Greek Adventure (Part 1)

I'm back from a trip that almost did not happen but still happened. During those days that we thought we might not be able to go, I told myself that we MUST go and we WILL go. Ladies and gentlemen, positive thinking does work!

My dad was invited to be one of the speakers in the World Congress of Echocardiography and Vascular Ultrasound in Rhodes, Greece.

My youngest sister, Ling, being the fresh college graduate this year, automatically had the privilege to join my parents. But the thought of visiting Greece was something I didn't want to pass up... I just had to experience their rich culture, walk through all of their historical sites, and share all these through photos and words.

My parents saw how passionate I was about this. (I told them that travel and experience are the best teachers plus I offered to pay half of my airfare. :-p) Afterwhich, they decided that the four of us should go. Whoopeee!

But then we encountered several roadblocks...

1: Our Schengen VISA application appointments were scheduled separately and it was only my dad who had an early schedule. My mom was scheduled to submit her requirements a few days after my dad while Ling and I were scheduled for an interview after our target departure dates. Thankfully, the Spanish consul was kind enough to process everyone's VISA upon speaking with my dad and understanding our situation.

2: My passport was not accepted by the Spanish Embassy because apparently it had been "worn-out" and a little hole was discovered on the plastic covering my photo. This might cause trouble with the immigration officers as any openings in that plastic could be considered as tampering. I was asked to have my passport renewed. My jaw almost dropped at that moment. I think I just gulped and didn't speak. My eyes pleaded, "But I want to go with my family to Greece..." Then it was explained to me nicely that my VISA would still be processed and I'd just have to drop off my renewed passport within office hours, Monday-Thursday. Allelujah. And instead of having our passports sent through a courier, the Spanish consul asked us to get the VISAs a little more than a week after application so we could fly on time. This sounded like we were ready to fly... Or atleast they were. I still had to solve my passport glitch.

3: On that same day, I had my passport renewed. I went to the DFA in Manila after lunch. At that time, I was so thankful that I was a preschool teacher. I had my pencil case with me that contained my glue stick, scissors, stapler, ballpen, and everything else that I suddenly needed while applying (Girl Scout ako!). Then, I got my passport after 2 working days from the DFA and headed straight to the Spanish Embassy in Makati. The traffic was heavy (it was a Monday!) and I reached the building at 3pm. The guard asked me to run to the 5th floor and try to see if the Embassy was still open. I ran to the elevator. Upon reaching the 5th floor, a familiar-looking guard warned me that he wasn't 100% sure if they'd still accept my passport because it was already 3pm. But the lady behind the counter was very nice and still got my passport. At that point, all there was left to do was wait. We had a little more than a week left before the trip. We could get the VISA a day before our flight. I was getting paranoid because a lot of things could happen in a week. (Now you see why I haven't been telling people about the trip before? I thought I've jinxed it enough and didn't want to add any more jinx to it...)

4: My dad did not like the waiting hours from our original Qatar Airways connecting flights. He asked for another airline. We ended up with Thai Airways which was more expensive but had better flying/waiting hours. This made our stay in Greece shorter (boo) because the available flight was June 27 (and arrival in Greece would be June 28) ...which of course we just had to deal with because we wanted to push through. By this time, after everything we've been through, the more convinced I was that we really had to go. Ah, but we were still waiting.

June 25. My mom sent us a text message that she got our Schengen VISAs. I texted back, "Whooohoo! Greece here we come!"

And everything just happened from there...

Day 1 was our "family day" as we explored the area of Syntagma where the Parliament could be found and where the private Benaki Museum stood near. We got inside the Benaki Museum for free that day but cameras were not allowed inside. :) Sounds fair to us! Afterwhich, we walked through the beautiful National gardens and found time to cool down a bit.

Top: Evzone guarding the Parliament. Benaki Museum.
Center: Theater of Herod Atticus on the way to the Acropolis.
Bottom: Papa (kabuki sunblock) and Ling. Lala sitting on the wall of Acropolis (background, Athens)

Under the hot Greek summer weather, we all climbed the Acropolis and walked through all the theaters and temples in it including the famous theater of Herod Atticus and the well-known Parthenon. The day before, a heatwave had hit the city, making the temperature rise to 45 degrees Celcius. On the day we got there, the temperature was 39 degrees. It was still one of the hottest days I've ever experienced. Imagine a person with high fever and having his temperature all around you, pricking your skin...Oooh HOT. This explains my dad's "kabuki" way of putting sunblock and the way my melanin enriched skin turned so dark on the first day.

The Greeks are very proud of their heritage. You tell one Greek person how amazed you are by the richness of their culture and he/she would engage you in a long conversation that would leave you even more amazed. Maybe the Greeks we have encountered were coincidentally like that but when you look at the list of the people whom we talked with and spoke about their country with love, you'd wonder if it was only coincidental. Each of those we encountered had something beautiful to say about their culture and history -- from the ice cream man, to the taxi driver, to the hotel receptionist, to the restaurateur, to the flea market merchant. Being nationalistic seems to come naturally for them. One of the things that we noticed was their fondness in using their country's colors -- blue and white. That and the way Greek flags are found almost everywhere -- houses, buildings, archaeological sites, and ferries.

The ancient Greeks are well-known for the temples they built for their gods and goddesses, the gold pieces that they turned into ornaments, the pots and jars they used in everyday living, and the list goes on. Some of these things we still do and have today. We just add a little bit of technology to everything but we're still basically eating, drinking, thinking, creating, and being. So yes, we are similar and different from them in this light.

When you look at this closely, one of the oldest civilizations had been preserved because they had various forms of records of their past. We could speculate how the Greeks lived thousands of years ago because they had kept records in forms of writings, temples, and buried objects.

My sister and I were talking about our own museums in the Philippines. And we thought that the main difference between the Philippines and Greece in preserving historical records was not on being "nationalistic" per se but because of what transpired in our histories as peoples. Both countries experienced wars. Both of us experienced colonization but were in two different ends. The Greek temples and majestic columns awe us. But as with most of the seven wonders of the world, they came about because of slavery. That's the reality of it. But we are still in awe. How could we not be? But now, I also wonder how come many beautiful and majestic things had to happen with bloodbath and coercion?

In the case of the Philippines, we lost the use of our alibata and a great number of historical pieces because we were colonized so many times, forced to erase our own culture and adapt to what our colonizers imposed. Our country's name was even given to us during the Spanish regime. And at the time of our real ancestors when the Rice Terraces was constructed as the first hagdan-hagdang palayan in the world, we weren't technically Filipinos yet.

Oh yes, at this point, our beloved Philippines is still a young country. And I do believe we'll someday find ourselves in a better place.

At present, whether one likes it or not, blogging has transformed into a way of keeping records of ourselves. This is how we live. This is how we write. This is how we record what's happening in our lives. Thank you to technology. Because of it, most of us have the privilege to write on air.

And maybe someday, thousands of years from now, when the world wide web has not yet been infected by a deadly virus that could erase everything we posted online, the new people of the world will be amazed at how different and similar we are from them as well. By then, aside from archaeological sites filled with gigantic columns, temples, preserved objects, and writings, we'll have alternative modes of viewing history. See how our blogs have their own archives? That's history in the making.

If you want to view the complete photos, just check out
http://elijarz.multiply.com/photos/album/105 or click my link on the left "Home of the Brown Rabbit".