhile. I noticed down below the playground that they had a graveyard, a common site in monasteries. There were 8 plots, most of them just body-long rectangles of turned earth filled with gravel and edged with white-washed stones, and a simple single-name label on a wooden sign. One grave, however, was covered with many plants and vines. A small oil lamp, enclosed in a six-sided glass lantern,

stood on a few slabs of stone with an open censer beside it. This was the grave of their elder Dositheos, who had passed away about a year ago. Theophani told me he had been instrumental in cleaning up Meteora as well as establishing their monastery here in Lavrio.

Soon, Theophani brought us a large plate full of watermelon, sweet, cool, refreshing. We ate every last piece. The children, dripping with juice, ran to get covered again in dust as we sat talking to her for a long time at the table. Nearing the end of our journey, Grandma and I both were beginning to try and put our experience into words, to create a frame for what we had seen and done, to encapsulate it, in some way. She talked more freely now than she had in most monasteries and churches during our trip. It was easier, in this place of simple hospitality, with a nun who spoke perfect English and took the time to sit with us.

At one point, Theophani asked us if we had liked Greece, and Grandma said she would be relieved to return home and step again onto "good old US soil" in a few days. I completely understood her answer. This has been a gruelling trip, at times, for all of us, and a tiring trip much of the rest of the time. Grandma has been a stalwart trooper, despite her 74 years, making it through gallons of sweat, layers of grime, alien bathroom receptacles, food she could care less about, constant gibberish, exhilarating driving techniques, and a steady

stream of foreign religion, with almost no complaint. She's been a tremendous help in many ways and a much-appreciated companion for all of us.

Yet I think the timing of the comment coupled with a lack of context, struck a chord in Theophani. She answered, "Oh, I see," with a slightly-raised eyebrow. What ensued was a lengthy conversation about the differences between America and Greece. In some ways, her sense of patriotism and her willingness to speak to us from the "heart" of the Greek people opened history to me in a way reading a book cannot.

"Americans have not suffered war. They bring war to other places, but have not suffered it on their own lands. How can you understand how it has been for us?" She went on to tell us about the various occupations Greece has suffered over the last several hundreds years: the Venetians, the Germans, the Turks, each one taking away freedoms, resources, cultural identity, sometimes even language and religion. She talked about what an effort it has taken for them to recover, to re-build basic resources throughout the country like the National

Highway. Other wealthy countries may consider this highway sub-standard as a National road, but it has taken them much effort, and is an achievement of which they are very proud. She spoke about the millions of refugees that have flooded Greece over the last few years from places like Albania, Serbia, Pakistan, largely fallout from military ventures by the US. She didn't speak with bitterness, but she did speak with a certain severity. These are their experiences.

I told her that one of the striking things to me, apart from the multitude of relics and churches all over Greece, was the way life still centers around local agriculture, with small farms dotting the landscape all over, and the very social nature of their daily lives. People go to the bread shop, the butcher shop, the fish shop and vegetable stand, probably in many cases daily for their needs. There are some supermarkets, but only in larger cities and gas stations. And the plazas, streets, and cafes are bristling with life every evening. The old men sit at their ouzos or cafefrappes together watching the world pass throughout the bulk of the day. Women chatter as they pick out their eggplants and nectarines, young people gather at the internet cafe, sit on the side of the fountain, or gossip over gyros. They all convene together at the churches and monasteries, flowing through like an unfailing river running its well-worn course.

She took us to see the church. Although relatively newly-built, they purposefully constructed it on the pattern of older churches. A basic cruciform plan, with chant stands on either side. The barrel vault and

apse above the altar embrace lovely paintings, newly executed. Theophani told me that the dome and apse are true fresco, whereas the other paintings are secco, literally, "dry-wall", meaning that the paintings, executed in any media, are painted on or attached to a dry wall. I hadn't realized until talking with Fr. Ioannikios that the vast majority of new wall-painting in Greece is not fresco, but secco. He mentioned Lavrio as one of the places where I would be able to see some new fresco, and here it was.

The style was very traditional, with a deep blue ground behind the simple enthroned Virgin in the apse, and the strong-faced Pantokrator in the dome, edged thinly in white and a band of intense red ochre. The Virgin's robe looked almost luminescent, with an undertone of red gilded by an almost metallic blue.

On the lowest level of the vault, the left side held the Trinity and the right, a short series of Moses, receiving the tablet of Commandments, and standing before the burning bush, a striking design – the Theotokos and Child within a blue mandorla cradled by the bush's leaves. The

tier above had St. Thomas at the door on the right and Pentecost on the left, covering half of the vault. The half closest to the altar contained a gorgeous icon of the Ascension which spread across the vault in an arc: on the left, the Apostles and Virgin in orans position; above, Christ ascending in a blue orb flanked by angels; on the right, the choir of angels with arms upraised. It was magnificent.

Grandma and the children retired to our room as the bell tolled for Compline and I went to the church. I leaned into a wooden chair right near the door and fingered my compeskini, praying for myself and everyone I could remember as the evening worship flowed quietly around me and through me. I left early, worried about how they were faring above, and ready for sleep myself. It was a comfortable night. Twice as we were getting into bed, one of the nuns came to bring us one more thing: a nightlight, the offer of a "torch" (flashlight) to make it down for prayers the next morning if I wanted to. We were well-cared-for and fell easily into reviving slumber.

An answered Prayer

2008-07-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

The next morning as everone slept, exhausted from our vigil on the road, I got up and headed down the street to St. Demetrios church. Too late for taking communion, but the huge church was beautiful, full of faithful, fully decorated with icons. I prayed a few moments, lit a candle, and stood quietly looking at the icons. There was St. Emilia! The first time I've ever seen her in a church.

I went back home, hoping the kids were up and could come take communion. Nope, both still sleeping. But Grandma was up and I told her I'd go to the other church then come back. I went down the street the opposite way and came to Agios Nikolaos. This was equally large and majestic, obviously a relatively new church, and also fully decorated with even better icons. This was a real master iconographer. Which church should I bring the kids back to? Grandma was already letting me know she didn't want another night like that and we should just count on getting a hotel early in the day. I wanted to keep room for finding a monastery if we possibly could, and thought I would ask a priest. But which church should we go to?

Of course, we went back to St. Demetrius because of the St. Emilia icon, which Emma had to see. Although I felt wrong doing it, in a way, I snuck the kids in the side chapel behind several Greek mamas bringing their children late -- very late-- like, Liturgy is completely over late -- to have communion. The priest didn't bat an eye.

We went up to get a blessing from the main priest, and when I asked if he spoke English, he said that he lived in Ohio! Fr. Ioannikios ended up taking us downstairs to his office, filling us with cupcakes, and calling a monastery in Lavrio (outside Athens about 45 minutes) and securing a blessing from the Gerondissa for us to stay there for 2 nights. Thank God!

I will have to write later about our experience there, but it was all I had hoped for. We have spent last night (Tuesday) in Athens with Maria and Nikos and will be here again tonight. Our time with them has been wonderful. We fly home tomorrow morning. I will have to tell the final tales either en route or after we are home.

Macrina signing off in a very warm Athens at 4:30PM. I've spent all the money I had on icon books and pigments and am a very happy clam!! I think Grandma will be most relived to get back on US soil, but we will all be happy to be home again, even though Emma and I would stay another month if we could!

Crumbs from the Table

2008-07-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

This reference to the story in the Gospels where the woman asks for "crumbs" from the master's table seems appropriate for this leg of our journey. We stopped along our 4 hour drive to call both the monastery Taxiarhados in Volos and also Demetrios Karellas, to see if he had any other suggestions for us, to no avail. Neither answered the phone all day.

Thus, we found ourselves driving into Volos and then through Volos in search of the monastery at the height of the afternoon. It is on the water and there are some pretty spots, but the main city seemed congested with tall, ugly buildings that block out the light. Passing through to drive south along a penninsula was much prettier with sleepy seaside towns. Demetrios had suggested this monastery when I told him I hoped very much for an experience in a monastery where there was a family-type atmosphere (not a big pilgrimage location with lots of people streaming through). I wanted to finish our trip in Greece similarly to how we had begun it in Zakynthos: with some quiet days among the nuns. He told me this particular monastery, named for the Archangels, was pretty large, with wonderful singing and some English-speaking nuns.

We had no idea where it was, and were still unable to reach them by phone. We saw signs for an information center and followed it out of town, only to find it closed for the day. Asking locals, we were pointed in a particular direction up a hill. As we came out from some trees, Grandma and I noticed a huge domed structure gleaming in the sun way, way up on the peak of an extrememly high mountain above us. She half-joked that perhaps that was it. I secretly thought to myself: "Surely not!! Not way up there!"

However, as we began to climb the mountain, it became evident that yes, indeed, this probably WAS what we were looking for. We were climbing Mt. Pelion, the place in mythology where Jason of Jason and the Argonauts was educated by a centaur, taught to be a noble hero, fed on the honey of the gods.

I have a usually-latent fear of heights. It hasn't bothered me too much on this trip, despite the extreme places we have travelled. Riding in a car is much worse for me, and I've driven almost all the time. On this trip, however, there was a point at which I looked over the edge to the seashore way down below, and I felt that certain panic begin to rise in my stomach. In a flash, I could see myself becoming paralyzed and convinced that if I tried to move the car at all we would topple over the side, free as it was of any kind of barrier almost all the way up. I forced myself not to look down, and to keep concentrating on the road ahead, which was wide enough and felt safe.... until we came to a fork and turned right. Just ahead, the road was basically gone. Dust on both sides with a little strip of asphalt down the middle and orange construction tape around us. They were obviously doing construction or roadwork. Was this road even safe to travel on? A policeman passed us going down the mountain, and we figured he would have turned us back if it wasn't passable. Others came down, too, so we forged on up.

I thought about how my friend Nikos would be laughing his head off to know I was driving 40kmph almost the entire way up, and even slower on curves. But it helped me keep my head. Up and up we went, to an incredible height. The car was taking it well. We finally reached a driveway up to the monastery.

Reaching the gate, it was shut fast and locked. I looked at the clock. 4PM. The wrong time to arrive at a monastery in Greece, with the afternoon "quiet time" very common. But it was Saturday and I thought for sure they must have Vespers that people can attend. I parked in the shade and tried to read the sign. Not much luck, but it might say that it is closed from 2 - 5. Emma couldn't believe we were going to sit there on the top of the mountain for an hour waiting for them to maybe open the gate. I couldn't believe she wanted to drive all the way back down the mountain without waiting to see the monastery.

So, wait we did. She painted her toenails. Grandma wrote in her journal, I drew, Basil played with a truck. After about half an hour a little man came out and did confirm that they were sleeping and would be up at 5PM. He also turned on the fountain and had us fill up our water bottles. It was cool and delicious water.

The nun did come with a smile, immediately enveloping Emilia in a hug and kiss. She brought us in and showed us the old church in the middle of the monastic enclosure. It was quiet and cool, with shimmering gold and icons shining like jewels. We venerated the icons and then she brought us into a reception room where she gave us some candies, cookies, and cold water. I asked about staying the night, but she said unfortunatley it was a big feast day for them and they would be full, but she assured me they could write down some names for hotels in the 2 neighboring towns.

We had about an hour to wait until Vespers. Some of the sisters talked with us a little, but we only saw 2 or 3. We explored around the outside of the huge new church that apparently has recently been finished. The views from up there were stupendous, and we were content to stand and look for a long time. One thinks of the Archangels being the keepers of the heights, and in that way this seemed a very appropriate place to be dedicated to them. I remembered visiting the Tor in Glastonbury, a tower at the top of a huge, conical hill also dedicated to St. Michael.

As Esperinos began, we moved into the church. Being new, it was completely white, with no frescoes at all. The iconostas in front was simple, carved wood, holding fine icons. There were also a few on the large posts, but the vast white space stretched up and out all around us. It was like standing inside a cloud. To me, it was very striking, and I thought of the purity of our baptismal garment, and the purity of prayer.

As the Hours finished and Vespers began, the nuns' voices rose in prayer. Massive bells pealed out, not tolling, but actually ringing a melodious call to the sisters and the villages around: "Come! Come to worship! The time is at hand!" The rich tones sounded cavernous, ringing with rhythm and melody through the church, spilling down the mountainside. I daresay they could hear it in the far villages below along the seaside.

Their chant was pure, like the white walls, and very strong. It was traditional Byzantine chant with an ison, which reminded me of Ormylia, the women's monastery dependent on Stavronikita (on Mt. Athos) which is known for it's Byzantine chant, where the women are strong and deep in their chanting and prayer. As the melody rose, black robes began to swish in from behind me. Nuns came from all sides, purposefully striding forward to join the chorus of voices.

Two choirs: one on each side of the alter. During "Lord, I Have Cried" they alternated singing the verses. I have heard quite a bit of singing in Greece since we have been here. The nuns in Zakynthos all singing together in a sweet and homey way, the nuns of Dau Pendeli with their traditional Byzantine chant executed beautifully in their centuries-old church, the master psaltis in Athens with his grand voice projected throughout the huge church, the single man in Thessaloniki quietly chanting the Psalms. But here, in Moni Taxiarchadon, I was completely transported by the chanting. It was other-worldly, in the same way that pure white space was somewhere else -- somewhere farther than I have ever been before, somewhere farther than I can clearly see or comprehend. It flowed like thick, sweet honey, carrying us on its waves, speaking those ancient words of praise and thanksgiving, lauding the martyrs and saints for whose sake the world continues to revolve on its axis. I felt Paradise creep up around me.

I looked up at the round tiny windows in the dome. I looked at the bent heads with black folds cascading down. I looked at the hand holding the compeskini and telling the prayer again and again: "Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." I looked at the face of the Panaghia in front of me, draped in silver and gold, the gesture of tenderness telling in the shape and movement of her hand.

The Gerondas here, Fr. Antonios, I think, also had a tremendous voice. He was particularly deliberate in his chanting, and one could hear every single word, draw out and given its proper weight. When he called forth the Prokeimenon: "Sofia, Prokeimenos!" it was like a call to battle, the announcement of the great message. Time seemed to stand still for me, as it sometimes does in services. I felt I could stay there all night. And I could not wait for the chance to have Liturgy there the next day. I had been praying to the Archangels and the Panaghia all day to help us find this place, and where we should stay for the extra days in our trip. I felt so full and thankful.

Afterwards, the sister gave us a list of 4 hotels and phone numbers in the nearer and bigger town of Agios Giorgios above the monastery a few kilometers, and another one in the smaller town of Agios Vlaseios down below. As local people gathered outside the church on a small plaza to hear the Gerondas speak, we left, thinking it better to find our hotel and settle in before dark. I asked a blessing from him before leaving to be able to take communion the next morning and assured the sister that we would be prepared and would come in good time for Liturgy.

We headed up to Agios Giorgios, up an even higher road into the familiar narrowed roads of a small mountain town. With steep ascents on either side, the buildings of the town here all clung to the mountainsides and steep stairs led directly from the road up into private homes and dwellings. But so many people!! Where did they all come from? And so much traffic coming and going! Winding our way carefully among the many parked cars, trying desperately to find any of the hotel signs, Grandma looked over and saw a wedding in process at the church down below. Ah, yes. That makes sense. Needless to say, our half-hour's search, including a few unfortunate rabbit trails, ended in disappointment. Absolutely no vacancies in that town that night.

So we drove down to the town below, where we figured that hotel would be happy to see guests, and far enough away from the wedding. I don't know why it was so hard for me to understand the word "No." But it took us about another half hour and the intervention of an English-speaking woman to assure me that there was absolutely no operational hotel or room for rent in that town, and that in fact, I was just calling on the phone the woman I'd just spoken to who had told me she didn't have a room for us. My lack of Greek was seriously apparent up here and we were having quite a difficult time communicating. They suggested the town at the foot of the hill.

Went down. All the way down. No can do. Not a hotel in sight. One would think a beachtown would have a strip of hotels. But the road along the beach was one way going the wrong way and we couldn't see how to get to it. The kids were now quite hungry, it being near to 9PM and dusky. The entire town, it seems, was up at the wedding way up on the hill. Not a single taverna open. We kept driving further and further away from that blessed place, thinking all along that something would pop up. Nope. Not a single thing.

Finally, we found ourselves all the way back into Volos. At least there were hotels. I stopped in 3 of them, none of which had a triple room. I finally decided on the 3rd one just to get 2 rooms if it was a decent price. A halfway decent price it was: 60E. A halfway decent hotel, it was not. The couch I would have to share with Basil was actually tilted backwards. And the decor and everything about it could have been a perfect prop for a B-grade movie on kitsch, or maybe even a horror show from the late 50s.

We pressed on; not as easy as it sounds. Actually, pressed around and around, trying to find the right one-way street to get to a particular hotel sign. We found another strip of hotels and pulled over in a little alley, blocking traffic. I ran in. Told the guy I'd take 2 rooms then asked where I could park the car. He told me to drive around a few streets. Well, that was about it. I began to feel like I desperately needed to get out of that town with all the traffic, darkness, and inhospitable feeling. We were all famished by now. I went in and told the guy our plight, said I just didn't feel like I had the strength to go find a parking place. He told me to go back out on the highway and "very close -- 6 or 7 kilometers" - does that sound familiar? "you will find a nice beach town, easy to get to, nice small hotels." Sounded perfect. We hit the highway.

Grandma was extremely patient, as were the kids. It was now after 10PM. We had no place to stay. We had not eaten since about 2PM, and that was a picnic kind of meal of leftovers. We drove and drove and drove, pulling off now and then, hopeful of finding a town not too far off the highway. After I'd say probably 25 kilometers, we came to a town called Almieros (Almyra) that looked sizable on the map. We followed signs directly to "St. Thomas Hotel" and pulled in.

It was an old hotel, made with cheap materials, rather depressed. The town seemed very small in the dark, we were driving only down small residential roads. But there was a fast-food grill right across the street and he had two rooms across from one another that would work fine. How much? He took me to the desk and showed me his price-list, which said 60E. He crossed this out and wrote with his finger 40E. I sighed a huge sigh of relief, gushed my pleasure and thanks, and unloaded everyone.

I went to pay him and gave him a 50. He put out his hand for more, saying it was 40E for EACH ROOM!! My room had tape over an outlet, no phone, smoke-infested, cheap everything 30 years old, and it was a SINGLE, technically. In the middle of nowhere, 40E!! I was so mad I wanted to cuss him out. I gave him the 100E and went outside, not knowing what to do with myself. Had it been a pleasant place by the sea, I wouldn't have cared so much, but feeling that we were being cheated and being SO very disappointed that we would not be able to return to Taxiarhadon, I was just beside myself for the first time on this trip, really.

I asked Grandma to take the kids across for some dinner and I took a little drive to cool down. I did a little and came back for a few bites of hamburger and fries. Grandma told me to let it go, and I knew she was right.

I laid in bed thinking about all of it. What a bad day. But what a blessed time at the monastery. Why had the Theotokos not answered my prayers and led us to the right place? The hills around Volos have many monasteries. Why didn't she lead us to one where we could stay? Why had the beautiful hope of having Liturgy at Taxiarhadon been taken away from us? Why couldn't I be there?

I went to sleep praying, still clinging to the belief that this all happens for a purpose, that God's will unfolds in our lives in ways we cannot understand sometimes. I asked again that we would be led the next day to the right place for us, to a place where Emma could have the experience of the monastery, where we could all have some peace at the end of our journey. And in the end, I thought about the woman who spoke to Jesus. To our eyes, she seemed degraded, allowed only to gather the words that dropped to her, like a dog eating crumbs fallen from the table. But like her, even though it had been so difficult, I felt that the 2 hours we had at Taxiarhon was enough to fill me for a long, long time.

Greek Driving

2008-07-16T04:37:00.001-07:00

The drive out of Thessaloniki was pretty tedious. Although we had one less body, leaving Christopher off and allowing Grandma to get up in the front and the kids to have some stretching room in the back, it's almost as if the extra freedom goes to Basil's head. He was like a little monster through part of the drive, aggravating his sister, generally misbehaving and causing everyone grief.

We took the National Road which is beautiful to drive. It is a great road, easy, well-laid, quite straight. Driving partially along the coastline, we began to climb a little and went through another series of tunnels, but nothing like the huge series we came down from Meteora through. Still, seeing these wide, well-lighted tunnels through the mountainside is quite impressive. Highway driving is also much easier than city driving, of course. Besides not having all the congestion, the only thing that breaks your motion is the occasional toll booth.

In the cities, what I found challenging (besides the other drivers!) was the lack of consistency with road signs. When a stoplight or stop sign popped up, it always surprised me, unless it was a very major thoroughfare. Most of the streets were small and it seemed pretty random to me when they had a stop posted.

When there is a stoplight, you also have to stop well back from what we are used to in the States. There's no line on the road. But even after almost 2 weeks of driving, I still pull up too far at lights, the unfortunate consequence being that you cannot see the light anymore!! They are all on the street, not overhead, and if you pull up to what I think of as the beginning of the intersection, it's too far. Emma has gotten good at looking for the light change, as she's usually the one able to see it. The up side is that in Greece it only takes seconds for those behind you to lean on their horns and let you know the light has changed. So we've gotten by alright.

The conclusion I've come to about driving in Greece is that it's a whole different set of skills one must acquire. But if you do acquire them, it actually works pretty well. Poor Grandma has not as easily adapted to nor appreciated these "skills", and being in the front seat is perhaps an additional trial rather than a blessing for her. But I've rather come to like Greek driving.

Most everyone drives a stick shift here, which gives one more control, particularly over faster acceleration. This enhances the ability to dart around in between other cars, around corners, and to take advantage of the straight shot by accellerating very quickly. People here also drive very small cars. In fact, I've seen few cars in America this size. I remember the old Honda Rabbits, I think they were, but most of even our "compact" cars are much sturdier and larger than what most people drive here. This certainly does make it easier to squeeze down a narrow road between cars parked on both sides of the street (and sidewalks).

