My Three-Month Adventure in Greece!

It is hard to believe I am almost at the end of my three month internship at the Canadian Institute in Greece.

I began my internship helping my fellow intern, Mark Walley, in entering offprints, monographs, periodicals, newsletters and book reviews into CIG’s database. I then was given the job, for June and July, to work on entering Frederick Winter’s photographic negative collection into the database. I am happy to say that I have completed entering the nearly 300 rolls of film (each roll has roughly 36 photographs) and I have gotten the Institute's new scanner up and running – Winter’s negatives are now being scanned so that CIG will have an electronic version that people can look up and use for their research. It was a very interesting job to do as I not only love photography but it was great seeing places I have visited, such as Delphi, in a photograph from the 1960s!

Aside from working on the databases, I also helped out with the hostel – I did weekly laundry, got the rooms ready for guests on occasion, and welcomed and showed guests the hostel. I also helped with making and serving food for the reception at the Canadian Institute’s Open Meeting in May, and in June I assisted with handing out programs and welcoming everyone at the door at the Colloquium in Memory of Frederick Winter.

I was very fortunate to have the experience of digging at Ancient Eleon for a few days. I have always wanted to go on an excavation but I was unable to find many opportunities to do so. I would like to thank Eleon co-directors Brendan Burke and Bryan Burns for giving me the opportunity to experience the Institute's dig at Ancient Eleon. It was a fantastic learning experience and a lot of fun.

Between lectures and open meetings, receptions and a colloquium, and of course the Red Lion (and Excalibur), I am blown away by the huge social life here. I enjoyed going to darts night at the Red Lion every Tuesday night. It was always a lot of fun and it was great meeting so many new people and seeing the friends I have made here. It created a nice balance between work and play.

Of course, I couldn’t be in Greece or Europe without having done a fair bit of traveling and wandering. I have of course wandered around Athens, visiting archaeological sites such as the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, I visited some museums and shopped on and around Ermou Street and Monastiraki Square. I have also been to a few beaches outside of Athens and visited Piraeus and Rafina. Within the mainland of Greece I have visited Thebes, Sounion, Delphi, Dilesi and Halandri. I also went to the islands Hydra, Aegina and Mykonos. All these places were great experiences in exploring and seeing not only temples and old ruins, but also enjoying the beaches and the social part of Greek culture. I was also very fortunate to the have the opportunity to visit friends in Amsterdam and Edinburgh and family in Geneva.

This entire experience has been very rewarding not only because I was able to explore a different perspective of archaeology and see different sites throughout Greece but through my interactions with people I have met, food I have tried and traveling I have done, I was able to explore Greek culture as well as the archaeological community in Greece. In addition, I feel that this internship really allowed me to see that I can bring my two majors of Anthropology and English together, as well as my interest in archaeology and photography. I have learnt a lot about archaeology and it was a great experience, for an English major, to get an opportunity to work at a library – especially an archaeological one! Although I am sad that I will be leaving in a few days, this experience has been amazing and I will miss everyone very much….but I will be back!

Thank you all for making this internship and adventure absolutely awesome!

Laura Beaton
York University
CIG intern, May-July 2012