First off, Rhodes was amazing! We got to start out our morning a little later then normal. Our tour didn’t depart until 10:30 so we were able to get up later and have a nice breakfast before we left. We took a walking tour around the city. It was very nice because we walked off the boat and into the city. One of the first things we learned is that this island has been occupied by just about every country in the world – including Germany during WWII. There used to be approximately 4,500 Jewish (of the 125,000) on the island but during the war they were all transported to Auschwitz. Now there are currently 33.
Rhodes also has 5 natural ports and just recently became part of Greece – just after WWII Britain took Rhodes and then gave it to Greece (sometime in the 1940’s). Rhodes is also named after the bloom of the Pomegranate tree, not the rose as many people think. (The Greek words for both sound very similar.)
The thing that fascinated me the most about this cute little island town was that their ‘divine patron’ was Helios, the god of sun (not sand as I SWORE the tour guide kept telling us).
**Stupidity Side Note** Honestly, tell me why there couldn’t be a god of sand? If the ancient Greeks had a goddess of wisdom and beauty, a god of the sea, and a god of gods why couldn’t there be a god of sand? It totally makes sense!
Anywho! (back to me) There was a 100 foot bronze sculpture of Helios straddling the second (and smaller) port. Apparently it was remarkable to see (there are no drawings or sculptures of what it actually looked like so they had to reconstruct what they THOUGHT it looked like); it took 12 years to build and stood for about 100 years (300-200 BC) over the port. Around 200 BC the first earthquake of the island made it fall to the ground (their latest earthquake was a 6.9 and happened last year!). The pieces of the statue laid on the ground for about 900 years (until around 700 AD) when the Turks-I think-invaded and took the bronze to melt down and make guns and ammo. All I have to say is I hope he was wearing tighty whities under his loin cloth or toga…
**War Side Note** War seems to be a reoccurring theme over here - This or that was destroyed or stolen during war times. In my opinion, America is VERY lucky to not have a history like that. Maybe it’s just because we are so young compared to the rest of the world. Or, maybe it’s because we have nothing really made of bronze or steel to steal… Either way, I’m happy that I (normally) live in a country where I don’t walk past war time ruins on a daily basis.
Just recently (like within the last few hundred years) they replaced the place where Helios stood. They put up two deer (one on each of the pedestals he stood on). Rhodes has an amazing amount of snakes on the island and deer are their natural predators (tour guide lady make sure that we knew the deer didn’t eat the snakes – they just killed them).
Our tour guide was amazing today. She had answers to every possible question you could ask her and she even brought along some props! After some history and geographical information we strolled down the main tourist shopping area to the Jewish quarter. They are in the process of putting up a small memorial for all the Jews deported during WWII (which is across the street from the town mosque).
After our (very brief, because there are only 33 Jews) tour of the Jewish quarter we went to Hogwarts! O.M.G. What a freaking cool building!! It was actually the Museum of Mosaics (or something like that) but I really thought that Peeves was going to jump out of the wall and scare me at any time and Kyle and I were constantly looking for the Room of Requirement.The museum housed beautiful mosaics from all over the world. The Italians moved them all to this place (when they were the reigning government – see I TOLD you Rhodes has been occupied by everyone). The Italians were such amazing technicians that you can’t tell where they cut the art (for easier transportation) and put them back together.
After taking about a million pictures at Hogwarts we moved on to another castle we’ll be using to model our Kansas Castle after. It was a former hospital and the building itself was beautiful (I didn’t much care for the gobs of destroyed Greek sculptures. Honestly, once you’ve seen one you’ve pretty much seen them all – sometimes they’re missing an arm, or head, or nose, or penis but they all pretty much look the same to me).
Once we finished up at ‘Webster Manor’ our guided tour was over. Kyle and I headed over to the smaller port to take some pictures of the deer (these freaking things totally amaze me for some reason) and then headed back towards the boat and purchased a couple of magnets along the way.
We’ve kinda hit our stride on the boat. Once we got back we headed to the buffet for lunch and then up to the top floor to sit and enjoy our time together. Kyle thought (and wrote) about earth shattering revelations and I spent most of the rest of my day listening to trashy teeny-bop music and typing out this post.**Kyle Side Note** Kyle’s awesome, don’t get me wrong. He’s definitely one of the smartest people I know. But that boy doesn’t turn off!! We’ll be sitting somewhere staring off into space…I’ll be thinking about words that make me giggle (like ladle, and edited it) and he’ll turn to me and say something like “So, I was thinking about the religious differences between Christians, Muslims, Protestants, and Hindi…” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! I was thinking that my fingers look fat in this light and wondering what it would be like if I knew someone really famous!
Tomorrow we’re off to Cyprus!
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