So driving in Greece is just much more interesting in the towns. You have to always be aware of people around you -- both other drivers, pedestrians, and the ubiquitous motorcyclists, that fly through the streets like little sparrows, darting back and forth, never stopping in one place or going in one direction very long. It's rather amazing to watch them at a stoplight on a busy road. With all the cars stopped, the motorcycles all snake up around them until you have this glut of shiny chrome and bare legs all around you, kind of like silt piling up at a river's delta. When the light changes, they are all off, zipping forward and fanning out into the empty concrete ahead.

The one thing I would probably change or improve, however, is the street signs. We have probably spent hours on our trip, if you tally it all up, trying to figure out where we are. A large part of this is the lack of street signs. Even in big towns like Athens and Thessaloniki, you don't have signs posted on street corners (or, very rarely). Rather, you have to look at the corners of the corner buildings to see the street name, and it is small white letters on a blue background in Greek and sometimes the English version is in gold (harder to see!). It's impossible for me to read from the road as we're passing by. My only hope is to have a stoplight where I have the leisure to sound out the little Greek letters to see where we are. And the larger roads sometimes have signage for the area you are going to, but not the name of the street, when a larger street splits in different directions. This has gotten us going wrong many times.

Oh, and lines on the road? I've learned that they are simply mere suggestions, not rules, as they are in America. This drives Grandma crazy, as does people opening car doors into traffic. But the thing I've come to appreciate, is that all the drivers know that the lines are not much more than suggestions, and they fully appreciate the actuality of a body in motion. In other words, if you go over the line separating you from oncoming traffic because someone has opened his door or parked his car on your side of the road, the oncoming driver will notice this and swerve over. It may not be pretty, but it works. And I think it's kind of fun. But I don't think Grandma will ever be a believer.

Alms

2008-07-16T04:10:00.000-07:00

Throughout our travels we have met impoverished people in need of help, begging alms. Having read on travellers' websites about problems with aggression from beggars and also scams where people who really are able to work try to beg instead, we were initially wary. We set aside small amounts to hand out as we felt so moved in Italy, but passed many by as well.

In Greece, perhaps time has softened us a bit and also the fact that people gather at the church steps to ask for help makes it seem less "risky" to give. I noticed that Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel had developed the same habit we have: carrying some change easily accessible and dropping it in most cups we pass by, even just a little bit. The beggars I have seen here have had obvious physical impairments that could not be "faked".

In downtown Thessaloniki, I saw a man on the street with legs completely shrivelled below the knee, so that they were useless. Although I passed him by, I looked him in the eye. Later in the day, I passed again and dropped a little change in. And for a third time, just after we had met up with Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel, I passed him a third time. This time Fr. Nicholas, in front of me, dropped some change in his cup. As I passed by, he spoke to me in English asking "Who are you? Where are you from?"

I stopped and began to talk with him. His name is Nebojsa, and I believe later Fr. Nicholas learned he is Yugloslavian. We talked with him for quite some time, learning that he has a dream of coming to the States for an operation for his legs, but has no idea how he could raise the money to pay for it. He says he feels for his three children he should try to do this if there is any way.

Christopher and I had just come from Vespers with Fr. Methodios at St. Gregory Palamas. He had given us the name of a Greek man in Seattle who is a doctor, and we thought that perhaps things could come together in a way for us to help this man. With Fr. Nicholas' blessing and some more visiting he did with Nebojsa the next day, we hope that somehow we might be able to help him. Having an actual name, face, and story to connect with was a wonderful thing, I think, for all of us. Greece has many refugees from impoverished countries all around it. One passes many, wishing to be able to help more. Perhaps God will give us a task for one man. We will all pray and see what happens.

After the men left Saturday morning for Mount Athos, I left Grandma and the kids for a short time and went up to get some more cash and bid St. Demetrios goodbye. I also had the important task of trying to call the monastery we hoped to stay at next. Since some of the group plans had changed, we were left with 3 nights and no plan. Fr. Nicholas had called his friend Demetrios Karellas the night before and he gave me many suggestions and 4 phone numbers for monasteries around Volos, which is about halfway between Thessaloniki and Athens.

Beginning to call first thing in the morning, I quickly found that 3 numbers were non-operational. The fourth number was for the monastery which was his first choice for us. I called and called many times that morning; it rang, but no one answered. Because in the monastery different hours for work and prayer take precedent over the telephone, I hoped perhaps I'd hit the right time eventually.

Meanwhile, we got the car packed up and headed out, searching for a particular bookstore where I could find some icon books. After parking, walking, asking directions, we finally found it, but alas, it was closed on Saturday. Too bad!

The last errand I had in town was to drop off a letter for Fr. Methodios regarding Nebosja. In trying to handle all the one-way streets and finally arrive at the church we'd been seeing from a block away for several minutes now, I must have run straight through a stop sign. I heard Grandma scream and saw 2 cars approaching us from the right, as we were in the middle of the intersection; they were going probably 30mph. We all slammed on our brakes, and I think there may have been 4-6 inches between our front right end and one of them. I looked up and St. Gregory Palamas church was right in front of us. Thank God and our guardian angels and St. Gregory for protecting us and averting what probably would have been a pretty nasty accident.

At long last, we were out of Thessaloniki and on our way to the next adventure....

They are off to Mount Athos

2008-07-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

It is just after 5AM here in Thessaloniki and I just saw Christopher, Fr. Nicholas, and Gabriel off in the taxi to meet Scott and Ethan at the bus station. They are now on their way to Mount Athos: tired, but excited. Fr. asked me to give his greetings to everyone, especially our family back home at St. Herman's. He was very glad to hear the report Stephen left us which I got late last night, that the church had not burned down and all was fine. He said he knew it would be, and to tell everyone that he will have us all in his prayers as they journey to that holy place.

Signing off and going back to bed...... it is still a bit warmish outside, but feels pretty good, Macrina

Thessaloniki, Second Day

2008-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today we all got up a little earlier with a plan. I was going to drive one group up to St. Nicholas Orphanos, a tiny chapel with encredible frescoes – some of the best and most completely intact in the world. Then I would go back to the hotel and “ferry up” the next group. It sound so easy on paper!!

Maps are great, but sometimes obsolete, especially when they do not indicate one-way streets. Thessaloniki is full of them. I remembered how difficult it was for me to find St. Nicholas on foot years ago, tucked way up in a residential district with scads of tiny twisting streets. With a car, you’re often limited by 50%. We found the exact road we needed, but it went the wrong way! It took us almost 45 minutes to get there with group #1.

Then going back to the hotel? Although it would have been probably a 7 minute straight shot drive, had the roads been amenable, it took me a good 30 minutes. I had to backtrack and go around blocks over and over to get going the right way, then had to circle many times before I could find a parking place. I finally did, though, unsure if the men would even still be there waiting, as I’d taken so long. They were. Happily checking up on email and making fun of the British Greek phrase book. It's pretty easy to make fun of these little "mistakes" in translations, and also to muse over what the phrase book people have chosen to include and to leave out!

We all thoroughly enjoyed St. Nicholas Orphanos, and took our time examining the exquisite frescoes everywhere. Even the kids, there for well over an hour, were well-occupied because there happened to be 4 turtles on the grounds there. After this, I ferried the men down nearby Aghias Sofias and turned them loose there. We followed soon after but finding a parking place was horrific. I got one pretty much right away, actually did the parallel parking quite well, and then a local guy pointed out that we were in a no-parking zone. (indicated by tiny little reflectors on the street!). He suggested we could probably get away with staying there, as the traffic police (what? there are traffic police in Greece? We had just been musing that we haven’t seen a single highway patrol for 3 weeks now.) had just come by. I asked him how much the ticket would be if we got one. He said they don’t give you a ticket, they just SNATCH YOUR LICENSE PLATE RIGHT OFF YOUR CAR!!! And he pointed to the one directly in front of us who had this happen 10 minutes ago. No more discussion. Christopher handed me the keys and I was out of there, leaving them to visit the church while I found other parking… which took well over 30 minutes!

Basil and I went to a bookstore, visited another church called “Panaghia on the Right”, and also the icon painters again. It was funny when I was asking around to find the church. I was asking for “Panaghia Thextero” instead of “Panaghia Thexia”. So I was asking for the church of Mother-of-God-I-don’t-Know instead of Mother of God on the Right (meaning the right side of the arch of Galerian).

We all went out for dinner again tonight down in an area kind of like the Plaka in Athens. Christopher, Basil, Grandma and I had been to Vespers at St. Demetrius. I feel like I could never spend enough time there with his relics, which are encased in a large silver box covered by plexiglass and still incredibly fragrant. Fr. Nicholas, Gabriel and Emma went by Hagia Sophia, an immense but mostly bare church sunk down in the pavement several feet. Unfortunately most of the mosaics were removed and destroyed during Turkish rule here. They went by to retrieve her backpack, which she left earlier in the day, then walked 2 blocks down to the Metropolis Church, where St. Gregory Palamas' relics are. They had Vespers there with Fr. Methodius, which we had done the previous night. All of them came to our meeting point glowing, having had a wonderful and intimate experience there, actively feeling the presence of the great saint who established our understanding of the heights that can be reached through contemplative prayer. It was our last time before the men head out at 4:45AM tomorrow for Mt. Athos. We found a very typical Greek restaurant and enjoyed our food as well as the folk music played live behind us. It has been really nice in Thessaloniki, especially being here all together. We’ve been to some amazing churches and several very nice services.

Tomorrow we aren’t sure what we’re doing. The monastery we had hoped to go to near Larissa is now full. But a friend of Fr. Nicholas’ is helping us to find another place, hopefully somewhere in Volos. It’s always an adventure….

Our last 2 nights will probably be in Athens with Maria-Meredith. Grandma Coco is beginning to talk about how much she will enjoy her Martini Night. And she said tonight that one week from now she will be eating a plain old hotdog at the Mariner’s game. She said it with great relish!

Macrina signing off at midnight from Thessaloniki where the air conditioner is cool and it’s pleasant outside.

Thessaloniki, First Day

2008-07-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

The drive into Thessaloniki was pretty incredible. There is a vast ravine, I guess you’d call it, with a huge lake at the bottom. You begin from way, way high up in the mountains and wind down to a long stretch through a series of probably a dozen tunnels, with bursting windows of amazing heights in between them. It was really gorgeous.

We arrived in Thessaloniki planning for the women to stay at the monastery in Panorama, a village outside the city about 30 minutes away. With no directions and no phone number, it took us awhile, but we did find it. I had the name wrong, which was a big part of the problem in trying to get accurate information. Sadly, we finally arrived to learn that it was completely closed on Wednesdays and Fridays. Had we been able to call, they may have come and opened the door for us, but as it was we had no recourse. We enjoyed talking to the other pilgrims and 2 priests haging around outside the locked gates as disappointed as we were.

But we headed back into town hoping we could still get a room in the same hotel Fr. Nicholas had booked for himself, Gabriel and Christopher. Thankfully, they could accommodate us in a beautiful room for a good price – 60E, situated on a block in between St. Demetrios church (major monument) and the ancient Roman Forum which is being excavated and is fascinating to see. We decided to forego the monastery altogether and spend more time with the men and less time on the road, so we booked our room for 3 nights, too. We all went out to dinner around the corner and hit our beds pretty quickly. Poor Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel were extremely tired from several very late nights and a long train ride. We were all very happy to be together, though.

Scott and Ethan, staying with friends outside the city, also made it into town. They came to the hotel the next morning and we all set out for Agios Demetrios, venerating his wonderfully fragrant relics, standing in awe inside the beautiful bascillica, and exploring down in the crypt where the origianal bascillica from the 4th century has been unearthed and the site of his martyrdom is commemorated. It was marvelous.

After that we split up. The walking tour which sounded wonderful, passing by many of the major sites, would be too much for Grandma and me. So Emma went with Fr. Nicholas, Gabriel, Scott, and Ethan. They visited the house where Attaturk was born and walked by the Turkish baths, which were closed. They also went to the Rotunda, the Byzantine Museum, and the White Tower, which was also closed. It was a lot of walking and Emma came home beat, but happy.

While Christopher and Basil napped, Grandma and I walked uphill 3 blocks to St. Elias church, which was also closed for the day. I had hoped that most of the churches remained open all day, but they do not. So the only time you can visit is from 9-12, usually, and then during Vespers for an hour or so around 7PM. Only a couple of the most active churches are open all day.

Heading back toward the hotel, we passed a small electrical shop and I tried to go in and get a plug Fr. Nicholas needed. I couldn’t find the door, however, and kept trying a door that belonged to the space next door where there was a guy inside musing at me. About the 3rd time I looked in there, still not able to locate the right door, I saw that he had a paintbrush in his hand, and then, that he was painting a huge icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos on the wall. We stood at the window for a minute marveling at the four painters working within. They seemed to be amused that we were standing there watching them. I finally motioned them to let me in and told them that I paint, too. One girl spoke English and we talked for at least a half hour. It was just incredible.

They were a group of 4 painters working together to do huge paintings on linen to be glued onto church walls. We compared notes and talked trade for awhile, also telling the story of why we were here. I thoroughly enjoyed this and it was a high point of the trip for me. We exchanged numbers and addresses, and I went back later to give them a CD.

That evening, Christopher and I went down to the Metropolis church for Vespers, where St. Gregory Palamas lies. It was an incredibly sweet service and the priest who served spoke with us afterwards and was very kind, Fr. Methodius. We had also visited St. Theodora monastery and church earlier in the day, venerating her relics and those of Osios David.

We met up with everyone else and headed to dinner. We ended up at a Weinerschnitzel German restaurant of some sort and had the best meal yet. We ordered dishes to share altogether, and got some incredible food for about 10E each. We had a whole plate of various sausages and another of grilled meats. The salad stands out in my mind: arugula, very thin hard cheese, pine nuts, raisins, croutons, fried wild mushrooms, and a light balsamic dressing. Gabriel and Fr. Nicholas each had a halfpint of beer and Grandma indulged in a glass of red wine. The kids fed the stray dogs as a quartet of South American singers serenaded us. The table next to us was full of young people in their early 20’s on a study abroad program. Three of them were Orthodox and very enthusiastic to talk with us about their studies and travels and experiences in Greece.

Meteora

2008-07-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

METEORA

This happened to be probably our most grueling day of travel in a long time. Although having the car gives us so much more freedom, it is a SMALL car, yes, it is. Grandma and the kids can tell you even better than I. I happen to fit into the driver’s seat of small cars like a glove. The back end, however, I don’t think is very glove-like. They have all been troopers and have learned little systems and mechanisms of coping, like rigging up the stroller with my bag and having a variety of small toys, writing instruments, and Mentos available at all times. The Mentos have been indispensable (small fruity or minty candies that Basil loves). This was a hard day because we had about 3 hours of driving split up on Evia and then another 3 ahead of us to get to our next destination: Kalambaka.

This town is situated at the foot of the rocks of Meteora, probably the most dramatic monastic site anywhere. Scientists believe it is from very extreme natural phenomena over huge spans of time that the very unusual rocks of Meteora were formed. From the wide, flat plain below, Kalambaka is nestled at the foot of sheer stones that rise straight up in the air. On top of these, monks fleeing persecutions during the Turkish occupation actually built monasteries. Who knows how the first monks got up there, but after that, people and materials were pulled up in a fishing net with a large pulley. You can still see the huge cog that the monks pushed while walking in a large circle to pull up the net. I believe they are still used to bring up materials, but now the government has built safe stairways up into the monasteries for visitors and pilgrims.

We found a hotel pretty easily by driving up into the town upon our arrival: Hotel Keftos, with a very sweet proprietor named Katerini. The kids, Grandma and I got some groceries and we had a very simple meal of olives stuffed with feta, local hard cheese, tomatoes, a fresh red pepper, Pringles(!) sliced ham and bread, with some chocolate at the end. This was a big luxury because outside chocolate-covered ice cream, the 2 times we’ve tried to buy some chocolate it has turned into a pool before we remembered to eat it.

I had a terrible night because our air conditioner was very weird and I was sweating laying on the bed. But it, too, passed away eventually. We got up in the morning, had some chocolate-stuffed croissants and ham for breakfast, and hit the road for the monasteries at a decent hour. You have to drive up into a mountain that stands behind the huge stones, which takes about 15 minutes. That morning, we had the choice of two different monasteries to visit: a small men’s monastery called Aghia Triada, and a larger women’s monastery called Agios Stephanos, where I had once stayed for almost a week.

We decided to start with Aghia Triada, because it had the difficult climb, whereas Agios Stephanos had a nice bridge and no stairs. The new way to Aghia Triada, built in the last few years, was very wide and safe. Nevertheless, no engineering could take away the extremity of access to that place. We had to climb way down a wide road of paving stones peppered with a few stairs here and there. At the bottom of the gap between the mountainside and the rock, we had to then begin the ascent up the huge stone. A good, safe staircase was partially built into the side, in places we could see where they had actually carved away part of the rock face to create a tunnel. Coming down, I think Emma counted something like 300 stairs. It was extreme exercise in the rising heat. We all paced ourselves and rested a lot along the way, but we all made it.

Above, we saw the pulley and net as well as the main chapel the monks use, covered with frescoes. We were able to re-fill our empty water bottles and chat with the young man minding the doorway before we headed back down.

We drove just a few minutes down to Agios Stephanos, where we had no exertion getting into the monastery which houses about 15 nuns. There was a nice gift shop here and a church decorated with perhaps the best contemporary icons we’ve seen yet on our trip. I was especially taken with the series depicting the days of creation in the narthex. And Christopher “read” us the life of St. Charalampos, whose relics lie here, by explaining the series of frescoes depicting his life.

The monastery also has a museum of icons and liturgical implements. It was pretty amazing to see an actual letter from one of the hierarchs to the monastery, written in the 15th century. Winding alongside a sweet rose garden where I think the nuns who have reposed are buried, one comes to a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Stephen. (The larger church is dedicated to St. Charalampos). Inside, the narthex is bare except for a stunning fresco of St. Stephen being martyred by stoning.

The chapel inside is rather dark and obviously old. One of the most striking things I’ve seen on our trip was the frescoes inside this chapel. One can clearly see, on both the walls and iconostasis, the icons several hundred years old, with eyes gouged out and faces scraped off. Of course this was a very common phenomenon from Muslim invaders, for whom imagery is anything but sacred. Most of the ancient icons we have, except in remote areas like St. Catherine’s monastery in Sinai, have suffered this kind of damage. But you don’t usually see it still in an actual working church. In this context, it drove home to me how devastating it must have been for the nuns who lived here and the people who worshipped here. I sat looking at a fresco of a martyrdom. There were two men depicted, one spearing and one stabbing another man, who lay on the ground unarmed, obviously a monk. This man being killed had his face scraped off, while the rest of his body, the painting of it, that is, remained intact. I wondered how someone could actually desecrate an icon this way, do again what was being done in the painting. Unreal.

I was able to reconnect with the nun who had helped me on my last visit there. It was so delightful to see her again. She was a novice then, and had been clothed as a nun about the same time I got married.

We went back down to the hotel for the Greek siesta, and everyone took one except me. Instead, I went down into town and found a vegetable shop and a bakery to get a few more groceries. Being able to use the refrigerator at the hotel made it much easier to save money on food. I also needed to call the folks back in Athens to see if we needed to hold a room for Fr. Nicholas and company. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to make it to Meteora, but were doing other exciting things instead.... like watching a Flogging Molly concert! Alright, not Fr. Nicholas, but his son and the other teenage boy. They had a great time at it. Fr. Nicholas was busy purchasing liturgical items for our dear St. Herman’s church, and came out within dollars of his budget. He was happy as a clam when I spoke with him about it.

We had planned to sleep a couple of hours then get up and go to the other side of Meteora, where there were 4 more monasteries to see. Christopher and Basil slept so long, we didn’t really have time. It was hot and hard not to keep sleeping. So Christopher and I decided to leave the kids with Grandma and just check out the way up the other side so we could have a good start in the morning. We expected the monasteries all to be closed by then.

The first one, St. Nicholas Apapfanas (or however it is spelled!) was indeed closed. The second, however, St. Barbara Roussanou, was open for another hour and a half. We did another pretty big stair climb, but it was only up and half as long as Agias Triada had been that morning.

I was surprised to find that the frescoes in the chapel were also done by St. Theopan the Cretan, one of my favorite painters. We spent quite some time in there marveling and praying. It was beautiful. After leaving the monastery, we took a short hike up into the forest and then went down, sitting on the steps at the bottom to talk more about the time I had had with Gerondas Chrosotomos on Zakynthos.

We went back to the hotel and gathered everyone to head into town for some dinner. We also got hooked up at the internet café and downloaded a blog. We had a marvelous dinner that night at a little taverna: souvlaki, local sausage, lamb, and chicken soup, which Emma had been craving. We passed a good night, switching up the bedrooms a bit with Emma and Christopher in one, and the rest of us in the other.

The next morning Basil stayed home with Grandma to pack up and relax while the 3 of us went up to the Great Meteora, the biggest monastery up there. After dropping them off and finally finding a parking place WAAAAAYYY behind all the tour busses then walking back up the hill, I decided I just shouldn’t do the huge climb down and then up again that day, due to tenderness in my leg from our climb the day before. So I sat and worked on Christopher’s laptop doing this blog with the most incredible view you can imagine, watching tourist from all over the world pose and take their pictures (the Japanese ladies, I think, were the most delightful!) while Christopher and Emma had a great visit to that most amazing place (I had been years before). Christopher was very impressed by their museum of folklore which had very old lithographs with pictures from WWII. Unfortunatley, Meteora was a front for the war with the Germans during park of it and the monasteries here were all badly bombed.

We checked out and headed out of town around noon, on our way to rendezvous with the others in Thessaloniki.

