Day 9 – Delos, Mykonos

Today a group of us headed to Chora to go to the island of Delos. I am so exicted to see the island after learning about the Delian League in Dr. Taber’s Ancient World. The entire island is an archaeological site with only 10% fully excavated. It is fascinating. We paid for a guide that showed us the ruins and what we were looking at. We saw the theatre, the house of Cleopatra (not the Egyptian princess), and the maison of Dionysus. We also saw the colonnade built by Philip V of Macedon. You can still read the inscription if you can read Ελλινικά (Greek). I’m totally getting a hang of this language, especially the script. We saw the Colossus of Naxos site and the remnants of it after pirates attempted to steal it. The guide was very knowledgeable and well worth it. He told us of the birth of Artemis and Apollo on Delos and of the purifications that no one may be born or die on the island. We saw the Lions of the Naxians and the Temple of Dionysus. I went up the hill of Synthos with the Kansas people to see the Temple of Zeus. We then headed back to the boats and to Mykonos. I found a stain on my new shirt that seems to be some sort of lichen so Delos has left its mark on me. I wanted something sweet to eat so I ordered a nutella, chocolate, banana, and walnut crepe. I also tried the hummus which was good even with the seafood in it. The San Francisco girls started shopping and the stores began to close for siesta at around 3. We took a taxi back to the hotel until we went down for cocktails served by the ugliest bartender ever. It was fun, though. Later I separated to find a gyro stand and found the others anyway. I hung out with Jared who needed a pain killer for his sunburn and I wanted something for my many mosquito bites I got on Ios. We wandered back to taxi square where I bought some sour cherry juice. When we got back there was a group outside of our rooms having a good time. It was nice to see some of them come and go and chat to them. I talked for a long time with Megan from Tennessee who was really nice.