What I’ve tried to make most during this trip was to connect. Connecting to my past, to other people, to language, to food, to customs, to a culture that has been isolated from me for my twenty-years of life. I felt this connection at its strongest when being out in the Aegean Sea during the ferry rides. Having the salt, sun, and air go through my hair and face while wondering without a thought at the many islands, rocks, and mountains on the coastline made me feel like I was something more than a stranger in a strange land. The sea had a welcoming characteristic; the light blue reflected to the eye a sense of calm and collectiveness, rather than a dark abyss one might see in any other ocean. The wind gave a sense of adventure, like I was Odysseus coming home, and the sun felt like a blanket for comfort, and less like an oven. The salt wasn’t dehydrating to me, but instead a connection to nature, and the tiniest atoms and molecules that built this beauty.
Seeing the islands and coastline along the way, one cannot stray away to wonder about the stories the rocks and soil hold. How many people have cried, laughed, triumphed, and failed on the land? How many lived to tell the tale, or didn’t to tell at all? Because as a student of history, we don’t often hear the stories from the people who were caught in the crossfire of the legends of empires, war, and tyranny. We never will know what the reign of Tyrants, Sultans, Pashas, Basileus, or Emperors was like for the humble Shepard or fisherman who dwelled on the island, or how their decisions affected them, but we will always remember those who ruled them. I never got to hear those stories from my great-grandparents, or grandparents, but basking in the same sun, swimming and exploring in the same waters, as they did, truly was a keystone to that connection. – Nicholas, SPC Greece Study Abroad Program, May 2024