Osios David on Evia and St. Basil

2008-07-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Leaving St John the Russian behind, we set our sights towards another monastery north of us and in the direction of the ferry which would take us across to Glifa. This was the monastery of Osios David (Holy David). He was a local boy who spent some time as a monk on the Peleponnesse and returned to Evia fleeing the persecutions of the Turks. He established a cell here which soon grew to a monastery, from people drawn to him by his love, mercy, and devotion. He had retired to a cave to pursue his more solitary and ascetic life while the monastery flourished below him.

We had a long talk about ascetics and asceticism in Orthodox Christianity. I likened it to my own father’s recent exercises to get in shape for the half-marathon he just completed. We can say that Dad “likes to walk” and certainly pushed himself in his training prior to this particular large event. But when he first rises in the morning, or is cimbing an arduous hill, probably part of him is not so enthused about it. His legs may be tired; he may prefer to sleep in a little more. Yet he pushes himself to do it, and is glad when it’s over, all for a greater purpose. And yes, there is certainly an enjoyment that he finds in it, and an appreciation that grows with every block of this good habit being built.

It is the same for the monks and nuns in their ascetic labors. They practice a rule of prayer, and fast, and do prostrations and sometimes physical labor as a way of exercising the spirit. All this interior work strengthens the muscles of the soul, in a way, bringing the pray-er closer to God, and closer to himself or herself also. Subtleties in the character surface: an unkind word here, a wasting of time there, an omission of a good act, losing one’s temper, or being frustrated over the way things are as opposed to the way one wants things to be – this is all the kind of labor the monk or nun is engaged in. And to whatever degree we are able, all Orthodox Christians also engage in it. This is one of the defining experiences of being Orthodox.

And why do the monks and nuns “flee the world” as so many suppose? Can this be right? In Catholic monasticism, one finds many different orders, and many of these are devoted to works of mercy or charity: teaching, nursing, offering hospitality, whereas there are no such disctinctions in Orthodox monasticism. They all exist for the life of prayer. Some are in highly-populated areas, but many are in remote areas. They all treasure the quiet and remoteness that allows them to enter more fully into the life of prayer. This is why so many saints have moved into areas that are difficult to travel to and inhospitable in terms of weather or terrain. Yet no matter where they are, people still seek them out, and in many cases a community of monks or nuns grows up around the person trying to be solitary.

There are some very profound writings by a contemporary ascetic named St. Silouan. He explains that the monk does not leave to world to flee people. He leaves the world in order to love people more deeply. By fully concentrating on the life of prayer, he is actually MORE engaged in the lives of people than he would be by living among them. And truly, when you meet some of these elders and eldresses and experience the intensity of their love for you and all people, you realize they understand something very deep that you cannot begin to grasp. At least, this has been my experience.

On our travels, I’ve also seen and re-realized that these places that have so many pilgrims, and sometimes tourists, visiting day after day are anything but solitary. These monks and nuns truly have a cross to bear in having people tramping through their living spaces every day, many of whom are ignorant of their way of life and not necessarily respectful of it. So even the monks who wish a solitary life rarely are able to have it for very long. And perhaps this, too, is all in God’s providence.

We left the heavily forested interior of Evia to wind down towards the western coast. We had promised the kids some time at the beach, but wanted to visit the monastery first. Turning off the main road, we followed a narrow pretty track back in about 15 minutes, passing a couple of very small, sleepy villages or neighborhoods. Finally, we were rewarded with a sight of the church up above us. We had especially wanted to come here for the relic of St. Basil the Great which they have.

First off we saw the running spring which Holy David had miraculously prayed for and received for the monastery. There was a beautiful granite engraving above it of Osios David. We passed through the gates into a lovely enclosure like all the other monasteries: a square of buildings with a church in the middle. We entered, and were captivated by the iconography. Even Emilia said: “It is so life-like!”

This iconographer, unlike many of the recognized masters throughout that last few hundred years, had a very distinctly different style. It departed in an intriguing way from the strictly Byzantine style, yet still maintained a completely traditional ethos throughout the church, both in terms of technique and composition.

The word that kept coming to my mind to describe the style was “painterly”, by which my teacher, Fr. Simon Doolan, would mean a certain confidence and intuition in the painter which allows him/her to work more quickly and loosely, creating a feeling of motion. In some ways, it seems as if the painter has caught someone perfectly in a candid shot, as opposed to old photos where the subject has been staged and is sitting perfectly still.

All the master iconographers have this element in their painting. Some schools emphasize great precision and detail, while others are painted more “loosely” with quicker strokes, and sometimes subtlely impressionistic elements. The painter of Osios David was a master at this second school. One feature I noticed very much was the eyes. Instead of the traditional Byzantine “formula” that one can trace in the vast majority of icons, he painted a much more naturalistic eye. The highlighting of the face, as well, was much more modeled than one usually sees. His style reminded me very much of the famous wax (encaustic) icon from Sinai of Christ with the two very different eyes. For me, it was a feast of iconography! I was so thankful that they allowed me to take photos as long as I didn’t use my flash. Many other churches will allow none at all.

Apart from the gloriously-decorated church, with every inch covered in frescoes, there was also a glass-sided wooden cupboard about 6 feet high, full of beautiful boxes and receptacles wrought in silver and gold which contained relics. Some were obviously skulls, with finely-carved details in silver closely wrapping a circular half-hemisphere. Others were boxes, large and small, with little icons and sometimes inscribed names on small plates on the sides. Every piece was unique and a little piece of art. All monasteries have such spiritual treasures, but they are not always out in the church for people to venerate. They are often kept in the altar and a particular relic may be brought out for a feast day or special occasion.

We spent quite a long time taking pictures and looking thoroughly at the hundreds of icons throughout the church while Grandma and the kids sat in the shady courtyard and had some of the Greek coffee and cookies left out for pilgrims. None of us really like the “Turkish Delight” offered to Edmund in the Narnian Chronicles; it is a kind of jelly-like soft candy, very sweet, sometimes tasting like rose, thoroughly doused with powdered sugar, and most of the monasteries offer it.

There was a very nice man at the candle stand whom I was able to communicate with pretty well. We wanted to ask the abbot if he could take the relics of St. Basil out for us to venerate. The glass case couldn’t be opened, so we weren’t able to kiss any of them directly, but wanted to do so with St. Basil, the namesake of our Basil, the brother of my saint, and the son of Emilia’s saint. He was one of the most brilliant men to ever live, and you can easily read about his fascinating life in many books and websites.

Unfortunately, it was the time of the early afternoon when the monks rest, with some monasteries closing down. Thankfully, this one remained open, but we couldn’t have the relics taken out for us. Christopher and I went back in, taking Basil, and prayed for awhile and kissed the glass case. I was quite moved. As we were leaving the church, the candlestand guy came after me and brought me back in the church so that he could point out which relic was St. Basil’s. It was one of the two skulls visible at eye level along the side of the case.

We went back in an prayed again. I didn't want to leave this place.

Evia and St. John the Russian

2008-07-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

When considering where to go in Greece, I’d read a lot from a wonderful Orthodox pilgrim’s guide called “Evlogeite!” (this is the greeting between monastics, and means “Your blessing!”. It is also how a layperson can greet a monk or nun.) One of the places I’d read about after a suggestion from our friend Nikos, was the island of Evia, and specifically the relics of St. John the Russian. I had felt strongly in reading his life that I wanted to go and venerate his relics and “meet” him, as it were.

He was captured in a war between the Russians and Turks, in a failed attempt by the Russians to re-take once-Orthodox lands. Made a slave, he told his Muslim master that he would serve him fully and with a good will, asking only that he be allowed to remain Christian and practice his faith. Many stories from this difficult period of history for the Greeks – namely, the occupation of their homelands by the Turks, are filled with violent destruction and martyrdoms. But there are also many stories of Muslim people who respected their Orthodox neighbors living side by side with them, and in many cases, even came to venerate the local Orthodox saints and wonder-workers.

This happened in the case of St John the Russian, who became an indispensable part of his master’s home and domestic life because of his illumined character, great love and mercy for all, and his perfect humility. His life ended in martyrdom, in the end, and his relics were transferred from Asia Minor during the period when all Greek people were “kicked out” of Turkish-dominated lands. Many Orthodox had lived there for generations and there were very many holy Christian sites, dating back to the Apostolic age. Rather than leave their beloved saints behind, those being relocated took the relics with them, and thus St. John now lies on the island of Evia, up in the mountins along the central ridge of the northern side, in the village of Prokopi.

After driving out of Athens along a straight highway, with a short rest stop for Basil to play on a playground, we drove across a huge bridge – we saw a similar one on the northern Peleponnesse – it looks like huge white triangular sails all along the bridge—and onto the island. It took us a little while and a bunch of turning around before we were sure we were headed the right way. North and south directions may be indicated by N. and S. (not quite sure), but otherwise we couldn’t really tell which direction was which, not familiar with the major town names posted on signs.

Evia offered different topography from what we have seen until now in Greece. It actually reminded us of “home” – both in northern California and in Washington. We drove through shady forests of pine and chestnut which clothe the rolling hills and climbing mountains of Evia. The roads were very twisted, one turn was actually almost a full circle, I think. At one point, we descended quite a bit and found ourselves driving along an engineered mostly-straight road under the brow of a huge rock face that had been partially carved out, running alongside an almost-dry gorge. The other rock face rose across the narrow gorge only a couple hundred feet away. It was quite dramatic.

We finally arrived in the small village of Prokopi. Our guide book said that there was a guesthouse for pilgrims there, run by the church, and we hoped that we would be able to stay there. It was very easy to find the big white marble church housing St. John’s relics. It is the only major structure for miles around. And the town of Prokopi basically consists of a dozen or so roads – 2 main ones that lead in and out from the church, circling round it, and a few smaller residential streets.

We went into the church and immediately venerated the relics of St. John the Russian, enclosed in a glass coffin, with his feet, arms, and bottom half of his face exposed, still covered with skin which has become dark brown in its “mummified” state. The scent of the relics was strong and sweet. The church was very large, decorated with beautiful frescoes all over.

I tried to ask at the candle desk about available rooms. I can generally get by pretty well with my growing Greek vocabulary and good hand gestures. We were in an area were little to no English was spoken or understood by most people. This young man, however, simply could not understand me, and I didn’t know the word for “room”. By the time I went back to consult my phrase book, he had gotten an English-speaking woman to help me, and she assured me that they did have rooms for us. I was surprised to be led to the second largest building in town directly across the street, probably an old 3-story hotel purchased by the church, I imagine. There was no A/C, but it wasn’t really needed because of the breeze. Evia is also quite a bit cooler than the mainland, I understand. The rooms were very pleasant, and the hotel was very simply decorated with icons.

We went to get dinner at one of the restaurants a few steps away from the guesthouse. We all felt good to be in a quiet place out of the city, paying 30E per night instead of 64E. The taverna had a guy with a little grill on the streetside cooking souvlaki, and it was just too tempting to pass up. We all had it for dinner, except Emma, who got another round of the Greek potroast she has discovered. Christopher and I ate quickly and went off to the Paraklesis service, leaving Grandma and the kids to go get some ice cream from the only kiosk there was. They could also happily spend time in the little tourist shops selling pictures of St. John on just about anything you can imagine – cups, incense burners, plaques, key-chains, salt and pepper holders – somehow kitsch in any culture is pretty much the same, “holy” or not.

Our experience of the service was extremely sweet. There was a largish group of Greek ladies gathered around the relics and a priest standing alongside interjecting his parts when necessary, and busy reading lists of names otherwise. The women led the service, singing the familiar melody and following along in their little booklets. It is the same service we had done in Zakynthos and I’ve done also in America (in English). The Paraklesis or Supplicatory Canon to the Mother of God, is a wonderful brief service of prayer usually offered in times of distress or illness in America, or during the Dormition fast in August. In Greece, especially in monasteries, it is a much-loved prayer commonly done every night or every Sunday night. You could hear that these ladies were used to doing this service, and they prayed and sang with hearts full of love.

Christopher and I stood in the corner of the group and I hummed along the ison that I know. We had a good half hour to pray and spend time with St. John. It was very refreshing. After this we went out to get some ice cream and spend time in the pleasant coolness of the evening. It was about 8:30PM and we expected Nikos, Fr. Nicholas, Gabriel and Maria at any time. Sure enough, as the car drew up we recognized them and went to meet them at the entrance to the church. Fr. and Gabriel had just come from the weekend in Andros and after being picked up at the dock in Rafina, they had all decided to head towards Evia to venerate these relics. We were so delighted to find when we called to check in that they were on their way.

We went back to the taverna and sat drinking cold water and limonata, a drink we really like – sort of like a light lemon soda, without too much sugar. We were able to discuss our coming plans for the next few days before they headed back down the winding mountain road towards Athens, where Fr. and Gabriel would be staying in an apartment, poised to do some major liturgical shopping over the next couple of days.

Our view from the second floor balcony overlooked the church of St. John with rising waves of mountains stretching out behind it, receding through different shades of blue-green into the distance. It was quiet, and simply beautiful. Christopher decided he really wanted to stay two nights, so we all went to sleep with a settled feeling.

The experience of strange juxtapositions becomes more and more common for us, and to me, it is one of the delights of tasting a foreign culture. In this beautiful peaceful place, full of God’s grace and far from the teeming bustle of Athens, the young Greek men still come out to “show of their testosterone” as Christopher put it, and the young girls go out to walk by the tables filled with ouzo-drinkers, gracefully offering their pretty dresses for consideration. It was the four-wheeled motorcycle going around and around and around the church, piloted by any number of young men, the lively chatter which rang off the marble sides of the church, and the other vehicles buzzing by until 1AM that changed Christopher’s mind.

At one point, after midnight, I went to look down onto the street for myself as he grumbled about the young men and their motorcycles. At that moment, I saw the woman who had served us dinner that night, well into her 60’s tooting by on a motorcycle. We decided to head on out the next morning. It was wonderful to be there, but we were finished. We said goodbye to St. John in the morning, and had some nice Nescafe and yogurt and rice pudding for breakfast, packing in to the car and heading out around 10AM.

Yassass, Athens!

2008-07-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning we were still undecided about whether to stay another night to the tune of about $200 between us plus another $100 or so for food and transportation, or to move on. I went downstairs to ask if it would be alright for us to leave early by one day and got quite an earful from the manager. He came around, however, and was quite nice by the time we left again. But it rather clinched our decision to leave.

So Grandma stayed home and packed up her things, we got ours quickly packed and downstairs and headed off to Liturgy. Christopher and Emma left first and went across the street to St. Irene’s with the fabulous psaltis (chanter). When I was ready to go down with Basil I also went there, weaving through 3 parked cars (on the “sidewalk”) and several beggars to squeeze into a very full church. We venerated the icons, listened to the fluid, lovely chant, and searched around a little for Christopher and Emma, to no avail. There were probably 300-400 people there. And was it ever hot!! We went outside on the steps for a breather and noticed a number of girls dressed to the hilt and flowers on the cars parked in front of the church steps with proud young men prancing about like peacocks and younger children frolicking inside and outside. Obviously, something special was going on.

I had wanted very much to go to the small old church “Kapnikarea” for either Vespers or Liturgy, and I figured, “Why not?” So we walked 2 blocks over, Basil and I, and entered a very different world. This was a small, intimate parish, fully decorated with old, traditional icons that were a feast for the eyes of my soul. The chanting here was beautiful, too, if not as grand as at St. Irene’s. Within about 20 minutes we were having communion, and then it was over. We spent some time looking further at the frescoes. I was trying to wait and ask the priest if I could take photos, but he was busy and we finally left. It had been very profound, to be in such an old place hallowed by so many centuries of prayer.

I figured Christopher and Emma would be meeting us soon. I went up to the room and got the last few things downstairs, we paid the manager, and Mom and I went to sit down at the little café for some breakfast. Still, they didn’t come. It happened that it was a wedding, not a baptism, as I’d thought. I think church for them was probably about 3 hours.

After considering a lot of options, we had decided to rent a car. As I said to a German woman trying desperately to make a phone call to Germany, and unable to understand how the country code worked, it is the small things that get you on a trip like this. We’d found a good rental car agency and after figuring we’d spend about the same amount on all the transportation costs of going everywhere by bus/train/taxi we gave them a call to rent a car for 10 days. The guy said he would come pick us up. I asked if we needed to take the metro anywhere to meet him and he asked if I knew where the McDonald’s was. Sure, we’d been there the night before as we strolled through the crazy Monastiraki stalls. It was a 3 block walk with all our luggage, but sounded much better to me than trying to do the metro. We decided on 15 minutes.

We quickly got all our luggage from the hotel and set off down the street. After going around major construction full of dust and working men to reach the McDonald’s, we parked ourselves on the street corner and began to look for someone looking for someone. We waited, and we waited. After awhile the guy from Peru playing traditional pipes karaoke-style with some electronic new age background became pretty tedious. I went to try to call the car guy after about 25 minutes and could find no phone anywhere. Grandma got the kids ice cream. It was about 2PM, the absolute hottest time of day. We were in the shade, but you wouldn’t really know it the way we felt. I went in the opposite direction to look for the phone. I finally found one. Of couse, my phone card was dead. Tried 2 others I had. All dead. I am so hot and thirsty now it’s crazy. I go to the kiosk to buy another card for 4E. When I get back to the phone, someone else is on it. And someone ELSE is on the 2nd phone. For 10 minutes. Honestly, I had sweat running down my leg. I could picture Grandma: hair wet, Basil: sticky from ice cream and rolling on the filthy sidewalk wailing, Emma: worried that Basil got one spoonful more ice cream than she did, and Christopher: fit to be tied.

When I finally got through to a person, she said he had been waiting for us 20 minutes at the Syntagma Square McDonald’s, not the Monastiraki McDonald’s, and he could no longer come get us, but it was so easy to take the metro. Yeah, right. Maybe for you, without the stroller, luggage and kids!

The adult powwow ended in a firm decision to take a taxi. However, we could not hail one. After 5 minutes of trying and being firmly ignored, we decided to brave the subway after all. Just then one more taxi came by and he actually looked me in the eye and nodded. I asked him how much to the address. The car guy had told me “no more than 3E”. I figured they would charge me 10E. I secretly decided that 7E would be fair. He offered me 6E. I smiled and told him I’d pay him 7, and we were off.

The rental car lady felt so sorry for us that she gave us the car for 36E/day instead of 45E, unlimited miles and insurance included. Yes! We were pretty ecstatic to see that A/C button. She opened the trunk and threw in our bags, well, most of them. Unfortunately, the few left over were about the same size as what was allotted for people in the backseat. There's a reason the car is called the "Micra". Sitting alongside the storefront trying to fit in Basil’s blasted stroller caused probably the only universal meltdown we’ve had the whole trip. I was ready to toss it out the window and be gone. But Christopher eventually found an ingenious way to sling it up between two seats by using my shoulder bag.

We headed down the road along a clear, solid highway with lines down the road and again tasted that freedom…..!

Athens!

2008-07-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

We finally left Agios Nicholaos and began our drive back to the ferry. It always seems longer going somewhere than it does coming back. It was a pretty uneventful drive and we got to the port 2 hours before the ferry was due to leave. We were just driving around in circles to let Basil have a little sleep in the air-conditioning, when we realized another boat then in the harbor and half loaded up was also going to Rafina. I dumped the baggage and people at the harbor, drove a half block to the ticket office and grabbed our ferry tickets, ran into the car rental place and madly told the lady the car was parked outside, and ran (well, quickly hobbled) over to the ferry, almost the last one on!!

2 hours later, we were pulling into Rafina again, not quite knowing how to get into Athens, hoping that our hotel would still have our reservation. Thankfully, the public bus for Athens was right in front of us as we walked off the dock. It is certainly easier having another adult to help haul Basil and luggage, but it’s no piece of cake still!

We boarded the bus and told the ticket guy that we needed to get to Monastiraki, where the hotel was. At a certain point, the bus pulled over to the side and he told us this was our stop. He didn’t speak much English, and we couldn’t really ask him much else. Like usual, I hoped and prayed that things would be obvious. On this occasion, they were not!...

Here we were, a motley crew with all our baggage – the tally now swelling to 3 roller bags, 1 heavy backpack, 2 medium backpacks, 2 light backpacks, and the ever-present miscellaneous plastic bag of food odds and ends along with Basil’s plastic watering can and shovel for the beach, AND the stroller and 2 smaller shoulder bags with our 3 money-belts underneath our clothing. Now here we were, standing befuddled on a very busy 4-lane street with traffic whizzing by on both sides (we were on a large island with a bus stop). There was no cross-walk in sight. A large building that I figured must be the metro was across the street, but there was really NO WAY we could have gotten across there.

I know they can’t help it; it’s natural. But then came the usual barrage: “What do we do now?” “Where do we go?” “Where ARE we??” And my usual response: “Well, give me a minute. I’ve never been here before, either!” I tried to get my bearings to see what we should do. Around us, obviously down-and-outers, some street people. A lot of graffiti. No telephones. I go over to look at the “map” which is totally washed out and unreadable, covered with graffiti. We’re obviously at a bus stop, anyway, but the guy had said we needed to take the metro (underground train).

I looked at the guy sitting on the bench near us a couple of times. There's is no way that guy is speaking English. Her either, nor him over there. I make an unlikely stab, only to realize that I was absolutely right. These people don’t even look quite coherent enough to give me reliable directions in Greek, either.

Happily, a briskly walking woman approaches down the concrete island, dressed in a business suit. I approach her and she gives me just enough information in Greek: we have to take the nearby ELEVATOR !!? down a floor to get under the street and into the metro station. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? I guess I just didn’t really notice the huge glass box sitting there in the middle of our island.

