After getting the news that I would be the next intern at the Canadian Institute, I was over the moon (and slightly terrified) to have the chance to live and work in Athens for three months. The internship could not have come at a better time, even if the days before were a blur of packing chaos. I had just wrapped up my final class at Concordia a few weeks earlier. I was still riding the “wait, did I actually graduate?” wave before immediately cramming my entire life into a single suitcase and jumping into an Uber to catch my flight.
It didn’t quite feel real until I walked outside the Eleftherios Venizelos airport and was hit by a wave of heat and the all-too-nostalgic smell of Greece. I was in the right place.
Most of my time at the Institute was spent doing a little bit of everything, which honestly ended up being one of my favourite parts of the job. Some days I was in the library cataloguing new books or trying to track down elusive LC numbers. Other days I was deep in the Fred Winter archives, comparing decades-old folders to digital spreadsheets and slowly building a searchable system. I also managed all the Institute’s social media, writing posts, editing photos, and discovering my one true passion: Canva. On top of that, I updated the fieldwork pages on the website (24 of them!), rewriting summaries and adding bibliographies so each project had a proper presence. Researching all these Canadian archaeological projects connected to the Institute was a pleasure; I learned so much about the history of Canadian research here and gained a clearer picture of the impact we’ve had in the field.
Left: Monastiraki Flea Market
Centre: Photography exhibition at The Art Foundation (TAF)
Right: Graduate showcase at the Athens School of Fine Arts
Before long, I fell into a lovely routine: mornings in the Institute library, afternoons wandering around Athens, and evenings spent chatting with my roommates or popping into whatever event was happening that day. I’m pretty sure I shattered my all-time step count record just aimlessly roaming the city. I will miss my favourite cafés, going running through the National Garden, and the countless trips to museums, flea markets and pop-ups around Athens.
I was also really lucky to be here for several events hosted at the Institute this fall, including an embassy reception, a Canadian film screening, a lecture by Dr. Margaret Aiken, and the opening of the Institute’s exhibition on Kastorian communities in Canada. It was so cool to see the behind-the-scenes work that goes into setting up an exhibition like this and then watch it all come together on opening night. I was happy being able to help out wherever I could, whether it was running last-minute errands, assembling furniture, ironing tablecloths, or greeting guests at the door. It was a very charming mix of responsibilities that made me appreciate just how many tiny moving parts go into making these events work.
Even though I’d been to Greece before, most of my time had been split between Athens and Crete, so I hadn’t seen much of the mainland. One of the best parts of living in Athens for three months is how easy it is to escape the city for little weekend adventures, and I made it to several places that had been sitting on my must-see list forever: Mycenae, Epidaurus, the Meteora monasteries, and the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina. In mid-October, I hopped on a bus to Delphi and ended up solo-hiking the 18km loop to the Corycian Cave. Delphi was absolutely surreal—sunny when I arrived, then suddenly swallowed in this thick, misty fog that made the whole sanctuary feel magical (I could barely see two steps in front of me). Despite nearly getting trapped in a herd of goats with their very angry shepherd dog at the top of Mount Parnassus, this was easily my favourite trip of the entire three months.
Spending the fall in Athens as the Canadian Institute’s intern has been such a privilege, and I genuinely can’t believe how fast it went by. I’m not emotionally prepared to say goodbye to Greece, or its sunsets, and return to -25 snowy Montréal, but here we are. I hope to be back again soon!
Aiko Byrne, Concordia University intern, Fall 2025
