You Can’t Always Get What You Want

So far, we are all loving Greece, but there have been quite a few instances where we wish things had gone differently. The basic theme of the Classics trip is that you wake up early and go to at least one site a day, usually two or three. These sites fall into about three categories:
1. Big sites that most people want to go to (i.e. the Minoan palace at Knossos.) These sites usually have restrooms, gift shops and sometimes small cafeterias.
2. Smaller sites that are less popular but still visited (i.e. Ayia Triada.) These sites are fenced with a manned ticket booth outside.
3. Very small sites that no one goes to (i.e. Thorikos.) These sites are not fenced and don’t require tickets. It really makes you wonder how many people actually go there.
Anyway, one day we were scheduled to go to Phaistos and Ayia Triada, two Minoan sites that are very close together. We got to Ayia Triada…but there was a problem. The site was closed. A man told our bus driver Spiros that the site might open later in the day. It didn’t. The next day, we headed for Malia. Again, it was closed. So, we missed out on two Minoan sites. Kind of a bummer.
The real reason for writing this blog entry can be summed up in three words: orange farmers’ strike. As a side note, the oranges in Greece are very good…who knew? People here eat a lot of oranges. To continue, we were in Siteia, a beach town on Crete, for a few days. One of these days was a “free day,” which means that we were all cramming for the four tests we had to take the next day, affectionately known as “test day.” You’re allowed and encouraged to start the tests early (on the supposed “free day”- an option most of us exercised.) Dr. Krentz had arranged with our hotel to let us check out at 2:00 on test day instead of 10:00 so that we could work on the tests in a peaceful environment. At around 10:00 the night before, I had just started working on my art test when Dr. Krentz knocked on the door. Looking like the bearer of bad news, he announced that we would be leaving at 9:30 in the morning due to an orange farmers’ strike. Apparently, while we had been enjoying Crete, discontent had been building. The orange farmers had begun blocking roads with their tractors. The orange farmers were planning to block the road out of Siteia at noon the next day, hence our need to leave early. Thankfully, we made it back to Herakleion in plenty of time. Reed found a local paper that told us that the orange farmers had been offered 500 million euros to stop the strike and hadn’t accepted it. The farmers are now blocking many roads in Greece, including two that we need to travel on soon. More updates will come as the strike progresses. One can only hope that we will all get what we need (meaning, the orange farmers will get their money and we will get to go to Turkey.)