Even more happily, as we boarded the elevator – all of us and all our luggage, 2 fat happy Greek women also squeezed on with us, and they were tickled to speak to us in English. They told us exactly what to do and which stop to get off at. After purchasing our CHEAP tickets (3.5E for all of us!) and getting ourselves down the escalator at the correct platform, we were hit with another small detail: Which side of the platform do we use? The train going one way, or the opposite way? Like the flash of an angel’s wing, one of the ladies swooped down on us as a train came up and showed us which side we wanted.

We opted to wait for the next car, as there was no way we would have fit on that one. Happily, the next one was quite empty and we got on and off without incident. We were pointed in the proper direction towards our hotel, and a quick 3 block walk brought us to Hotel Tempi. We could not have asked for a better location. I think all our mouths dropped open at the corner of Aiolou and Ermou. We looked one way and saw our hotel 1.5 block down and looked the other way to see the illuminated Acropolis high above us with the back of the Erecthion shining like a pearl. We could see this sight looking out the window of our hotel. The rooms were small, pretty old, and Spartan, but adequate. 64E per night in that part of town was a very good deal and we were happy with it. Christopher, Basil and I had one room and Grandma and Emma the other. Directly across the street was a large church, with another older one visible a few blocks down. It seems like in downtown Athens there is at least one church for every block or two.

Christopher, not feeling so well during our intensive travel day, had a shower and went promptly to bed. The rest of us went to the nearest restaurant and had a quite nice dinner. As we were finishing Christopher came down and we all walked down the street and found some soft ice cream. I also got some loukamides for breakfast the next morning. Those are little fried doughnuts covered with a honey syrup. We all slept well that night.

Next morning, despite our good intentions, we didn’t find ourselves trudging up the Acropolis proper until almost noon. We’d walked the several blocks up to the base and then another few around it to the main entrance where we could leave the obsolete stroller. Right there was also the Aeroepagus, where St. Paul preached the sermon to the “Unknown God”. Having been driving out of Thessalonica for his radical religious ideas and having passed through Berea, Paul arrived in Athens, dismayed at the sight of the many, many pagan temples practicing polytheism. His story of the life, miracles, teachings, and resurrection of Christ at the time were absolutely unknown, and sometimes met with fear and even violence and other times conversion and faith. Here in Athens, he was impressed by the Greeks’ temple built to the “Unknown God” and used this as a focal point for a sermon memorialized in the pages of the Bible and the books of Acts.

It was from this very large outcropping of rock below the Acropolis that Paul was invited by the religious leaders of the day to address the senate and the common people with an explanation of this new “philosophy” he was bringing into town. Emma scampered up the stone steps hewn out of the side of the rock, about 2 stories high, like an antelope. Christopher followed close behind. I took them one at a time, heeding the sign that said “Careful: slippery”. And were they ever! 2,000 years of people walking up and down had worn the uneven surfaces to a slick marble-like texture. It was incredible, walking those stairs. The top was very uneven solid stone, offering an incredible view of Athens spread out below. I didn’t venture out much, for fear of re-injuring my leg and ankle, but Christopher and Emma walked all around. I found the modern staircase down one side and relieved Grandma from Basil-duty to climb up those instead.

After this, we made our way up the Acropolis. I won’t go into detail about it, as it can be so easily researched. It was hot. We were tired. After a cursory walk through, the kids, Grandma and I sought out the postage-stamp sized spot of shade near a running spring and planted ourselves there, letting Christopher walk around and muse in the blazing sun to his heart’s content. We dismounted it and walked around the other side, in search of the Byzantine Museum, stopping for some lunch and respite.

The museum, which we finally reached by the Metro, was well worth seeing, especially the huge very famous St. Michael icon. We went home after this, switching trains on the Metro like old pros. Everyone else went for ice cream and a nap. I wanted very much to see a little old church sunk into the pavement so I trotted off in that direction, relishing a few moments all to myself.

I found the Kapnikarea church closed, unfortunately, but stopping into a shop for liturgical items, I had a very nice talk with the proprietor, who suggested a large church called St. Irene’s for the best Byzantine chant in this area, and he also gave me the times for services in the little church.

We ended up going to Vespers at another church about 2 blocks down from us. It was quiet. A huge church, mostly baroque in style. There weren’t a lot of people there, and it was extremely hot and stuffy, much moreso than outside at that hour. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the respite from our busy day and the noise and bustle of the city. Basil and I enjoyed venerated 2 lovely gold and silver icons of the Virgin over and over again.

We ate on the early side at about 7PM, choosing a restaurant from an entire square block plus a whole additional side street full of restaurants that all served the same thing for about the same price. We were happy with our meal, however. I got some moussaka, which I have been wanting and have been unable to find. It is made in a casserole like lasagna with a tomato-meat sauce layered with fried eggplant (lots of olive oil!) and a creamy white sauce spread over the top before being baked. It was fabulous. Christopher had lamb cooked with lemon, Grandma had a gyro, and Emma had some roasted chicken and potatoes. We had too much food, which has been a bit of an issue, although it gave us leftovers to have after Liturgy the next day.

We got the kids in bed and were having quite a time trying to decide what to do next. We had discussed a lot of options with Fr. Nicholas before leaving home, but nothing had been finalized before I left, and we were feeling the effects of “limboland” and realized we had to make some decisions. Much as we were enjoying Athens, it was just too expensive and too difficult to get information in a timely manner to help us make good decisions. Getting around town, and getting in to see things, and knowing what things to see, was all a little overwhelming at this point. Everyone was looking to me, more or less, for the plan. Instead of doing my own research for Athens, I had been relying on Fr. Nicholas being there with our local friends, and figured we would simply tag along on their plans. So at this point, Christopher and I felt it would be the way of least resistance to cut our losses (and regrets) and head out of town. Where to go, then? And how to get there?

After the kids were in bed, he and I headed to the internet café at 11PM to do some research and try to get transportation information. We were able to get some, and then we just got too tired to do much more, and decided to sleep on it. On our walk back 7 blocks or so, he wanted to show me the Metropolis church and St. Philotheu, which he had discovered on his walk the previous night while saying his prayers. We also discovered whole rows of shops obviously selling liturgical items in the daylight. – all closed up at midnight, of course. It was a kind of magical evening, just the two of us walking through the dark, cobbled streets, with quite a few people quietly going about their dinners and conversation, the two of us searching for these spiritual pearls amidst the streets of Athens, listening for the footsteps of ancient forefather and mothers.

In some ways, this may have been our truest experience of the town, even more lasting than the Acropolis and the kind of energy and nightlife that rivals New York.

Checking in from Thessaloniki

2008-07-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

Dear all, our email is down right now and we wanted to check in with family and Nikos and Maria. We are now in Thessaloniki after going through Meteora, which I will write about later tonight.

We came into Athens, thinking the women and children would stay at Panorama monastery. We changed our plans and got a room in the same hotel as Fr. Nicholas, Gabriel, and Christopher. We are all here enjoying the many churches within walking distance of our hotel, which is on a block in between Agios Dimitrios and the ancient Roman Forum, which is being excavated. We plan to be here through Friday night, and will give a more detailed blog later today. We have internet in our bedroom, which makes it so much easier! Email should be back up in a few hours, I imagine.

Macrina signing off in hot 3PM Thessaloniki, but it ain't as hot as Athens!!

Agios Nikolais, Icons, Relics, and Veneration

2008-07-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Next morning we got up for Emma’s required swim. Christopher went in and Basil got a little wet, Grandma and I enjoyed a cup of Nescafe and the local ham/cheese pie for breakfast. We washed up quickly, so quickly that we left Basil’s shoes behind (bummer!!) and headed up to the monastery Agios Nikolaos. A 20 minute drive brought us down a very long dirt road to find the monastery nestled in a little fold in the hills, overlooking a vast sloping ravine dotted with brilliant white churches and not much else.

They happened to be serving Liturgy as we walked into the church. A miraculous icon greets you as you go in the church, unusual because it is a fresco and not a painted icon. The eyes of the Virgin are very dark and several times before disasters like an earthquake and another time 3 days before the island was attacked by pirates, she begins to weep. We also saw two clusters of dead flowers, wrapped in fine netting and ribbons, hung at the sides of this icon. A particular lily is cut and placed there every year on Pascha (Easter) and left without water to dry naturally and die. Fifty days after Pascha, on the feast of Pentecost, these flowers miraculously bloom again.

There were also beautiful icons of St. Nicholas and a huge gold and silver icon of the Panaghia (Theotokos) in the narthex-area before the frescoes. Inside the nave of the church is the other miraculous icon. It is a depiction of the Theotokos in the center of a tree, surrounded by small medallions, each containing a small depiction of a patriarch: Jesse, David, Solomon, Abraham, etc. It is called “The Root of Jesse” icon, and this one streams myrrh.

Icons basically have two general miraculous manifestations in the Orthodox world. They can be myrrh-streaming, or myrrh-weeping. The myrrh-streaming icons have a very fragrant oil that beads up all over the surface of the icon with no known or visible cause. As the beads grow bigger they begin to stream down the upright icon. Even if the myrrh is wiped off, it still beads up and continues to run down the face of the painting. The phenomenon is quite amazing. All the icons we have seen in Greece have been myrrh-streaming and have been doing it for many years. When this happens, a case is built to enclose the icon and allow the myrrh to run down the face and collect in a little trough or receptacle which the monks can empty. They soak small pieces of cotton in the myrrh and give it out to pilgrims.

The other kid of miracle with icons is when the figure (usually the Mother of God, but rarely, also Christ) begins to weep. The same kind of fragrant oil beads up only in the eyes on the icon, and runs in two little streams down the face. This is usually interpreted as a sadness for the behavior of people in general, or the spiritual sign of some disaster to come.

One of the reasons we had come to Andros, besides seeing and praying before these miraculous icons, was to venerate the relics of my own saint, Saint Macrina. I had done this years before. After the service, kissing the icons and the relics of another saint they have there, I asked the abbot if I could venerate the relics of St. Macrina. He obliged me, and brought us back into the church.

My mother and I had previously had a talk about why Orthodox venerate relics. We’ve had a lot of discussion along our travels about the differences between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. I was raised Methodist, and my mother has always faithfully attended that denomination, so that was our point of reference.

She noticed that in the Orthodox Liturgy, the main part is communion. We talked about how we believe that communion is our reception of the actual Body and Blood of Christ, whereas in the Methodist church, this belief was abandoned by Luther, along with a number of other Christian beliefs and practices that had been maintained for 1500 years. In the Methodist church, as in most of the Protestant denominations, communion became a symbolic act, and not a reality and physical presence of Christ, as it still is for us.

When we came to talking about the veneration of relics, we returned to this point. Orthodox Christians kiss icons and also the bones of saints that we still have. This is called veneration, and it is not the same thing as worship. Worship belongs only to God Himself, in Trinity. However, because we believe in and actually experience the sanctity of matter, we also venerate things in this world that have been sanctified and made holy. When we kiss an icon, it is as if we are kissing the saint depicted there, as one would kiss a friend or relative when greeting him. But the worship is given to Christ who helped that person to become sanctified. The person is only remembered and venerated because she lived her whole life for Christ, was filled by Him, illumined by Him, and made fully human and fully herself through His mercy and love. This person lived Christ in her own unique way, becoming sanctified in this life.

When a person like this dies, sometimes a miracle occurs and the bones and sometimes even the skin of the person do not decompose. After many years, a normal human body turns into dust, even the bones. But the saints’ bones not only remain solid, but they usually also have an incredible fragrance, just like the myrrh from the icons. How can this happen? We do not know. But when you venerate a relic of a saint and smell it, there is no mistaking its reality. It is like a condensed smell of very sweet flowers.

So sitting in the church on Andros, I again was able to hold my saint’s hand in my own. Macrina’s left hand is encased in silver, with some gems embedded in the precious metal, and a little window through which you can see the bone of her wrist. It is extremely fragrant, and I wept to hold it and to be so close to her and realize how far from her I truly am in the way that I live my own life. I cherished the moments to pray with her there, and to ask for her help. She was such a wonderful teacher for her siblings and a very strong and faithful woman who lived her life entirely for God: loving the Scriptures, serving the poor, building up the church.

I am deeply blessed.

Hello, Andros! and finding old friends

2008-07-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Next morning, our family was all up and ready to go get some breakfast, as Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel appeared to still be asleep. It is not so easy to find breakfast in Greece. There tends to be three different types of eating establishments: the taverna, where you get restaurant-style food, the café, where you get coffee and ouzo, maybe some sandwiches and sweets, and then these fast-food-type places where you can pick up a souvlaki, sandwich, savory pastry or gyro. The tavernas are pretty much open for lunch (11-1) and dinner (8-midnight). In the larger towns they have pretty extensive menus, but all pretty much the same things. We’ve learned that out in the remoter areas, the menu doesn’t mean much. In fact, it’s not uncommon to get one menu for your whole table. Many items listed are unavailable, either seasonally or depending on the time of day. Most of them are family-run, and when the certain type of dish is gone for the day, it’s just gone. You choose something else. And they tell you what they have in the oven at that time.

The cafes are open all the time, more or less, as are the fast-food stands, but what you can get to eat there is pretty limited. For breakfast on Tinos, we’ve done the option that works pretty well. We had hoped to find a café with some decent food, but the only one open nearby had only toast, which means the dry melba-like toast that is popular here with some butter, jam and honey. So we went to the supermarket and bought yogurt, juice, and chocolate-filled croissants. Then we went and bought coffee, sat at the internet café, and had a decent morning.

On our way back, we crossed paths with Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel about 10AM. We had checked on boat times sailing to Andros and thought they would be going with us. They decided rather to head on to Naxos, hoping to catch up with 2 other American friends going on to Mt. Athos: Scott, and his son Ethan. Not quite knowing what they would decide to do, we went on to Andros on the 2:10 boat.

HEADING TO ANDROS

The ferry took close to 2 hours and we had hoped a public bus would be waiting at the end of the dock to take us around the other side of the island to Andros town (Chora – which means “main town” on the islands, I think). There was not one, but three busses waiting at the end of the dock. But they weren’t leaving for 5 more hours. We had been vascillating about whether or not to rent a car, and that little detail made our minds up quick!

So yet again, I became the intrepid driver. This had a great advantage for us, though. I had hoped that we might be able to stop through a monastery I spent a lot of time at when I was in Greece 12 years ago, just before getting married. If we had all been together, we probably wouldn’t have had this chance, but with a car, one has FREEDOM!! So as we headed south we saw the turnoff for Zoodohos Pigis Monastery and took it. Christopher and Emma were both anxious to see it after hearing stories for years.

The road up was pretty good gravel, steep and twisty. Andros and Tinos are both very hot, dry islands. We climbed steadily up through small olive trees, sage brush, bee boxes, and goats! The goats were hardly intimidated by either us or the car and happily snoozed along the side of the road (and sometimes on it!) and watched us pass.

After about 15 minutes of driving, the imposing monastery wall came into view. As I understand from my last visit, this monastery used to be inhabited by many monks and was very active, with a community of laypeople also growing up around it on the mountainside. At a certain point in history, there was a terrible raid from pirates who came in, burning all the fields and houses, killing the monks and wreaking havoc so badly that the town was not re-built. Three days before this occurred, the miraculous fresco at the men’s monastery across the island (Agios Nikolaos, where we were heading) began to weep.

At any rate, my history may be sketchy as it was 12 years ago and I wasn’t even sure at the time I was understanding completely what the abbess said. But I ended up making my way here those many years ago to find one nun (the Gerondissa) and another young woman staying with her. Some of the other pilgrims at the time made fast friends with me and together we made a sort of motley family for a couple of weeks. I had very strong and fond memories of that time. One other girl from Italy, Kristina, about my age was a little bolder than I since she was related to the Abbess. She got permission for us to explore around the monastery and it was quite an experience. About half of the monastery was in pretty good shape. The small church was built in the middle over a miraculous spring dating back to the pre-Christian era. On the far side, however, was a large complex of cells in great disrepair, with some of them only half-standing, with piles of slate and rubble all over the ground. She and I open doors with rusty hinges and inches of dust. Probably many of them had not been opened for years. It was very moving, and quite sad. We found looms with a piece of material half made and the shuttle laying on top, prayer corners with a small book askew on the desk and a sweater or cloak hanging on a little hook. It looked as though people had been there just a few moments ago and stepped away, except the dust everywhere told a different story.

As we arrived at the gates to the monastery, they were fast shut. We knew that the timing was terrible – in the afternoon the monasteries basically shut down, as do the towns and shops, for a universal “quiet time”. We knew when we went up that we would probably not be able to go in. The large black wrought-iron gate with a strong lock confirmed this, not to mention the high wall and heavy steel door firmly shut within the courtyard.

I was unwilling to leave right away, and took a short walk up a steep little embankment to a dirt road I remember walking down years ago. I wanted to see if it could get me the height to be able to look down on the little church. I remember the abbess telling me that this had been considered a holy site during pagan times, and when it was fulfilled in Christianity, it was named “Zoodohos Pigi” or “The Life-Giving Spring”. This icon for this feast is of the Theotokos in a large basin with water pouring out through spigots or holes on the side. She holds Christ on her lap, and many who need healing: lame, blind, ill, aged, come to the pool beneath the basin to drink of the healing waters.

I couldn’t quite get high enough to see the church. But instead I was rewarded with a delightful sight of a herd of goats and a couple of small sweet churches down the back side of the monastery. I walked back, knowing everyone would be getting hot and antsy. In God’s great providence, it happened that just as Christopher and I were at the gate taking a last look, we saw a figure. She also saw us, and took a look but was not inclined to come close enough to really see us, and seemed to be heading back into the monastery door. I remembered her very clearly and called out her name: “Anna! Ine Macrina! Anna, ella! Ella!” I was telling her it was me and to come here to the gate. She finally did, and recognized me right away. I was so incredibly thankful!

She went and got Gerondissa Evgenia, who also remembered me. She spoke what little she could with us (my limit with Greek is still very short, and she speaks no English) and then allowed us in to see the church, where we venerated the icons and got some water from the spring. We talked a little more, referring to the former time and the others who had been with us. We wished each other well and we headed back down the mountain.

The drive south down Andros and across the island was both stunning and peaceful. We wound along one side of the island, driving south across curvy roads dotted with small villages way down below, Andros being a very mountainous island with steep sides. Like in many other places throughout Greece, we saw many homes and shops clinging to the sides of steep hills.

Finally making it into Chora, or Andros Town, after about 1.5 hours of driving, we found the strip of road with hotels on one side and the beach on the other. It took some walking and patience, but we found a great apartment-style room for 60E, had some belated dinner at the taverna almost next door, and turned in for the night.

We all slept well -- no mosquitoes! Macrina signing off in peaceful Andros from our cute little downstairs apartment.

Tinos II

2008-07-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the abrupt ending of my last post. I ran out of time in the internet café and decided not to get more. The Megalocharia icon on Tinos is so covered with jewels that you cannot even see the icon anymore, really. It was covered with a silver repousse sheath with only the faces showing many years ago, and now you can’t see the silver icon anymore, just the painted faces peeking through. Pearls, gold and silver crosses and rings, panaghia icons from bishops, and many other precious items cover both the face of the icon and the stand around it.

The church itself is huge and quite ornate. There is actually a reader’s stand with spiral steps up to a kind of lectern at the top, about 20 feet high. As Christopher said, one would have to have a pretty good voice to get up and read from there! A lot of the iconography and decoration is rather baroque, and not as interesting to me as the older and/or more traditional styles of liturgical art. But what is most stunning about the church is the number of lampadas hanging from the ceiling.

We Orthodox use lampadas in front of our icons. They are sometimes very small and simple hanging oil lamps, and sometimes very large and ornate, what we might call a chandalier. When one prays before a particular icon, or has a place/icon in mind during great distress, and then has the prayer answered, he/she may donate a lampada commemorating the answered prayer. In this particular place, there are probably several hundred lampadas, each one representing an answered prayer. I looked at some of the smaller-sized lampadas in town and they were approaching 200E, about $350. Many hanging there were very large and elaborate, probably costing thousands of dollars.

Additionally, an emblem hangs from the bottom of the lampada signifying the nature of the distress. Some have incredibly beautiful boats, obviously people were saved from shipwreck, or a loved one was returned from sea. Others have hands, legs, or other parts of the body. We also saw houses, probably saved from fire or some other disaster. We even saw horses, goats, a helicopter, airplanes, and a tractor! Emma had fun seeing what she could find. Of course all these lampadas cannot hang in front of the icon; they are hanging from huge chains draped across the ceiling of the church. As you look up, the high dome is above, with a spiderweb of chains strung across it bearing these hundreds of lampadas. It is a pretty tremendous sight.

After visiting the church, we walked down a narrow pedestrian street crammed with tiny shops offering icons, prayer ropes, incense, and other “religious paraphernalia,” taking our time in the heat of the day. Coming back down to the harbor, we walked alongside it for several blocks until we found the turnoff for our hotel. The landmark was a beautiful small blue-domed church right across from our hotel. We all went back to our rooms for a little siesta.

After sleeping for an hour or so, Christopher and the kids and I walked down to the beach, a few minutes away. Grandma had some time to write postcards in the air-conditioned room and Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel were catching up on their jetlag.

Eventually we were all ready to go for dinner and found a small taverna right near the hotel. The evening was pleasant, and for the first time it actually felt a little cool. Tinos was know as the “Island of the Winds” in ancient times, and it certainly is very windy. In fact, when Emma swam the next day her flip-flop blew away down the beach!

None of us knew exactly what our plans would be next day. Christopher, Basil and I went back to go to bed and the rest of the gang took a walk in the evening. We were only 5 minutes’ walk from town, so it was very easy to get around.

Macrina signing off from the windy isle of Tinos

Lost in Athens...

2008-07-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

Dear all,
sorry, only a very quick check in this time. It is after 11PM in downtown Athens. We left Tinos, splitting up with Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel, and had a brief overnight visit to Andros, which I will write about in detail later. Unfortunately, I had done a nice blog on this leg of the trip and when we got back to the internet cafe here in Athens, we found out we cannot download everything as we'd been told earlier we would be able to. So Christopher has a nice blog entry or two on his laptop instead of you! Will remedy this when we can...

We made it into Athens and to our hotel, which is nothing fancy but adequate and with about the best location you could ask for -- we step out the door and see the acropolis up above us a few blocks away.

We went up and did that this morning and also found the Byzantine Museum. We have been unable to connect again with Fr. Nicholas and are unsure about his plans for the next few days, so we are floundering a bit, trying to figure out where to go next. We do like Athens, but it is eating our wallets at a tremendous rate. We thinking of leaving tomorrow. For sure there must be a ton of things to see here, but we don't really know where to go or what to do, so heading elsewhere, probably with a car again, seems like the best plan at this point.

We will check in again later when we have the time. All are well -- healthy and in good spirits. Athens in the plaka is pretty fun.

Signing off near midnight in Athens, before Christopher falls asleep at the console next to me.

Macrina

Fr. Nicholas & Gabriel Arrive and Tinos

2008-07-02T23:56:00.000-07:00

Dear all,
writing from a little internet cafe next to the seaside on the island of Tinos. Nikos and Maria went to pick up Fr. Nicholas and his son, Gabriel, again with a middle-of-the-night arrival at 3AM. This time, I think they took the highway back home (wink). Although we were all sleeping, I heard them arrive and they sounded very excited and chipper, not burnt out and exhausted.

After some food and conversation, they went to sleep in the 2 single beds. Maria had a rollaway bed on the porch, and Nikos was out there, too. Christopher and I slept very well. Grandma and Emma had a bad problem with the mosquitoes again, and Grandma didn't sleep much. It is amazing to me that she is just as bright-eyed and busy-tailed as ever going on little sleep.

I got up early at 6AM and fixed some breakfast we had gotten earlier in the day from the supermarket. We had 3 juices: cherry, peach, and apple, some tiny little croissants filled with chocolate, absolutely delicious thick Greek yogurt and honey, and some little grilled sandwiches with good Greek cheese and prosciutto, plus some fruits from the tree outside. We had a nice repast and packed up for a trip down to the harbor.

We caught a huge ferry for the island of Tinos. I was exhausted and fell asleep on a big chest containing life jackets. Fr. Nicholas snoozed in his airplane-style chair, Emma and Gabriel talked about Redwall books, Grandma wrote in her journal, and Christopher typed on his computer. It was a pleasant journey. Coming in closer to the island of Andros, where we stopped first, it got very rough and the boat rolled quite a bit. Thankfully, I'm the only one prone to sea-sickness and was asleep. We'd brought all our leftovers and were able to avoid buying food on the ferry.

We sailed alongside the very long, dry island of Andros, which we will all visit in the next couple of days. It has the relics of my own saint, Macrina, and also a rare relic of St. Nicholas as well.

Andros and Tinos are separated by a very narrow causeway of water, maybe 1/4 mile wide. As I looked out the window I saw a largish rock sticking up out of the water, maybe the size of a large house. On the top of it perched a little church. How could one get to it?

We came into the harbor of Tinos and they had all the foot passengers walk down into the hold for cars below. We stood in a big clump as the huge back door of the ferry slowly began to drop while we were still backing into position at the dock. As we walked off, we became separated from the crowd of people. Many people were standing on the dock holding signs advertising hotels for rent. One man who spoke good English grabbed me and began extolling the virtues of his establishment, another had grabbed Fr. Nicholas and by the time we found each other we had dueling hosteliers on our hands. We finally went with the woman who had a van right there to trasport us and ended up at Hotel Aphrodite with rooms at 30E, which to us was a fabulous price, but apparently common for the non-tourist islands. The elevator here is funny: tiny, and there is no door that closes on the inside. So you see and can even touch the wall going by as you move, then when you stop you simply push open a door at the landing.

We settled in a bit and got a ride up to the big church at the top of the hill, Church of the Annunciation, which houses the Megalochari icon of the mother of God. This is apparently the most popular pilgrimage site of Greeks, receiving a million pilgrims a year. During the big feast day of the icon, so many people come to venerate it that there isn't room in the town to house them, and many sleep along the streets, in the church, and just everywhere.

This icon was buried for 800 years and a local woman had a dream in which the Theotokos appeared to her and told her it was time for this icon to be dug up. At first, she disbelieved the dream until it came to her many times and the Mother of God became stern. She finally went to the local priest who had heard the same thing from an old man in the village years before: a dream in which the Mother of God talked to him about this icon.

So the villagers began to dig. It took them quite awhile, but they finally found the icon. First one half with the angel Gabriel making his announcement to the Virgin, and then the other half with the Theotokos receiving the message. Many, many verified miracles are associated with the icon and an incredible church has been built to house and honor it.

We are So Proud of Grandpa Al!!!

2008-07-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

We just wanted to say that we are extremely proud of our husband/father/grandfather Al for coming in first place in his age group (the oldest person to complete it) in the half-marathon in Seattle on Sunday. Despite the 94 degree heat, a bad bout of nausea after eating some power drink thingy, and the mostly-uphill route with little shade, HE DID IT!!!!! Congratualtions!!! And Diana was also a trooper who walked along with him. We felt we were with you both in spirit, for sure! Our own "marathon" around the Colloseum was not as long, but it was probably more hot. Anyway, we love you and are so proud of you, Dad!

Shirley Macrina and Grandma and kids

The Midnight Ride of Nikos

2008-07-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I told our friend Nikos that I would devote an entire post to him, so I must be good to my word. And I do have a good story to tell....

We made it via back country mountain roads into Corinthos yesterday by car. As we are driving, the major signs are in both English and Greek and the minor signs are all in Greek. I have been studying the language and can sound out words but often don't know what they mean. With road signs, I can generally identify a town we are looking for, but the trouble is that while driving the signs whiz by too fast for me to decipher sometimes. We followed signs to Corinthos, but there is a huge spider-web of roads that can get one there. We ended up on the "scenic route" and I'm sure the main highway would have been faster, but it was a nice ride. There was only one place in the middle of nowhere, really, that the sign had been damaged and knocked over. It was hard to tell which direction to go, but we came out alright.

Once we got to Corinth, it was much harder to find Loutraki, the little town where we needed to return the car. We spent probably 20 minutes going in all different directions, driving through the train station which was our ultimate destination there, before we finally got it right. One thing I've realized now is that I can ask the questions alright in Greek: "We are looking for such and such a place, please." And I'm asking so well that I get a great dose of Greek verbage in return which I cannot at all decipher. I look at the hand motions carefully and try to pick up words like "down" and "left". Sometimes they can help me out in English, and sometimes not.

We were relieved that the car rental people didn't bat an eye at the tar streaks on the little yellow car, caught a nice taxi to the train station and were quickly on our way into Athens. We tried to call our friends Nikos and Maria to tell them we were coming in earlier than we had expected, but of course the one phone at the train station had been completely ripped out and there was no other. So we got on the train: much much nicer than Italy! Very well air-conditioned and spacious. The driver also actually ANNOUNCED the stops, which was a real treat. Not only that, but they additionally provided a ROUTE MAP by which we could check how many more stops before we needed to get off. All in all a most pleasant travelling experience.

Landing in Pallina they actually had an elevator to go up, so we also got to miss the stairs. Unfortunately, no phone and no bathroom, and a very busy street right in front of us. Of course, Basil had to go. Well, I walked down the street and found a phone at a local business that they let me use. Called Nikos and he started on his way to pick us up. We waited about an hour, finished up some food we had brought for lunch, playing MORE Mad Libs (will they ever end?) and I actually got a little drawing of the Panaghia (Theotokos) in. Soon the sweet faces of Nikos and Maria were before us, we hopped in and were off.

Most graciously, Nikos and his family have lent us their summer home for a few days. It is just up from the harbor at Rafina (not Ravenna, as I mistakenly said in the last post). What a treat to have a fully-equipped home at our disposal with plenty of beds, a stocked refrigerator, the cutest bathing device I have yet seen in Greece: rather than a square tiled area it is a mini-tub, like a bathtub made for a hobbit, a clothesline, and lovely patio all around from which you can see the Aegean.

We decided it would be good for me to rent another car so that I could go and pick up Christopher from the airport and get us down to the beach, stores, restaurant, and whatever we might need. The house was a little too far away from everything for us to walk. Nikos took me down to get some groceries and then the car, and gave me directions for getting to the airport. He had to leave for a business meeting and Maria stayed with us.

We got the kids and some retsina and headed for the closest beach. Emma the fish was ecstatic to be in the water again, with big waves that she thought were a blast. Basil was content to dig in the dirt and make "mountains" while the womenfolk sat on Maria's sarape and had our retsina, a specialty Greek wine made with the pitch from the pine tree. I think this evening was a highlight for Grandma Coco: to be able to have conversation in English with someone other than me and the kids, to unwind with some good wine in the cooler sea breezes as dusk approached. Ahhhh...

By the time Emma was done it was almost 8:30PM so we headed for dinner at the taverna closest to the house. We ordered a half kilo of lamb cooked in the coals, an order of souvlaki for me (I don't like lamb!), some stuffed peppers, green beans, fried cheese, and french fries. What a feast! It was delicious. Grandma and Maria had some of the house wine and thoroughly enjoyed chatting over dinner. Emma happily fed the stray cat our scraps and Basil had just as much fun as she once he found the rainbow-colored duster they had left lying around. He got quite a bit of mileage out of that, and looked every inch a gypsy child (now having seen some of them, I can say this is really accurate): shoeless, dirt-smeared face, hair stuck every which way half from saltwater and half from dirt.

Now comes the beginning of the adventure. Nikos had said the airport was "really easy" to get to, only a few kilometers away (I think I have now learned my lesson that when a Greek says: "only a few kilometers" it could mean anywhere from a 15-45 minute drive); just down this road, a left at the main light, another left later on, good signs.

Well, prudently, we decided to all go together to take a dry run. It was probably 9:30 by now and already pretty dark. We headed out as directed. No problemo. First turn, easy. Pretty dense traffic, but I am getting used to it and stayed in the "slow" lane. We hit trouble at one of the airport signs. They do this thing with an arrow pointed up for straight ahead and then another pointing left or right for major turn-offs. There was the little airplane sign Nikos had said to look for (forget reading the name of the airport!) the trouble was, it was, I swear, EXACTLY in between the up and the left arrows. To which arrow did it belong? Maria thought this, I thought that, and by now I was committed to turning, so turn we did. Didn't seem quite right. Thinking of turning around and then boom, someone from my left turns directly in front of me onto an on-ramp which forces me onto it as well. Now we are on a major freeway with no exits, going to Athena. This strikes fear into my heart, as we have been discussing the nature of
Athenian driving. I mean, I am really scared of having to drive there. No thank you! We finally see a toll coming up ahead and are sure we are wrong. Thankfully, an exit, too, and we turn around and go all the way back up to the road we left.

At this point, we stop into a Shell station (yes, Shell) and confirm that we are going the right way. We need to go all the way down to Marco Polo. No, that is MarCO-POlo. Yeah, that's it. Wow, is it ever a long way. And the traffic is zipping by, there's nothing to do but zip as best I can, realizing that being overly cautious and slow would be as likely to cause an accident as anything.

We finally get to the exit and see that it is a toll road. At this point, I feel I can find the rest of the way without a problem as it will be well-signed and the major road leading to the airport. So we drive past the exit, thinking we will turn around at the next intersection. Intersection? Well, ah, in this part of the world they seem to have little appreciation for such a constricting convention. In fact, I was stunned to see my first traffic light in Rafina. We are now bombing along a very busy 2-lane (when convenient) road with a few stoplights to the side that are for what? Well, not for an intersection. I'm not sure what they are doing there. There are no cross-streets. (I am realizing this all as it is whizzing by). And now there is actually a divider and signs point straight on to Athena. I admit it, my palms are getting sticky.

Meredith-Maria is my steady co-pilot, coaching me in the finer points of Greek traffic law. "Okay, you've gotta get to the left." Yeah, but how? "Well, at an intersection or a left turn." There are any intersections. These people don't stop. "See that little break in the divider? Try going through there." What, you mean stop full on in moving traffic and try to turn left into traffic moving the other way through that little hole in the divider? "Yeah. See how it says 'No U-turn' well, you just ignore it. That means you go ahead and do a U-turn. See a red light? That means you go ahead and run it if you can. Lean on your horn, and be aggressive."

So I try her tactic, but there is no way I'm stopping the car over on the left like that. No way. After a little more she says, "OK! There! There! You see it? Get over there right now!!" I see an actual left-turn lane carved out to coincide with the break in the divider. Alright. I can breathe as I pull over, so I'll give it a go. We screech to a stop.

"Now back up a little." You've gotta be kidding. I'm at a full stop on the far left with the divider on my left and cars whizzing past on my right. I'm looking at a full 3 lanes of cars coming towards me just as fast with a sliver of concrete to separate us. Back up? Is this a death wish?
"Listen, you gotta back up. We can't see the light." Oh, there is a traffic light, seemingly unattached to anything else moving around it. Right. Back up a tiny bit so we can see it. It's gone green. "Go!! Go, go! Do a U-ey, even though it says not to! Pull tight, that's it."

Whew. The drive home was a piece of cake.

I know I could have made it down to pick up Christopher at 3AM on my own. Grandma couldn't sleep. Meredith couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. Nikos called and said he was on his way to take me. I can't say I wasn't relieved. This will be so easy with Nikos. He can drive; he knows the shortcuts and it will be great. Fine. He gets there, we get to the airport in plenty of time. It's a rather long wait, but finally Christopher appears in his Giants t-shirt. I am so happy to see him!! He looks great and has a surprising amount of energy after his 28 hour sojourn. We head out to the car where Nikos and Meredith are waiting.

We start out down the airport road and I notice Nikos turns off early onto a side street. Must be nice to know the alternate routes, and this street is much nicer than the big highway. Christopher and I are holding hands, enjoying the scenery in the twilight, noticing the hills around us, he finds Casseopoia in the night sky. I remember that we are low on gas, and tell Nikos we probably need to get some more. He drives through more countryside, along the waterfront, really we are quite far from the busy centers and I am amazed that there is this much rural area right around bustling Rafina and the airport.

After awhile, Nikos turns around and there is some indication that perhaps the road are not leading exactly to where they should. No worries. Time passes. A lot of time passes. More time passes. We have said the things we needed to say after being apart for a couple of weeks. Nikos says, "We are a little lost. We are on the wrong side of the water, I think. We need to find some gas."

Shortly after this, we see some signs and perhaps we are getting closer to the inhabited areas? Well, no, we take a 10 minute sprint through some kind of grasslands. Down a hill and into an area with lights and activity..... but no gas station. By now, the needle is touching red. Christopher leans over and says, "Do you think he knows where he is going yet?" Although I think we all checked the gas guage numerous times over those last 15 minutes, I didn't feel particularly anxious. I figured, hey, if we run out of gas, we'll probably sit down and look at the stars and have a nice chat for a couple hours. The evening air was cool and the night was beautiful, and my husband was by my side, my friends in the front. It couldn't be too bad.

I've come to believe there is something unique and special about the Greek people and this blessed land. As I said to Nikos, how, otherwise, could it be possible for them to drive as they do and not be killing themselves and each other all day long? Honestly. I think Grandma Coco has gotten her oxygen intake fully primed during the last few days as she has punctuated our drives with a huge panicked air-suck every time someone pulls in front of me, or opens a door right into on-coming traffic, or a motorcycle squeezes by, or an on-coming vehicle is halfway over in my "lane" (such as it is) or as we are whizzing down the "slow lane" we realize with dismay that there is a string of cars up ahead parked half on the side walk and half in our lane of traffic: the choice arises, do we swerve over into the left "lane" to avoid hitting the parked car and risk the cars in the left lane, or do we slow down and stop behind the parked cars and risk getting rear-ended? At any rate, Nikos, like many other Greek drivers I've observed, has the magic touch. He pulls up into the driveway of the house and I estimate we might have 10 more minutes of driving before the car is completely dry. Wow. And it only took about twice as long as it might have if I had driven home from the airport. BUT, it was an hour well-spent, with my beloved next to me, a beautiful night, and my mind free of worry about getting the car down the road. Plus, we have another great adventure to add to the blog!

We all slept well and late. Christopher didn't actually sleep until the rest of us got up, but we were all well-rested by early afternoon. Nikos had taken the car keys inadvertently back to Athens in his pocket, so we were stranded for the morning in the house. But this had us all fully rested and well-fed. I made breakfast this morning -- the first eggs we've had in 2 weeks, wonderful Greek yogurt with honey, pancetta and cheese from Mytilene, Nescafe and condensed milk, fresh apricots, cherries, and sundry dry "toast" things that they love over here and we can't quite figure out.

This afternoon Nikos and Maria have the kids at the beach. They were hankering for it after a slow morning. Emma spent time reading comics in Greek and Basil was a pretty happy guy running around buck naked outside investigating all the garden and outdoor equipment. Grandma and Christopher just had a nice lunch in downtown Rafina while I've been typing. Grandma had more souvlaki and Christopher got some fresh squid.

Signing off in warm Rafina with a wonderful sea breeze.

Quick Check-In, Leaving Astros

2008-06-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I have just spent 2 hrs trying to download my photos so that I could post more on the blog, but it is very difficult when all the instructions and titles on the computer are in Greek. I just can't figure it out and the few I managed to get up have very bad resolution. So I give up!

Last night I was delighted to find that the local monastery only a few minutes away is just lovely. I went up for Vespers and got there just at the right time. The lady here had told me: "Go up the mountain just as the sun is beginning to set but hasn't yet gone down. I think it will be the right time for Esperinos." And she was sure right. Grandma and the kids stayed here and relaxed, having dinner and a quick dip in the water.

The church up there is constructed similarly to the monastery of Malevi, with a small old church in the center of a large square of buildings. But rather than paving stones and masonry, this monastery has a court filled with little pathways, rose gardens, and many growing things. The whole church is frescoed and has very old paintings, many of them damaged, but still in quite good shape overall. The whole church seemed very old: all the lines were a little cock-eyed and everything seemed to lean a little this way or that. It felt like a place where many, many prayers have been prayed. The nuns were extremely warm and welcoming, delighted that I had found them, coming from so far away.

We went this morning for Liturgy and it was quite packed with local people, I imagine because of the feast day. This afternoon we took it very easy, swimming in the sea, organizing our things for the next leg of our journey, and making it into town for a few hours to have dinner and a look around. We called home late last night -- an adventure in the dark on the side of the road with no way to see all the multitude of numbers we must punch on the correct order to get through. We had to turn on the headlights. But we all felt better afterwards, being able to talk to Grandpa Al before his big marathon on Sunday and Christopher before his departure over to Athens.

We will leave Paralio Astros tomorrow before noon, return our car in Corinth, and take the train into Athens to meet Maria-Meredith and Nikos. From there, we will go to stay at Nikos' family home in Ravenna until we have met up with Christopher and Fr. Nicholas and Gabriel.

All are doing well. Grandma has a cough/cold, but it seems to be improving. I got a mild sunburn.

I need to go now as I just learned that my typing is disturbing the man in the room next door. More later....

Signing off in muggy Astros, with a refreshing breeze at 11:17PM
Macrina

Holy Monastery of Malevi

2008-06-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

At about 11AM in the active town of Mystras below the ruins, we couldn't find anything to eat. None of the restaurants were open yet. We settled for some day-old bread, yogurt (sorry! I know we should be fasting), and cold drinks. We found some stamps to mail our postcards and went into a little shop that had hand-painted icons and many little trinkets and jewellry. The iconographer was the shopkeeper and spoke pretty good English. We had a wonderful conversation, comparing notes and discussing prices for icons and things like that. I enjoyed it a lot. She showed me a painting she did on a piece of pottery she found that was 300 years old!

One thing also that I forgot to mention about Ravenna, was that the highlight for me was probably seeing some of the drawings that were studies for the mosaics. In the little museum they had there, I found a lovely Greek marble statue, a pretty good collection of icons, a lot of stone carvings and sculptures that I skipped, and an entire hall devoted to the design of the churches and mosaics. Seeing the drawings and studies the artists had used to create these incredible churches was very inspiring for me, and made me want to go home and paint.

We left Mystras before noon and headed up into the hills. The iconographer had assured me that the road to Malevi was good. On my previous trip, I had taken the bus up into the monastery in the mountains and literally thought I was going to die on that trip. I was saying my final prayers, no joke! I couldn't exactly remember why that drive was so scary, but it was enough to make me seriously hesitate to include the trip in our itinerary to begin with and to attempt to drive it myself at this point. However, we prayed, and went!

Stopping at a small taverna (little restaurant), we had a nice lunch. Yes, Grandma got more souvlaki, and we had a giant plate of pasta which we couldn't even finish. There, we verified that the road around the corner was the correct one for the Monastery of Malevi, and off we went.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the road itself was quite good -- paved solidly with some potholes, but no big deal. Initially, we rode through the interior between small hills, seeing the same lovely scenery, but very red dirt. After awhile, we began climbing into more serious mountains and the road narrowed somewhat and became quite curvy. Now I remembered what had terrified me previously. The road is barely wide enough for two cars. The side next to the mountain is fine, the side next to the precipice has no guard rail, no shoulder. Going up we probably passed a total of 6 cars coming the other direction. If this happened at the wrong moment, with the wrong speed, it could easily be disastrous. On the bus I rode all those years ago, he was going fast, taking those curves like a trooper, and I realized that if a car HAPPENED to try and cross our path at one of those points it would be my demise. But it didn't happen. This time around, it was no big deal to drive slowly at the major curves, and we felt pretty safe. I wasn't scared to drive. Going through two small towns, though, was crazy! The streets become even narrower, if one can believe it, and seeing how crazily cars and houses are seemingly clinging by a few beams to the side of the mountain, with sheer drop-offs basically out the back door, we were pretty speechless. (Well, not really, for anyone who knows Grandma Coco, Emilia, Basil and I).

Finally, we did reach the Monastery of Malevi, arriving a day earlier than planned. It houses a very miraculous icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The range of these particular hills, which spans a distance of many miles, has a long history of monastic habitation, and today there are still a good handful of very active monasteries, not the least of which is Malevi, which receives hundreds of pilgrims every year, despite the difficult drive.

The nearest town to Malevi is Agios Petros (Holy Peter) and tradition says that the people who live here are descendents of those who left the penninsula of Agion Oros (Mt. Athos) so that it could become a monastic habitation. They willingly left their homes, lands, and farms, at the behest of the Theotokos (Mother of God) to relocate here so that the penninsula could be dedicated to solely monastic life over 1,000 years ago. For this reason, a nun told me, the Theotokos had a special love for these people and blessed them with this miraculous icon.

The icon began streaming myrrh, a sweet-smelling oil that actually beads up on the face of the icon itself and begins to run down it, I think about 40 years ago. When it began, there were many people healed from putting the oil on their wounds and praying here with the icon -- blindness, cancer, barrenness, heart troubles, etc. There have been literally thousands of miracles recorded over the last 30-40 years by the monastery. Also, there have been many instances when a beautiful, tall woman dressed in a dark blue robe has appeared to people around here and in other places sometimes very far away, announcing that she will heal someone, and identifying herself as "the Virgin of Malevi".

It is much larger than when I previously came. A huge church dedicated to the icon stands as a sentinel over the tiny stone chapel which houses the icon in the middle of a kind of courtyard lined with rooms on three sides. If you can imagine, it is like a large square with the huge new church at the top of many marbel stairs, two arms running down either side lined with monastic cells and rooms, and another wall of rooms along the bottom, all open to the large square in the middle where the chapel is, along with probably 200 potted red geraniums and other plants, a large arbor with grapevines running overhead, and a fountain coming out of one wall where clear cool water perpetually runs and people take it to drink.

We arrived in the afternoon, during the resting period of the monastery. Thankfully, the chapel was open and we went in to venerate the icon. The sister there did not speak English, but I understood that the nuns were sleeping and we would have to wait. I had written and received permission to stay there 2 nights, but we had arrived a day early and I wasn't sure we would be able to stay. But waiting was alright....

....for awhile. But awhile became one hour and then two, with really nothing for the kids to do. I tried to check in again about staying. This time, there was an English-speaking nun who said we could stay one night, but would have to wait. 2 more hours. Until 6:30. Until AFTER Vespers. Grandma was tired and so was I. Emma was still upset that she had missed the cats that morning at Mystras. And to really make matters worse, we had driven in the very last leg up to the monastery over freshly tarred roads and our shiny new kokkino auftokinito was now kokkino kei mavri (yellow and black), so I was parked in the shade trying to rub spiderwebs of tar off the sides and back of the car with our extra toilet paper. Woo hoo. We had been talking about just heading to the coast for a couple of days' recreation and it was starting to sound better than more of this. Emma especially just wanted to get someplace where she could swim again. Our bathe in Zakynthos had been VERY lovely, and she had discovered that with goggles she can see all sorts of fish in the warm waters.

So I made an executive decision that we would leave. I wanted to go once more to pray at the icon first. When I went in, though, the gift shop was open. A different nun was in there and she was very kind and talkative, and my mood began to change. Her English was about as good as my Greek, so it was great because it forced me to speak it more, and we both enjoyed the challenge of communicating. I went back down to get Grandma and the kids to come see the gift shop, and when we came back up, this nun asked if we wanted to have a room, and brought us to one. Her name Kseni, and she was very nice. A plain room with 5 beds and a washroom around the corner that I could not figure out (flushing the toilet, that is; you never know until you get there around here.)

We went up to Vespers and Paraklesis and Basil and I sat right by the icon. He did pretty well. After this, we were hoping for dinner, but learned that on Fridays they only eat bread and olives because of the fasting. We still had some power bars we brought from home 2 weeks ago (will they ever go away!?) and grandma and the kids headed down to the room for "dinner". A young woman there who spoke English I think understood that we didn't really have much food, and she must have told them because a few minutes later Kseni told me to bring everyone upstairs where they fed us a tomato-orzo soup, fresh sourdough bread, and the most delicious kalamata olives I've ever had (that is the region we are in).

We had a good night's sleep, except for Grandma and the cough she has developed. Happily, we had Liturgy this morning up in the huge new church. I got up and went to part of Orthros earlier, then went down and roused the kids for Liturgy and we all got to take communion. One nun also gave me some pieces of cotton with the myrrh from the icon. Afterwards, I stayed to take photos of the incredible fresoes all over the church. It is kind of rare to find really excellent contemporarily-painted icons. Many of the modern icons are just that -- a little modern, not quite tradtional, or else not of exceptional artistic value. These were really exquisitely done, and by monks. I was snapping shots of feet, hands, details, faces, until an old nun came up scolding me in Greek and telling me to stop taking pictures.

Ancient icons that are in danger of being damaged from flashes, or very holy icons/relics that the nuns or priests do not want photographed, I have no problem leaving it. But in this case, with freshly-painted icons that are so valuable to have pictures of for an iconographer, I am more apt to follow my icon teacher's point of view. He told me when I last came to Greece that they would disallow me from taking pictures, usually, but his philosophy was to take as many as you can get away with. Again, not to cause any potential damage, but if it is for my own study and my conscience is clean, then these holy images don't really belong to any one person or monastery -- they are for all of us. So, snap I did. And I went back a little later when the church was nearly emptly, looked around for the nun and didn't see her. Snapped happily another 25 more until the lady sweeping called the Policewoman of Holy Things from the altar who chewed me out twice as bad. I'm sorry. I went and asked the Panaghia to forgive me and to ruin all my pictures if I shouldn't have them, as I venerated her icon on my way out.

The trip down the mountain was relatively easy. We stopped once to look at a little tiny roadside shrine, which you find all over greece. Sometimes they are more elaborate, but they are usually just a little glass box on a stand with a cross on top, looking like a tiny glass house or church. Grandma commented that people thought they were garbage cans and she had seen several with old water bottles and such in them. I couldn't believe this, so we stopped to look at one. Inside the tiny shrine was an old water bottle filled with olive oil, a bag of incense, a couple of icons, a lighter, an oil lamp, and some tiny candles. Beautiful. Orea.

We made it down to the sea!! Driving through town, we spotted a few hotels and when we hit the water it was just what we wanted, but no hotels in sight, only condos and apartments. On a pretty bare stretch, we came to a restaurant right on the beach and decided to stop for a meal; then I noticed a sign directly across the street: Hotel Aphrodite. I went in and the woman spoke very good Greek, had an open room with four beds (and a kitchenette and shower/bathroom), air conditioning, and free internet !!!!! Wow! We are in heaven. We can walk across the street to the beach or to eat something, there are umbrellas and beach chairs for grandma, and the ocean is very shallow for a long, long time. We had a great splash this afternoon and now I've gotten to spend time catching you all up on our doings here. Grandma has actually gotten a shower and nap and the kids are pretty comfortable in this great little pensione. I think there are maybe only 6 rooms here; it is like a large house with little apartments. The owner, Maria, has two children, a boy Emma's age and an older girl. We are really having a nice relaxing time now.

4km away is a monastery of women and I will go in a few minutes and see if I can catch some of the Esperinos (Vespers) for Sts. Peter and Paul. We plan to go there for Liturgy tomorrow morning, unless they don't have it, in which case there are two churches in town that we can find.

Well, that is it for now. If you leave a comment or send an email to me I can get it for the next couple of days. Signing off in a cooler, breezy Astros, looking through the door at the Mediterranean sea with Grandma organizing upstairs and the kids playing outside. Macrina

FREEDOM!!!

2008-06-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

I wish I could upload the picture of our sporty little yellow kokkino auftokinito (yellow car!), but of course I left the cord that attaches my camera to the computer in Rome, and haven't been able to locate another one. I may get to borrow one tomorrow and fill in the photos for you then from the last few blogs. But let me tell you, we feel like millionaires and the taste of freedom is sweet! Our own set of wheels! Forget waiting hours for the bus and squeezing onto a hot little compartment that costs you $50 with a bunch of other people who stink almost as much as you do! We are FREEEEE!!!!

I am writing from Astros, a beautiful small town on the eastern coast of the Peleponnesus. We arrived earlier today, via a few little adventures.

Leaving Zakynthos Island, we travelled by bus to Corinthos, where we hoped to catch a connecting bus down to Tripoli, which is almost the very center of the Peloponnese. As luck would have it, the wait would be 5 hours. Although I've been advised by several people now to rent a car for this leg of the journey, I was still a little hesitant about driving here where the "rules of the road" are few and far between: basically 1) if you can squeeze through with an inch to spare, it's a go 2) if someone is driving towards you, you better move over a little, and 3) fast is good. However, the prospect of staying with my mother and children at the very bleak bus station in Corinthos with NOTHING really within walking distance except some abandoned cars and a seedy-looking hotel, at the hottest part of the day, was actually a worse option, in my estimation. So I grabbed a toothless cab driver who agreed to play the game of trying to communicate with me and we headed to Loutraki, about 10 minutes away, for a rental car place. We arrived to find it closed, but a quick phone call from him had Mr. Rental driving up on his motorcycle within a few minutes.

The price was not quite as bad as we had worried it would be -- about $100E or $150US dollars for 2 days. I was also afraid it might be an old beater with bad brakes, but it is a brand-new tiny yellow sporty car. Very cute. I was additionally dubious about having to drive a stick shift, but after just a few little jumps going around the block it was just fine. Heading out of town, I suddenly screamed: "Look! Look, down! Everyone!" and that was our encounter with the Corinthian Canal. That thing is WAAAY deep!

We happily headed onto the main highway, (the car guy called it the "autobahn", but I don't think so!) and down the road to Tripoli, revelling in our new-found freedom and the most-welcomed air-conditioner, which we all agree is much better than sliced bread. The roads were perfectly comfortable for me to drive, nothing like the crazy driving in the towns. The sun was setting very slowly and we enjoyed driving through miles and miles of olive groves with silver leaves turning in the breeze, grape vines, charming houses and small family farms. We gradually headed up into the hills, as most of the interior of the Peleponnesus is mountainous. The terrain reminded Emma and I very much of our home in Santa Rosa, and driving south to the monastery in Dunlap. It was simply beautiful.

We stopped at a "Rest Stop" which was actually a very large building housing a restaurant, cafe, bakery, book shop, sundries store, and probably some other things we didn't discover. We spent well over an hour there making calls home, having some dinner, and picking up a few needed items. Grandma Coco discovered souvlaki at this point and she is now a believer; let the record show it. I had some eggplant thing and the kids found gelato again. We decided to drive all the way into Sparta where we wanted to be the next morning for visiting Mystras, an ancient Byzantine town, which was once the administrative center of the Byzantine Empire, under the Paleologos family, I believe. There are some very good frescoes there.

We found a little place called Hotel Cecilia right in town. Basil had had enough travelling for the day and was itching to go to a park. He kept crying and asking for the park we had left back in Rome at Ostello Dante. Even though it was dark by now, and about 9PM, we headed out to go down a few blocks to the little square and fountain nearby. Plenty of people out and about, restaurants just beginning to get lively, like in Italy. Sparta was a much larger and livelier town than I thought it would be. There were a lot of college-age people, lots of modern shops, busy streets. We however, were ready for bed by about 10PM, wanting to get an early start in the morning. As Grandma says, our room was fitting for the place: spartan. Not much besides beds and a tiny bathroom, but it was fine. No mosquitoes, and an air conditioner which we couldn't really figure out.

I got everyone up at 7:00 the next morning and we headed out about 8AM for Mystras, a 10 minute drive. I knew it would be very hot again and terrible on us if we went later in the day. At first, Emilia was tickled with the place. It really is a whole "ghost town" from ancient times, very much intact. Many buildings are well-preserved, and many other little homes and shops are half-falling in. You can, for example, walk up some stairs and stop on a little landing that crumbles away. And there are roads and stairs all over in a honeycomb of antiquity. You can just imagine the bustle, the shops and homes and families that inhabited this place.

Already by 9AM it was getting quite hot and sunny. I was trying to make it to the one active monastery still there and we had been travelling in that direction. The mountain Mystras is on is very steep, thus, all the stairs. They couldn't even have wheeled vehicles here, only donkeys and horses. We could see the monastery but we got to a point where there was a very arduous climb up a series of switchback stairs. Emma had gone ahead and turned back. Basil was insisting he be carried. Grandma needed to rest. I told them to just enjoy the spot there in the shade, a little forested area with lots of places for Emma to explore and climb. I went on up to the monastery myself.

In the old church (from the 1400s? I think?) there was an icon of the Theotokos called "Pantanassa", which is what the monastery is known as. I took pictures of the few fresco fragments and stayed to pray for many people for a little while. I asked the attendant if I could have a blessing from the Gerondissa before heading back down. She brought me down and introduced me to the Abbess, who called one of the English-speaking sisters, Sister Agnes. I actually remembered her from my visit here 12 years ago!

We spoke for some time and she apologized profusely for the restoration mess all around. They gave me some water and juice, and a cookie which I kept for the kids. There are 6 nuns there, and everything they have must be carried up by hand or by their donkey -- all those stairs! I asked Sister Agnes why she chose to come here, and she said that when she began to think of entering the monastic life, this place kept calling to her, so she came. The view from up there of the still plains below, where Sparta lies enrobed in olive fields, was stunningly beautiful. Cats abounded, which she said were important to them because of all the snakes. I asked if there were scorpions and other poisonous things. Of course there were! So I began to think about Emma climbing around those old stones, and decided I had stayed long enough... It was a very refreshing journey.

When I came back down, they had left a note for me under a rock on the path, but were right down below. Emma was SO disappointed that she had not gone with me, especially because of all the friendly cats up there. She wanted so much to go up, but I just didn't have the strength to climb all those stairs again, and it didn't seem like a safe place for Basil and Grandma. A false step would be disastrous -- very sheer drops and no handrails. So we did a little more walking and attitudes and entire worldviews deteriorated with almost every step. The heat was rising, the HUGE red ants were terrifying to Emma, who had on flip-flops, the weird buzzy insects or birds or whatever they are in the trees were ramping up to an intolerable pitch, Basil wanted to be carried again (after leaving his mark on a tree there), and basically, we had had enough of Mystras. We went back to the car and headed down to find something to eat, as we'd had no breakfast really, only coffee.

Notes from Coco (Aka Colleen)

2008-06-25T03:16:00.000-07:00

What an experience this has been! Al, your statement that this would be the trip of a lifetime was definitely an understatement! It has been a blast, exhausting, but well worth! Did Shirley/Macrina tell you that on our way to the Monastary to services,
Basil looked up at me and said "you look like a saint, Grandma!" Ha! He had never seen me in a long skirt and scarf on my head I think! And if any of you said anything about how hot it would be was an understatement, too. However, I'm trucking along and enjoying most minutes of it!

Love ya!
Grandma/aunt Coco/friend

Lovely Zante and Holy Dionysios

2008-06-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

Hello to all from lovely Zakynthos Island, just off the northwest coast of the Peleponnesus. We are all alive and well, despite having "given blood" without permission. The kids in particular have many many mosquito bites. Grandma and I are apparently not so sweet. We brought insect repellant, but it doesn't work too well. This is, we understand, the high season for mosquitos here.

We had a good trip from Ravenna to Zakynthos, via the Regional train, which was hot but not so hot as before, and the another Eurostar trip. This is the deluxe train with air-conditioning and assigned seats. We sat next to a young lady Rachel's age from Colorado Springs whom we enjoyed talking to very much. She had been in Italy for 3 weeks and had another 5 to go, living on farms for 2 wks at a time and studying local agriculture for a cookbook she is writing which de-emphasizes wheat products. An interesting hyphothesis in Italy -- land of the carbfest.

From the train, we walked an exhausting several blocks to find the bus to Zakynthos. We couldn't find the way OUT of the port, initially, and had to squeeze through a locked gate, but after about 15 minutes we reached the little shop with a stop for Zakynthos and got our tickets. Only had to wait an hour for the bus and it was nice and air-conditioned. When we reached the town of Killini an hour away, we got off the bus and walked onto the ferry, leaving our bags. On the other side, we boarded the bus again and it took us to a station where we were able to catch a taxi easily to take us to the monastery Eleftherotria.

I had visited this monastery 12 years ago on my other pilgrimage to Greece. Intending to stay for a few days, I found a great treasure in the elder here, Gerondas Chrysostomos, and ended up staying more than a week with them. Zakynthos Island was occupied by the Venetians for some time and one thing that characterizes the culture here is singing. Among all the monasteries I stayed in on that former trip, this is the one that I felt the most at home in. The nuns sing a lot, there is a lot of laughter and a wonderful "family" feel. The Gerondas, Chrysostomos, had a special love for me when I was last here and I for him. I was so happy to learn that he was still alive and was most anxious to arrive here again.

The great draw of Zakynthos, spiritually, is the much-revered Saint Dionysios, whose relics are found in the large central church. There have been very many healings associated with him, and during his feast day, they carry his relics through the major streets of the town and many who are ill and troubled lay down in the street to have the relics carried over them.

Gerondas was a monk for 50 years attending in this main church with the relics and saw a couple of miracles firsthand. One was a young girl who was born with a spinal defect in which the vertebrae were not properly fused or something (I could not exactly understand). At any rate, she could not stand or sit straight up. She lived in California. She and her mother both had simultaneous dreams in which a man appeared to them and told them to come to Zakynthos where a certain doctor could heal her. After several dreams, they decided to come. They arrived, not speaking Greek, and sought out an English-speaking doctor. He was amazed they would come to Zakynthos seeking medical help when better help would be available in California. But as he listened to their story, he realized that it was St. Dionysios who had called them and he instructed them to go to the church.

When the young girl arrived and entered and saw the relics and icons of St. Dionysios, she jumped from her wheelchair and ran to embrace his relics, saying he was the man who had appeared to her. Many people saw this happen and Gerondas was assigned to the church at this time and saw her, too.

Another man, whom Gerondas knew, was a local boy who had a bad accident. He was shot in the eyes by a hunter when he was a young child. The parents had two choices: one was to operate and remove the eyeballs. This was recommended. The other was to leave the eyeballs intact and risk infection, and thus, his life. They elected to have his eyeballs removed and Gerondas knew him as a blind man in the town here. Twenty years passed and one day on St. Dionysios' feast day, this young man, now grown, laid down with the infirm to have the relics passed over him. As he felt the relics come, he reached up and grabbed the saints' legs (they carry his relics upright in a glass "coffin" during the procession). The police tried to come and dissipate the scene he was creating, but he began yelling: "Give me my sight! St. Dionysios, I will not let go until you give me back my sight!" He was a strong man and they had trouble making him let go. Suddenly, his eyesight was restored and actually new eyeballs appeared in the sockets of his eyes. This was an incredible miracle. The young man was speechless and many, many people came to see his new eyes, including Gerondas.

In 1962 Gerondas decided to build the present monastery. He gathered some nuns and began saving all the money he could to put towards the building. He would take the bus out and dig the foundation for it with his own hands. His shoes were so worn with holes that he put plastic bags inside to protect the soles of his feet.

When you see the monastery today, it is unbelievable to think of him doing this. It is a very imposing structure, beautifully laid out and very large. Like the Elder Ephraim's monasteries I have visited, much care is given to creating a very beautiful space - both interior and exterior. Lovely marble stairs and porticoes, mosaics, frescoes, and decorative paintings, a graceful rose garden, and many lovely bookcases filled with liturgical items such as chalices and Gospel books, as well as patristic writings.

The church is unique. The monastery is named for the Theotokos (Mother of God, Mary) Eleftherotria, which means "freedom". A very large icon painted with oils is central in the church. The painter was in World War II and had a vision of the Mother of God rising above the soldiers and protecting them, covering them, and taking herself the bullets and other weapons that would have wounded them. In the icon which he painted, her robes appear to be moving back like she is in motion, and she has two emblems on her shoulders that look like part of a military uniform. When I was here before, this icon was also here and I remembered it.

But Gerondas has decided to build another church exactly beside the first; they share a wall in common, and a doorway opens between them. The icon Eleftherotria is in one church, and another icon whose history I cannot remember right now is in the second church. It is quite amazing. During the services, one can sit in either church and hear what is being prayed.

They graciously gave us a blessing to stay in the house just behind the monastery grounds which is reserved for family of the sisters who live there. It is very comfortable. We have 2 bedrooms, a sitting room, kitchen, and bathroom -- the whole upstairs. It is a 5 minute walk down to the monastery front gate and just about 2 minutes to the back gate which goes through the vegetable garden and the place where they keep the animals - goats, rabbits, lots of cats, chickens. We have large windows which open like a door to reveal a pair of shutters. These can also be opened to let in the fresh air and show the incredible view of the plains full of olive trees and grapes down below the monastery. I keenly remember this sight during our prayers of Apothipnos (evening prayers, or Compline, I think) which I loved at the end of the day on my last trip. Instead of looking at the icons, we ended the days by gazing at the loveliness of God's creation.

We were expected and greeted very warmly on our arrival, shown our rooms and then walked back down to the monastery to greet Gerondissa Magdalini and Gerondas Chrysostomos and all the sisters. These are titles given to the Abbot/ Abbess of the monastery. We say YEH-rohn-das, or Yeh-ROHN-diss-sah, to mean, spiritual Father/Mother. Gerondissa here is named for St. Mary Magdalene, from the Scriptures. And Gerondas is named for St. John Chrysostom (or, "golden-mouth" for his gift of eloquent speaking). The nun who escorted us was named Kyriaki and speaks perfect English, as do several of the others.

I was so happy to see Gerondissa again and to sit with her and talk a little, and I was overjoyed to finally see Gerondas coming down the hall to see us. He is now 95 years old, but still in good shape. He is hard of hearing, and he says his knees bother him now, but he looked just the same to me. He took to Basil very quickly (as do many people on our trip) and picked him up, played with him. They brought us some dinner -- fried potatoes, Greek salad (cucumber, tomato, fresh onion, olive oil), bread & honey, olives. It was so delicious. Gerondas stayed with us and fed Basil. We had huge chunks of fresh watermelon and all of us finished every drop. It seems ages since we have had fresh fruit!

We walked back up to our home and got showers. In Greece a shower is a tile square on the floor with a hand-held shower nozzle. Functional, and the cool water felt so good. Getting to sleep was quite another matter. It was SO HOT!!!! Lying on the bed doing nothing was uncomfortable and sticky. There was little breeze and we were told there were mosquitoes, so we didn't really have the windows all open, anyway. I didn't care too much about all these things, because I was so happy to be here. But it was hard for all of us to get to sleep.

The other major sleep-inhibitor was the noise. Here we are in the middle of a Greek island, well away from the tourist sections, next to a monastery that is like a spiritual oasis after our hectic sojourns through Italy. And what is next door? Some kind of major party with live music. I rather liked it -- folk music mostly, but at times it was awfully loud. There were other noises, too, like fireworks, occassionally. Underneath these louder human noises were all the animal noises -- dogs barking, birds chirping, and cats yowling. I thought about how happy Christopher would be to try and sleep in that (ha ha). There was also the incessant squeak of the shutters slowly blowing back and forth.

As I was finally settling into the reptilian feeling of wet skin no matter which side I laid on, I was pushed out of bed and onto my feet by a huge BANG! that I thought was someone coming in the door downstairs. We've read too much history of barbarians invading, pillaging, burning, and wreaking havoc throughout these places. I went down and checked the door. Everyone else was sleeping by this point, so I got back in bed. Listening, I heard more of the same sound, but further away. A canon? I swear it was.

Next morning, we got up on the early side and headed down the the monastery for Liturgy. I was so happy for this opportunity since we had missed it on Sunday, there being no Orthodox churches in Ravenna, and no time at any rate. I loved standing in the dark church with the sun beams illuminating the marble floors and faced of countless icons, listening to the Byzantine chant. I could follow quite well where we were in the service and some of the melodies were even a little familiar. I hummed along an ison some of the time. The children and I had communion after all the nuns. We venerated a relic which was out in the middle and I asked who it was at the end. It was St. John the Baptist! I very large piece of bone, about the size of half of my finger. I am used to seeing tiny chips and was amazed that we were venerating his actual bone. Can you imagine that this has stayed intact for 2,000 years?!

After this, Emma went with one of the sisters to help prepare our breakfast. They really have taken her under their wing, and they love her very much. They are extremely affectionate with both children, hugging and caressing them, kissing them, and playing with them. They are both very happy here, and Emilia loves it. She wants to come back again.

Mom and I spent time with Basil in the rose garden and then Gerondas, who had some guests he was chatting with, had us sing some things for him. We sang "The Angel Cried" and some "Christ is Risen" verses. They all liked to hear Emma sing very much. Basil did the ABCs. He asks a lot about icons I am painting, wants to know if I have any orders, and keeps telling me to paint beautiful icons. When I was here before, he had me paint an illumination for a huge book of Prayers and one of the Gospels that he was writing by hand. I also painted another icon of the Theotokos to fit inside a silver repousse icon he had. I asked one of the sisters what all the noise was from the night before -- it was all for the feast of St. John!

We went up for breakfast and then spent some more hours in and around the church, purchasing some things from the gift shop, and spending time with the sisters, especially Kiriaki and Argyros, who speak English very well.

We had a rest in the afternoon and all fell asleep, in spite of the heat. I think it was at this time that the kids basically got eaten alive with bites. I think Emma counted 96 this morning! Emma woke up a little before Basil and Grandma, about 4PM, and went back down to the monastery. We followed a little later, in time for Esperinos (Vespers) at 5PM. After this they went into the other chapel of Eleftherotria and sang the Paraklesis, which they do every night.

Gerondas stopped us in the church afterwards and was talking about Emilia. I cannot understand him, as he does not speak Greek, but Kyriaki was translating for us. He was saying that Emilia is a very good girl, a very beautiful girl. He was telling me that I must dedicate her to God, and that a life in God is better than anything. Kyriaki was crying and so was I. It was a very moving moment. He said that he sees something of what her life will be, or who she will become.

Gerondas then took us with him to show us the Evangelismos (Gospel Book) he had finished. I had asked especially to see it, since it was in progress 12 years ago. It took him 4 years of steady work to write this all out by hand, and every page has beautiful illuminations on it. The book weighs 18 kilos (probably 15 lbs) and is huge -- about 24" x 30" or so. It was bound with a cover that was a piece of art itself with all the metal work showing icons of the life of Christ.

After this, he took us upstairs into the room I spent so much time in before, an enclosed porch which overlooks the olive groves. There, he gave us an icon and gave a small icon of the Theotokos in particular to Emma, saying that he wants her to put it by her bed. He reiterated what he had said to me downstairs and also spoke very directly to her saying, "I want you to remember me when you see this icon. I want you to pray for me." She began to weep. Then I asked if he might give me his compeskini (prayer rope) as he had done this last time and I'd lost it in the airport. He called me to him and gave it to me off his wrist, holding my hand and saying, "Hold this. Hold onto this; pray with it. Pray for me and remember me, for I will die soon. You will be back here, but I will be gone. Remember to pray for me." Kyriaki and I were both crying at this time and I was deeply moved.

We visited for some time longer and then had our dinner. Fried potatoes from their garden again, and "horta" or greens as a special request. They had wanted to know what we would especially like, and it is what came to my mind. The food here has been so simple and so delicious. It is a fasting period, so it is all vegetables. For this night, they had found beets in the garden and cooked the greens with the roots for us. It really hit the spot!

We passed another night with all the mosquitoes and poor Emma was quite miserable. Grandma is enduring the heat pretty well, although it is tough on all of us. Today we got up and after breakfast they called a taxi for us. We went and venerated St. Dionysios in the big church and then went into town, in search of a cell phone. No can do. They don't have any until Friday. So we got a phone card instead and will try to make calls later tonight. Lively town here, pretty fun. Emma cannot wait to get to the beach. Grandma and I probably can, as it sounds like there is not much shade there. Well, we will see. We head back to the monastery for Vespers and dinner, then tomorrow we depart Zakynthos.

We will probably take everyone's advice and get a car tomorrow in Patras. By bus, it is virtually impossible to get around to both Sparta (where Emma really wants to go) and then on to Malevi Monastery, where they are expecting us. The nuns say they will feel "safer" for us to have our own car while on the Pelepponesus. So extra prayers are requested!!

Well, I will sign off on this long post. We have really enjoyed our first leg of the Greece Adventure and look forward to seeing Nikos, Maria, Fr. Nicholas, Gabriel, and of course Christopher in less than a week now.

Signing off from a cute little internet cafe in Zante. It is hot, yes!
Macrina

En route to Greece

2008-06-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

We said goodbye to Ostello Dante yesterday, but I think we took a lasting reminder with us in the form of bedbugs. Emma in particular has a number of large bites, Basil and I both have a couple of them. We found a spider in our bed as we were leaving and hopefully that's all we've got. I've read that bedbugs are pretty bad and sometimes hard to get rid of. At least the bites are not bothering us.

Other than that, I can say that we all enjoyed our stay there. Walking up to it, even I was rather dubious, but it proved to be very homey and so nice to be able to spread out. The living room area was spread with large Middle Eastern pillows and wall hangings, there was a large cafeteria-style dining room and a huge gameroom with foosball and an area with toys for Basil to play, not to mention the park on one side and the grocery store on the other. All in all it was very convenient. We briefly considered staying a little longer, but as it would have meant cutting something else out, we decided to press on. We took the train into Ancona on Sunday morning. I had hoped we could visit a Catholic church in the morning (no Orthodox churches in Ravenna!) but there were none close enough for us to walk, and we left on the early side.

I am now writing from the ship en route to Greece. I have never been on such a luxury rig before. It is extremely comfortable here. We were upgraded to a 4-bunk cabin from a 2-bed one, because of the kids. The room is small, but certainly enough for us. There is a pool onboard with saltwater and a few options for meals. The cost of things is exorbitant -- I'm paying ten dollars US for an hour on the computer and our dinner last night cost 75 US for 3 orders of potatoes, 2 chicken, 1 pork, a plate of tzatziki, a salad, and 2 desserts, all taken cafeteria style. We saved over some extra chicken and the tzatziki and one dessert which I will have for lunch while the rest share a gyro. Money goes way too fast here, of course, but we have been fairly conscientious and careful about not over-spending.

Our trip on the train from Ravenna to Ancona, where we caught the boat, was much better than the ride from Rome to Ravenna. It seems by leaving earlier in the day we missed the ''Hades Express''. It was still hot, but not THAT hot. Also, handling the stairs up and down was easier, partly because it was the first of the day, and partly because we knew what to expect. You basically have to go down one level below the street to come back up on the proper track line. In the major cities they are apt to have an escalator for this journey, but in the smaller towns it is just stairs. I guess handicapped people just can't ride the trains here in the smaller towns.

After transferring in Rimini, we sat near a very nice student from America who Grandma, in particular, really enjoyed talking to. She was travelling around to spend a few weeks at various farms throughout Italy, studying food and cultivation. Her goal was to write a gluten-free Italian cookbook. Interesting thesis, in the land of the Great Carb! It was very refreshing to talk with someone who spoke our language, though!

I slept for 12 hours last night and could have stayed in bed even longer. I guess the exhaustion caught up with me. But this morning we are all feeling pretty good. Emma has made some friends here. Smiles and play are universal languages, too. It is a very international travel experience and the announcements are given in Greek, Italian, German, English, and French.

The sea around us stretches as far as you can see, a beautiful deep blue. I am not seasick, thank God, as I am prone to it.

One thing I did not mention before is that live musicians come around periodically in Italy. While we were eating dinner, and even on the subway, men came around with accordians, singing and playing, then passing a hat around for a tip. It was actually very charming. We also had people selling whatever they could carry coming around to our tables at dinner one night. This surprised me as we were not in a tourist area. It was a great experience in Italy, but I am looking forward to getting onto ''Greek soil'' as our friend Maria says.

Macrina singing off from the Aegean Blue, in a nicely air-conditioned ship.

Day in Ravenna

2008-06-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

This morning we decided to take our time. Grandma and the kids got laundry going and played over in the park next door during the mandatory time of leaving the hostel (11 - 2:30). I took the bus into town to find the lay of the land, so to speak.

The receptionist here kept assuring me yesterday that it was an easy walk into town, 15 - 20 minutes, and that once there things would be obvious. Well, not so for me. Luckily, I decided to take the bus anyway and am very glad I did.

The center of Ravenna is really wonderful. Cars are not allowed on many of the streets and a large percentage ride bicycles. The narrow streets are lined with cute boutiques and shop, peppered with lively squares where people gather to chat, and of course the incredible monuments that people come to see: 5 major churches from around the 5th- 8th centuries housing some of the best Byzantine mosaics in the world.

I made my way to St. Apollinaire and Galla Placidia, which you can look up on the internet and get lots of information for. The interior space of St. Apollinaire is incredible. It is a HUGE church and it has not only the famous mosaics of Sts. Justinian and Theodora, but also incredible designs all over the floor, including the model that Emma and I used to do a mosaic project in our homeschooling. That was pretty incredible to see. Galla Placidia is a tiny little chapel just a short walk across the lawn, very intimate. This is the one with all the lovely doves drinking from bowls, and the Christ the Good Shepherd. When you first walk into the nave and look up at the low ceiling it is covered with brilliant stars on a dark blue background. Just stunning.

Leaving the church, I needed to get back to Grandma and the kids and tried to follow directions to a bus, which I'd gotten at the information center where I was able to borrow a bike and get around a little better. My feet were hurting already from some blisters. I could not find either a place to buy the bus ticket, or the bus stop. So I walked in what I thought was a good direction.

However, I got out of the quaint old town and down a boring, hot residential highway-street with nothing to commend itself. It took me an extra long way around the city center before I got back to the train terminal where both buses and taxis can be gotten. I'd say it was probably a 3 mile walk altogether, which I should be able to take in stride, but I am so far behind in the fitness department with my break a few weeks ago from all walking, that it was quite arduous.

At any rate, I did get back at long last and hired a cab to take me "home". A little later, we all made it back down into town and visited a couple of the churches with mosaics and just enjoyed hanging out in the squares and having some more gelato and the local specialty, padina, which is a kind of folded over sandwich which was very good. Alas, we could not find a restaurant for our last Italian meal. I had been looking forward to ordering saltimbocca, but we were just too tired and ended up with roasted chicken from the grocery store. It hit the spot.

For now, that's it. Signing off in a warm but alright Ravenna at almost 9PM. I am so sticky you wouldn't believe it! As Grandma says: I won't really be clean and dry until I get back to Seattle. Ain't that the truth!

Catacombs, Dante's Inferno, and Total Funk

2008-06-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

After rather a push, we did get all packed up Thurs. evening so that we could get an early start the next morning. We didn't get to bed until after midnight. We had semi-Turkish take-away for a quick meal because we had to walk down to the restaurant of the night before and retrieve Emma's backpack. At any rate, we slept, woke, and hit the road again.

By now we are quite proficient with the bus system in Rome and we know the numbers of those that come near our hotel. We have also gotten the system of hefting ourselves up into the bus without mishap. Basil narrowly missed getting shut in the door getting off once, but thankfully his guardian angel was watching. A ticket has to be purchased beforehand from the Tabbachiano or "tabacco store" where they sell all sorts of odds and ends.

So Friday morning we stopped in and got a little typical Italian breakfast at the cafe 2 doors down from our hotel. Filled croissant and a drink. We got a latte and it comes in a little cup which you simply drink at the bar and go on your way. It was very good. Italians don't go in much for breakfast, I understand. At our hotel they provided a breakfast of the same croissants filled with jams and then some panini bread, cured meats, hard cheese, hard little toasts (kind of like large melba toast) and jam/butter. The way they made the coffee was in one of those silver espresso makers that go on the stove. It was served as a shot of espresso with a pitcher of warm milk that you can add in yourself.

We got to San Giovanni square where we made a connection to another bus. That sounds so simple, doesn't it? But actually, this is what it was like. Here comes the number 3; it is very full. Okay, Basil! Get out of your stroller right away and hold grandma's hand. Emma, get ready to hop up quick before they leave without us. Okay, grandma, get Basil, I'm getting the stroller folded up and the bag slung on my shoulder. We all hop up and grab a bar just in time before the bus lurches forward pitching all bodies backwards violently and then forwards. It's rather a miracle that none of us fell the entire time. You'd think a bus, being a large mass, would perhaps drive a little more gingerly in Italy, right? Well, no. It's really crazy. Meanwhile, I have to make my way up to the front to get our ticket punched. It took me quite some time and some help from bystanders to get it into the machine initially, but now I've got it down.

Mom: Now where are we getting off?
Macrina: San Giovanni Square.
Mom: Where is that?
Macrina: I don't know.

Thus commences the process of trying to communicate to those around me until I'm relatively sure I've both been A) properly undrstood and B) the informant has a higher chance of being right than wrong. We did, however, make it without mishap onto the next bus, which took us to the Catacomb of San Callixtus.

I cannot describe the experience of this marvel fully in the brief time I have this morning. It was as profound as I knew it would be. The grounds around the Catacomb are beautiful and peaceful. There are several different excavations around the Appian Way, or the ancient road out of Rome. It is on this road that Christ appeared to St. Peter as he was fleeing his martyrdom. Christ told him, "I will be crucified twice if you flee." and he returned to face it in the square we saw the previous day at St. Peter's Basillica/Vatican. The excellent guide we had described the scene to us: The Emperor had constructed a huge track for games and part of the "halftime entertainment" was the execution of the Christians. There had been a terrible fire in the city and the people had risen against Nero, who had probably planted the fires in order to re-build Rome. He turned to the strange cult of the Christians as a scapegoat - those strangers who were cannibalistic, as they were commonly misunderstood then. So during the games he ordered executions en masse, and sometimes even used bodies of Christians dipped in tar to provide illumination at night. At any rate, St. Peter's turn came there and he was crucified upside-down at his request, feeling he was unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord.

During these years of the Roman Empire generally from the 3rd to 5th Centuries, the bodies of martyrs and the early popes were buried in the Catacombs, labyrinthine tunnels dug into the ground. Roman law forbid people from being buried within the city walls. They also considered burial ground as sacred space, whether for Jews, Christians, or others. This made it a place where the Christians could gather to worship as well as pay their respects to those who had died.

On our guided tour we climbed down about 1.5 flights of stairs into the underground tunnels. We saw many of the shelves and enclaves where bodies would have been placed horizontally with a marble slab put in place like a cap over the opening. These often bore the names of the dead, carved in Latin or Greek, according to the needs of the families. The gravediggers also sometimes added paintings and some of the earliest Christian frescoes that we know of are here AND WE SAW THEM!!!! We saw the 3 boys in the fiery furnace, fish symbols, the Good Shepherd, and some orans figures (in the position of prayer with arms upraised). This is also the tomb in which the martyr St. Cecilia was buried. She has an amazing story which I won't recount here. A sculpture of her body in the position it had been found when first opened was laying in a crypt with lampadas hung above it. It was an amazing experience. I wish I could have taken pictures, but they are not allowed.

After a 30 minute tour, we walked down about 3/4 mile to the church of Quo Vadis? whereChrist appeared to St. Peter during his flight. We had several minutes to kneel in the quiet church and pray for people. I was really enjoying this and beginning through a long list of people to pray for: Eleni, Peter, Maria, Fr. Brendan, Mat. Magdalen... and then Basil says: I have to go potty. Now he has been potty-trained over the last 2 weeks and when he has to go, it has to be done. So out of the church he and I went, in search of a bathroom.

The church is on an extremely busy street (Appia Antica) of cobblestones with a sliver of sidewalk and cars whizzing past. It's beautiful countryside around, but this is a pretty busy vein of traffic and walls rise on either side of the highway (very old ones). There are not many other buildings in site. I realize with the flash of inspiration, that Basil is a BOY!! And boys have certain conveniences that girls do not. Great!, I think. This will be a snap. There is a convenient corner next to a gate so we troop over. Okay, Basil, here is a defining milestone for you. He seemed somewhat bewildered, but I assured him that yes, he could go potty RIGHT here. How hard could it be? Harder than I thought, having never done this before. We really missed Daddy at this moment. I didn't realize that there is a certain skill of aiming that must be cultivated in the young male. Needless to say, the back of his pants and one shoe were completely saturated, but I think we did manage to get some of it on the ground. Better luck next time.

It took some doing to find the bus stop back into town. We were at a different location because of our walk and I excitedly announced that we'd be passing the Pyramid (burial chamber for some wealthy Roman -- covered in marble and about 2 stories high in the middle of Rome!) which Emma had really wanted to see, AND we would be taking the METRO!! Grandma's face was less than anticipatory at this thought, but it seemed to me like one of those things one ought to do before leaving. Pyramid was pretty neat. Metro was not. (And who would have expected it to be?) Dirty, dingy, fast, and functional. I was fine with it, the kids were oblivious, and Grandma was pretty mortified. Well, at least it was short and... um.... savory.

We transferred to yet another bus and made it back "home". Our host Dominic gave us our held-over breakfast to have for lunch, called us a cab, and carried our bags down for us. We arrived at the railway in good time.

Inside, a man from Macedonia begged for a penny from me for bread (not sure whether it was for him or for children there) Anyhow, I gave him a Euro (Actually, my friend Dominica gave him a Euro!) and then asked if he could tell us where some seats were. My Mom was quite tired and I didn't want to make her stand for an hour. He escorted us to the Mc Donald's downstairs where we bought 2 drinks and a small ice cream for about $8, but I would have paid $10 for the seats. In good time we made it up to our train and found the right car to get onto. Now, we are supposed to be travelling "light" but this is what we have: I carry a backback that is now probably 20lbs. Basil's stroller (when we can use it) carries a shoulder bag with essentials like my camera and instructions of where we're going that weighs another 3-4lbs. and his small backpack with his essentials. Emma has a roller bag and whatever food bag we are currently toting. Grandma has a roller bag with detatchable backpack that probably weighs 25lbs altogether. And we have an additional backpack of stuff that won't fit in the other bags. This is an awful lot to heft around, sometimes up and down very steep stairs.

At the proper car, we got in the first door, only to find that we had to squeeze down the TINY passageway (like in an airplane) with all our baggage to the last seats right near the door at the back of the car. Duh! This train ride was fine, in an airconditioned car (which means something a little different than what we are used to -- by about 15 degrees). The next train ride, however, was our own personal descent into hell.

Now, Dante is buried in Ravenna. This fact excites me a little, and I do hope we will be able to see his grave today. As you must know, he is famous for writing the great works of Paradise and the Inferno, in which he describes the various levels of hell quite graphically. I am sure on another reading of the Inferno, I would find the local Italian trains listed there somewhere. Maybe around the 4th or 5th level. Although on paper it looked like a short final leg of the journey from Rome to Ravenna, in reality it entailed getting to the other platform for the train -- down a large flight with all those bags and back up another with all those bags, and then getting on a new sauna disguised as a train. Really, it was. I'd say it must have been at least 90-95 degrees in there. No sun, sure, but it was like a sardine can (yes, it was, really, at least in our compartment. It's funny, you pass by these chic Italiano women and there is a faint cloud of pleasant scent. We haven't gotten that part, Mom and I.) My poor Mom was literally dripping.

I was, too; Basil's hair was sopping wet and plastered to his head. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for 1.5 hours for our stop. We sang "Bingo" and the "Monkeys on the Bed". At one point, I'm not sure if Basil was delirious or not, but he started singing his own version of this rhyme: "5 little monkeys, jumping on the bed. One is named Michael and hit his little head. Another little monkey named St. Peter....."

We finally made it off the bus and up yet another taxing flight of stairs (which I still have to take one at a time because of my broken leg, but it's getting better and I can almost do them normally now , a few more days I think). Outside in the Italian heat of the day it felt like a refigerator to us. We got in a lovely airconditioned new cab and he turned on English rock and roll. Yeah. That was alright! He drove us to our hostel and Mom said, "THIS is it??! Oh, uh, it looks interesting." After a drive through this charming, calm town lined with trees, we arrived at a building that was rather dilapidated-looking, a transplant from the worst era of architecture, if you can call it that, of the early 70's. Big boxy windows, tired old cubes of concrete, covered in dinge. I was afraid that either they wouldn't have our reservation or else it would be simply intolerable. Neither proved true, thank God. I did have a small moment of breakdown while telling the "receptionist" (who has a sign saying "If I end up in hell, at least all my friends will be there." on her wall.) that we just couldn't go up another flight of stairs. I got a little weepy. But she said they have a lift (elevator) here, which solved it.

She gave us the largest room with 5 beds so we have plenty of space to spread out. Emma and I went across the street to the grocery store and got a simple collection for dinner: grilled veggies (yes!) and lasagna from the deli, a hunk of parmesan for Emma, some yogurt, weird-looking cookies, limonata drink, some fresh mascarpone.

There is a large complex of common area here on the main floor with lots of things for us to use, a washing machine downstairs, and a huge park right next door that the kids got to go play in late last night for a few minutes.

We had a good night's sleep and will have a pretty relaxing day today. This is a totally funky place, but our jaws dropped when we heard that the total for 2 nights was 101E (about $150) which is an incredibly good deal for what we are getting, for all of us.

I need to sign off now. Grandma is having a hard time deciphering the washing machine, and Emma is itching to go to the park. I am anxious to get out and find the way into town so we can go down and see the mosaics.

Ciao for now!

In peaceful, pretty Ravenna, where we'd like to stay another night.... maybe we will alter our plans, maybe not. Trees and open space... ahhh. Muggy already at 9AM. Macrina

Rome Day 2: Vatican

2008-06-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

We changed our minds and did end up going to the Vatican today. We are all glad we did. First let me say that we had a really wonderful typical Italian meal the night before. It was a pretty interesting walk around our neighborhood here before we found it. Initially Mom had been dubious about going out at night, but we decided to "While in Rome... do as the Roman's" and give it a try. Most people (of all ages) come out in the cooler evening hours and it is pretty common for people to have dinner after 8PM. It is a very different way of life from what we are used to. But we found it works very well in this climate. Emma loved her Spaghetti Blanco. Mom had another pasta with tomato and basil, and I had a pesto on orichette "little ears" which was made with walnut. It was delicious.

After that, we made the much-anticipated run for gelati. Emma chose strawberry, Grandma got coffee, I got Nutella, and Basil got chocolate, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

After a good night with quite a bit of sleep, we went the next day to the Vatican. We are short on time, since we missed the Catacombs yesterday. We already bought tickets for our train to Ravenna this afternoon and we need to get going so that we have a little time there before heading back to say "ciao" to Rome. The Vatican really was amazing. We had a fabulous tour and viewed a number of the art pieces. She gave us a lot of history and a great appreciation for the Sistine Chapel before we viewed it. The highlight for Emma and I was going down into the crypt where all the popes are buried, along with the tomb of St. Peter. It was a very moving experience for both of us. Unlike the magnificent church above, we both felt that this simple chapel underground was the real heart of the Vatican and it brought us to tears.

We also rode the open air bus tour 2 full times and got a great overview of the city. We got off in the afternoon after a long day and found another gelato shop near the Trevi Fountain, which was more beautiful than I thought it would be.

Signing off in sunny Rome at 7AM! Macrina

P.S. All the waitresses here love Basil and pick him up and pinch his cheeks and everything. They all try to get him to say simple words like "Ciao", which of course means "Bye" (and also "Hi" I think). He has sort of half-gotten it and says: "Bye-bye chow!".

First Day in Rome: AKA The Marathon

2008-06-18T21:57:00.001-07:00

Here is the lovely beginning of a pretty incredible day that was more arduous than we realized it would be. Our first night in Rome passed well but with our bodies raring to go at around 3-4AM we were a little behind at the get-go of our tour of the ancient core of Rome: The Palatine Hill, Forum, and Colloseum. Let it be known that I was not really dumb enough to choose a walking tour like this on our first day. However, the tour was full on Thurs. and this was our only choice.

After getting on the bus going the wrong way, we finished our unexpected tour of the outside of the Borghese area. I pointed out the hotels without graffiti that we could have stayed in for hundreds of dollars per night. Very posh area. And beautiful. We made it down to the Colloseum. It is true: the first side of that edifice is absolutely breathtaking and beautiful.

We had a really incredible walk up the Palatine Hill to begin with. Our guide, Graham, showing us the sites of the imperial palaces and recounting historical tidbits along the way. The hill is rich with history, beginning with the legend of Romulus and Remus beginning here with the spot where the she-wolf found the twin boys and nursed them.

It is a bit of a hike with stroller and 3-year old, but not strenuous, and the stroller went well over this part of the journey. It was still morning and really a beautiful walk. An unexpected thrill was seeing a newly-excavated home of Augustus, which contains incredible fresco fragments. The well-preserved reds were brilliant, and some very delicate fairy-like mythological figures and whisps of horses were visible along the top. Incredible ruins and fragments of ancient history were all around us. The kids clambered on pieces of columns probably more than 2,000 years old.

One of the more memorable sites pointed out to us was the Vomitorium. No kidding. Exactly what it sounds like. And entire room was devoted to helping the Emporer's guests make it through some of the more sumptuous banquets -serious gastronomique marathons which entailed getting through 40-50 courses over many hours, each dish representing a territory Rome had conquered. This is it to the left. In order to make it through, guests would retire to the Vomitarium when completely satieted partway through their meal and slaves with long sticks tipped with feathers would, as Emma elegantly puts it, "tickle it out". After that, they'd go back and do it again... repeatedly. Just unbelievable that these kinds of extreme excesses were the norm for humans at any time in history!

At the top of the hill, we were rewarded with incredible views of both the city of Rome and the Forum down below us. At this point, the sun was really beating down and it was approaching 11AM. We were all feeling laggy at this point and little did we know the more difficult half lay in front of us.
We descended the Palatine Hill, which was actually more difficult for me due to my broken leg of 5 weeks ago than the ascent had been. It has been going very well so far, with just a little tenderness left over, but the thing that has not fully healed is my ankle and I still have to take stairs one step at a time. We were hot and sweaty by this time, and beginning to tire.

I wish I'd been more alert for the next part of the tour, the Ancient Forum ruins. Huge paving stones which were actually part of the ancient Via Sacra (Holy Way) which Emperors and triumphant generals trod in pomp and circumstance, are still intact, and most unfriendly to strollers. Basil was a real trouper, as was Emma, and neither complained in the oppressive heat and all the walking. I haven't time to recount the incredible history and ruins we saw, but here are just a couple more pictures.

After the Forum, we had the great privilege of visiting the Mamartine Prison, in which St. Peter was imprisoned when the angel came and miraculously broke his chains. It is known as St. Peter in Chains. Stairs descend to a small grotto with a very low ceiling. I didn't catch what everything was there, but it was most obviously a small prison. A hole in the ceiling is where prisoners were let down - in St. Peter's day it was the only entrance.

Our guide announced that we would now leave for our final destination: the Colloseum. Had I known that it would be such a long walk in the blazing sun down the sidewalk of a major street, I probably would have said goodbye to the small group and cut our losses. We were all extremely tired by this point. To me, that walk literally felt like the final leg of a marathon. Everything ached, I was tired, hot and sweaty. We had not eaten much that morning, trying to get out as early as we could, so the yogurt was long gone by that time and it was 1PM.

We finally did make it, however, and I must say it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Thinking of all the martyrs who died here, the soberness of the place coupled with the grandeur of the building itself really was something I will remember for a long time.

We had a wonderful evening back near our hotel which I'll write more about later. For now, it is already 8AM and we are going to grab some breakfast here then head off for our next day of adventure. We are considering axing the Vatican. I know it's a shame, but our pace is not very swift and if we need to rest again in the afternoon, we can only choose one thing to see. My priority is the Catacombs, so we plan to head out there this morning.

Macrina signing off in a very pleasant and sunny Rome.

Some photos En Route and Arrival in Rome

2008-06-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here we are all ready to go at about 5:30AM from Seattle. Don.t we look chipper?

By the way, Daddy, Emma wanted her hair cut before we left. It was a quick job at 5AM, but she looks like a pixie again, which isn.t a bad thing. Maybe next month Michael can tidy it up for her, since he is the resident hairdresser.

It was a very long day of travelling. In all, it was 27 hours of travelling with a rather difficult night.s sleep the night before and only about 3 hrs of pretty good sleep en route. Basil got a bit more.

Basil with his cute little backpack boarding the plane. And then keeping busy like a good boy at the airport. He ran around that fountain about 100 times.

Arrival at our hotel. The "view" out our window.

Sorry for the sideways photos. I.ll try to figure that out later. This is the street we are on, which was so hard for the taxi driver to find. Small wonder. I could never have found it.

This is the building across the street from us, and looks similar to our own front door. It looks worse from the outside than it does from the inside. As my friend Kathy wrote: 3 cheers for Grandma Coco!! I was remembering last night how my Dad.s first comment to Mom after her announcement that she wanted to come with us: "This isn.t going to be the kind of travel you.ve ever done before. It.s not going to be a cruise." Travelling this way is what is allowing us to make this trip, anyway. We couldn.t afford a lot of the touristy places. Rome is a very expensive city, and most especially there.

Although the neighborhood does look rough, it doesn.t feel that way to me. Lots of college kids and a true working class neighborhood. It is so much more fun to be with real Italians than with a bunch of tourists like us. We have plenty of that society en route from one place to another. We went out and had our first Italian "fast food" last night which was about 12 kinds of different pizza we just pointed at to order. Here is Grandma enjoying a piece and probably talking about that taxi driver. It was great. I had something with eggplant and some spicy little pockets, maybe some anchovy. The rest had plain cheese. Our host Dominic was very helpful and got us all set up with great maps for the local busses. Our room is very comfortable.

Here is a not-great view of our room. It is actually very nice and the beds were comfortable. We all went to bed at 10pm and we all woke up around 3-4 AM basically ready to get up, especially Basil. We all snoozed until about 5AM and have been getting ready this morning. Lots of night noise, especially traffic but also people cheering now and then probably from a local taverna. It didn.t really quiet down until about 2AM.

Our digits and limbs tally is not the greatest, but it could be worse. Mom's (HEY I just found the apostrophe! Yea!) finger was worse this morning and we did some small operations on it. We've salved it with antibiotic ointment from the pharmacist and St. John's holy oil. My leg-foot is doing very well. Both kids have all fingers and toes intact. We are off to say prayers and then out into Rome!

Signing off at 7AM in a muggy but not hot, graffiti-filled Rome.

Rome - We Have Arrived!

2008-06-17T12:18:00.001-07:00

Our First Impressions of Rome

Emma: I wasn.t very comfortable at first, because there.s a lot of people that would steal luggage and cars won.t stop when you try and cross the road and things like that aside, and it didn-t help when a taxi driver asked for too much money. Now I.m okay with it, though, if I.m not carrying any valuables.

There is a LOT of graffiti but some of the buildings are very beautiful. And you can see old ruins of walls and such just driving down the street. I.m off to write in my journal.

Colleen AKA Coco: By the time we got to Rome we were all pretty tired. Macrina-Shirley with her determination question-asking and leadership helped us get some Euros finally at the airport and found out where to buy tickets for the train into Rome from the airport. In coming into town I loved seeing the scenery and old walls and brickwork. When we were ready to get a taxi i enjoyed Shirley-Macrina.s interchange with the taxi driver who said he would charge us what the meter said although shirley said she would pay him 12 dollars. There was much discussion amongst the taxi drivers, but we went with the first one, giving him 3 maps and directions. nevertheless he stopped three or four times to ask for directions and we saw that the meter read $9.80 at the end. he stopped the car and said we owed him $19.80 - $10 extra for his handling of the bags. We ended up paying him $15. It was a pretty interesting conversation between he and Shirley.

our room is charming. not what i expected, however, it suffices, and Shirley with her optimistic attitude has made this whole experience an adventure. The drivers in this city are appalling. Watch out, if you come. It felt like he was driving 60mph down a road only one car-width wide with people walking down the street and cars and motorcycles pulling in and out, stopping to ask directions again. When I asked him if people get killed here very often his only response was, "yes.". Of course his radio was loud enough for all the pedestrians and shop owners along the way to enjoy it. Rome is going to be a wonderful experience. Hopefully we will get some sleep now.

Basil: I want to go home!

Macrina: They covered it pretty well. We are staying in the San Lorenzo District, which is near the university and a college area. I am thrilled with our hotel. I much prefer this - a real Italian neighborhood - to hanging out in the tourist spots. We walked around several blocks and I learned how to use all 4 keys to get in and out.

Tomorrow we head out early in the day for a tour at the Collosseum and on to the Catacombs. Will report in more later. Sorry for all the typos. It took me no less than 15 minutes to figure out how to type in the @ sign so that I could use any of my accounts. Still haven.t mastered the Euro symbol and capitals. Can.t find the apostrophe at all!

Signing off in slightly muggy Rome at 9:30PM our time, and probably almost noon your time. We are definitely ready for it to be 9pm, though! Goodnight!

...And Miles to go before we sleeeeep.....

2008-06-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

Is it only 1:30?!

For those with a need to know, we have arrived safely at our first destination -- Vancouver, Canada, which we could have driven to in about 2 hours. It was a pretty spectacular flight in a small propeller plane over the San Juans. We noticed that those of you in Port Townsend where under a light cloud cover this morning around 8. All around you was sunny and clear. We have had 9 hours to pass here (ho-hum) and only about half of those are gone.

Mom and I are holding up pretty well, once we got over the shock of paying $8 for a hamburger and then realizing the American dollar is actually worth LESS than the Canadian right now! The lady held up my $10 bill and said: "This is $9.00." Can't get much more blunt than that. Needless to say, we've bought nothing else besides lunch.

Basil had a near breakdown around 9AM, probably having just realized on some primordial level that he had been up since about 5:30AM. For some reason the idea of going through security for the second time just wasn't the frosting on his cake this morning. Nevertheless, he made it through alright and is still truckin'. Yes, we have another Energizer Bunny in the family besides me!

I was rather excited about the prospect of yet again re-arranging our packing so that the 4 quart-sized bags filled with liquids which theoretically weigh about a pound each (but in reality seem to be about 3# each) could be broken up into the bags with rollers. Imagine my disappointment when the thought crossed my mind: "Surely we don't have to go through a THIRD security check in England, do we?" Of course, we do! I am just thankful I thought of it beforehand and we didn't have to scramble through our 3 main bags in between planes at Heathrow trying to retrieve all those cute little bottles of shampoo and hand cleanser.

Emma wants to keep all the empty shampoo bottles for her American girls. Yeah, right! (Sorry, Rachel Urner!) Mom and Emma did defy express orders this afternoon and purchased 2 keyrings. I guess you only live once....

We are hanging out for another delightful 4 hours in the airport before heading to the next plane. As airports go, our friend Mark Warns was right, Vancouver is pretty darn nice. But there's only so many times you can admire the lovely indoor gardenscaping before you realize most of the plants are actually plastic, and you begin to think of how many germs are floating in the rippling "river" that is filled with coins from all over the world that your son is putting his hands in.... On the upside, I've had plenty of time to organize all my papers and the day's activities largely aren't any more taxing than taking Basil to the bathroom. We met some Japanese people whom we couldn't really communicate with, but Basil did some pictures for the ladies who were enaptured with him, making them even more enraptures. One of the older gentlemen brought over a scrap of paper with some Japanese writing for Emma. Of course I couldn't understand it at all, except the numeric date. But he had happened to use an old music score. Now THAT I could read. So I walked back over and sang the melody to him. He was thrilled. The universal language. A Hallmark moment. I got that he is a composer and that they played some of his music at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Probably the highlight of our morning was when we landed here. The stewardess was saying: "Thank you for flying Horizon air. Please remain seated blah-dee blah-dee blah dee blah.... and please refrain from smoking... for the rest of your life." There was dumbfounded silence for a split second then many of us started laughing. It's a joke here. Were we landing in Rome or Greece, it might incite a riot, I suppose.

Know that we are all well. I think we'll all be in good frame to sleep on the next flight. I hope we do. We land in England at about noon their time, which is something like 3AM for us. We have 1 hour to make our connecting flight to Rome, arriving there at 4PM their time which is about 7AM our time.

I believe our hotel has a computer. If so, I'll write again from there. If not, I won't be able to post for maybe a week.

Thanks all for your well-wishes!

From warmish Canada. Tired, bored, but doin' just fine. Macrina

We Have Miles to go before we sleep...

2008-06-16T05:19:00.001-07:00

5AM the day of departure.

Yesterday Fr. Nicholas spoke of the "holocaust of God's love" coming to the apostles on Pentecost. I also had a wonderful chat with my step-daughter about my favorite author, Flannery O'Connor whom she has just discovered, that great fiery "prophet of grace".

This makes me think of the brilliant conflagration of God's goodness and mercy toward us. The fire of His unimaginable Presence through the Holy Spirit, falling upon the chosen disciples. The flame of the Spirit, the bursting into tongues and the annihilation of all that was once "known" to these fishers of men being swallowed by the reality of the indwelling of God.

In a very real sense, that is what we seek.

Our bags are packed. We have WAY TOO MUCH STUFF!!! At this rate, we cannot afford to buy a blessed thing which is not consumable for the next month. And yes, I'm with my mother and my youngest daughter, who vie for the position of "Queen of Kitsch" and are constantly attracted by all things that shimmer and shine, whether or not they already have one of them in a different color. We will simply have to "drip" along the way and leave a trail of used story books and extra socks in our wake.

I pray that Godwill dwell in us, that He will enwrap and enflame us with His presence. May we be blessed to follow in some of the footsteps of the blessed ones and to taste, even a little, the flame that illumined them. Come, Holy Spirit!

O Heavenly King,
the Comforter the Spirit of truth
Who art everywhere present and fillest all things.
Treasury of blessings
and Giver of Life,
Come, and abide in us.
And cleanse us from every impurity
And save our souls, O Good One.

Travelling with Angels, and with the benediction and blessings of so many friends. Thank you for your prayers for us!

Signing off from lovely cool Seattle, an excited Macrina

Are We Ready?

2008-06-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog, where hopefully you will get some of the inside scoop on our travels and (mis)adventures through Italy and Greece as
they unravel...uh....unfold. "We" is myself, Macrina, and my Mom Colleen, (a good sport!) and my children Emma (11) and Basil (3, yes, that's right, 3!). My husband Christopher does exist and will be joining us about halfway through our travels with our priest, Fr. Nicholas and a few others. Since he is going to Mt. Athos, we will only overlap for about 10 days.

We are very thankful that our pilgrimage is not starting out this way. Although I broke my leg just 4 weeks ago, it has healed quickly. Yes, I'm still hobbling, but my leg is not in a cast, nor am I in a wheelchair! I'll just have to stay out of the way of those Italian drivers!

Our basic itinerary to begin with is as follows:

Tues. June 17, arrive Rome about 4PM
Wed. - Tour of Ancient Rome (Forum, Palatine Hill, Colloseum) & Catacombs
Thurs. - more Catacombs & Vatican
Fri. - trip out to Ostia Antica (ruins of the old port for Ancient Rome) and train to Ravenna
Saturday - Mosaics!!! (what else?!) Well, maybe the beach... and some good pizza
Sunday - hopefully pop into a Catholic church briefly, then catch the overnight boat to Patras, Greece.
Mon. - Thurs. on Zakynthos Island with dear Geronda Chrosostomos at Monastery Eleftherotria
Fri. - on to Sparta, exploring Mystras
Saturday - Sun.- in Malevi for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Staying at the monastery.
Mon. June 30 - hooking up with Nikos and Maria in Athens
Tues. 2:45AM Christopher comes in
Wed. - Fri. ???
Fri. - Sun. probably Athens
Mon. -Tues. probably Andros
Wed.-Thurs.-Fri. probably Thessaloniki, at Panorama monastery.
Sat.-Tues. Meteora & maybe Larissa
Wed. July 16 back in Athens with Maria
Thurs. fly home

God only knows how much of this we will get through! I will try to check in and update here as often as I have a little time and we can find an internet connection. I will fill in a lot more when we return home in mid-July.

Please keep us in your prayers. We can certainly use it! We will have lots of time for prayer and we will remember you as much as we can. We plan to visit many holy places and people, tracing the steps of the Apostles as well as many many saints. Most of these places I have been before, but we are also in for some new experiences.

When I last went on a journey like this, 12 years ago right before my marriage, I learned that when you go as a pilgrim, with your spiritual eyes awake and your heart guided by openness to God's will and whatever is revealed around you, something much deeper and more profound than a "vacation" happens. This time around, for sure I will be putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak. Traveling with my mother and two children, not to mention my own gimpy leg, will be very different than being a carefree 20-something on a final fling. We pray earnestly for God's guidance and abundant goodness to be revealed to all of us along the way. This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and we begin with hearts full of anticipation and joy (and a little trepidation, truth be told!)

A sleepy Macrina who still has about 100 things to do before I can go to bed tonight! Signing off in cool, comfortable Port Townsend.