Happy Halloween from Aegina

I never knew what motivation was until I walked around a city where I could not understand a single conversation going on around me. The motivation to learn a new language so you can even just order your meal at dinner without having to point at a picture, or even say, “Hello, how are you?” to the locals as you pass by. Fitting into a new culture forces you to try new things.

Standing at the foot of the Parthenon this week was so much more than I could have imagined. Seeing pictures of the historic site does not do this piece of history any justice.

They’re here. This semester’s students are already exploring Athens on their first days in Greece as part of their Travel Journal course.  Soon they will come to Aegina and they will also start their class work for the semester.  We’re looking forward to seeing you on the island!

Our first Open House was a big success. People came to see what our students proposed for alternative uses for the waterfront on the island of Aegina which they called home for thirteen weeks. Our students were there to explain their designs to those with questions and to interpret their designs for the curious. They did fine work.

Thank you for stopping by the Drury Center in Greece website! We are preparing the launch of a brand new online experience that provides more interactive and visual content related to the program offerings at our center. Please check back in the next few days to see our new site.

Two energetic students were up very early on Greek Orthodox Good Friday (April 29) in order to climb Aegina’s highest peak Oros (532m), to see the sunrise.  Amanda and Ashton enjoyed the best views that Aegina has to offer while the clouds added a dramatic back drop.

Our final Travel Journal week for this semester was a busy one. Here are some of the students outside the Lion’s Gate in Mycenae where we visited the Treasury of Atreus. It was a great week with lots of sites seen, much sketching done and more of Greece explored. The highlight may have been seeing the celebration of the Olympic Flame being lit in Olympia which happened on the day we were there. All…

Our students are in Cyprus this week where they will be visiting many different sites and museums.  In the mean time the garden that students of the Breech School of Business planted in January is thriving and is slowly being picked and given to the families that the Aegina … Volunteers helps each month.  It couldn’t have happened without the help of these Drury visiting students and their professors…

The last day of carnival for 2016 was last Sunday, March 13 and some of our students “built” the Realto Bridge of Venice for the Venice themed carnival in Aegina this year. As they held up their creation, people powered gondolas “floated” underneath. The students dressed up and designed their masks too, and a good time was had by all.

Our students headed north this week and are currently in the city of Thessaloniki, where there are many Byzantine monuments. Here Alex is sketching at the Rotunda. Tomorrow they leave for Volos stopping at Vergina, where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king and his father buried, and Meteora, where the monasteries are built on the top of giant stone pillars.

We spent two afternoons driving around Aegina, getting to see the different villages, among other things, around the island. This is where the electricity come to the island and Ashton is enjoying the view!

Welcome to Aegina!  They made it to their island home on Friday and we are all looking forward to a semester’s worth of adventures together with these new students.

As we prepare for the upcoming Spring semester group next week, Aegina is full of blossoming almond trees. Every conceivable shade of pale pink can be seen when these trees bloom in the heart of winter. They truly are beautiful.

The Breech School of Business students’ Service Learning class took them to Aegina’s Gymnasium (Junior High School) where they made a compost bin, painted a corridor “sunshine” yellow and hoed a corner of their outside area around some aromatic herbs in preparation of planting a winter garden.  

They did plant some more herbs that are edible but also act as insect repellants. True winter hasn’t really…

Just minutes before their departure from Aegina, our Fall ’15 students, as we affectionate collectively call them, walked down to the end of the pier for their last sunset. They looked a little sad to leave but the looks on their faces also said “This chapter is over. It was good. Time to start writing the next one”.  We’ll miss this wonderful group of young people. Safe onward travels in the exciting…

It has become tradition for students so inclined to climb to the top of Mount Oros, Aegina’s highest peak (532m or 1745 feet) on their last or second to last dawns in Aegina. This morning 7 brave ones, along with DCG Director Eleni Dellagrammaticas, hiked up in time for the sunrise and were home in time for breakfast. We sure will miss these smiley faces. It’s been a great semester!

A view of Aegina from “the other side”! Two of our students went camping on the island of Angistri, right across the water from the port and town of Aegina and this was the picture that they took at sunset. Here, facing east, is the hilly profile of Aegina, with its highest peak, Oros, just above the semi submerged tree’s uppermost tip. The following day, they came home having “bragging rights” to…

On their last lap of travel in Greece, our students were in the village of Makrinitsa on the mountains of Pelion, close to the city of Volos last Friday. They heard a presentation and had time to sketch before hitting the road again to work their way south, via the “hanging” monasteries of Meteora. Home now for the final stretch, they have two more weeks of class, Thanksgiving, Finals and then home…

Congratulations to our gals! Five of our students ran the 5K on the Classic Athens Marathon day, Sunday November 8, 2015. There was such a demand for runners at this distance that they had an afternoon run also. Here they are proudly wearing their medals of participation while the marble Panathenaic Stadium (built for the first modern Olympic games in 1986) is in the background. It is at this location…

Our students went to Athens for the day last Friday. It was a great day in the big city! They started out with a walk to Anafiotika and discussion about neoclassicism, nationalism, and identity with Dr Hypatia Vourloumis. Then they headed north to Deree - The American College of Greece where they joined their faculty and students for a session on intercultural communication.

Our students are “On the road again”. No sooner have they left for their Fall Break adventures, they returned and are off to the Peloponnese for their Southern Greece Fieldwork trip. Some of them got as far north as Norway and west to Britain, but all claimed to be glad to be back in warmer climes!  Enjoy Southern Greece!

Midterm reviews took place this week. Two visiting architects came from Athens and gave our students plenty of feedback for the second half of their project for plans for a Refugee Welcome Center planned in the area inside the Panathenaic Stadium. Fall Break started Thursday afternoon and by Friday afternoon all the students will have left for adventures beyond Greece. We hope they have a great time…

Upon returning from Croatia, our students had a Studio Day in Athens.  They visited many places among which was the FAROS organization that helps refugee minors. Here they learned about the needs for young people who find themselves alone in a country where they don’t speak the language or understand the culture. They get fed and clothed and some are taught in their native tongue so that they don’t…

Our Mediterranean Fieldwork Trip was a great combination of architecture, ancient sites and this wonderful respite in Plitvice Lakes National Park.  Our students visited the Croatian cities of Zagreb, Split, where they visited Diocletian’s Palace, and Dubrovnik.  It was five days of a different culture, language and architecture among other things.  The wet weather we’d been having at the beginning…

On their last stop before heading to Aegina our students visited the marble Panathenaic Stadium, built for the first modern Olympics in 1896 and where the Athens Marathon terminates.  They are currently on their Mediterranean fieldwork trip to Croatia where next week’s picture will come from.  Stay tuned!

Our newly arrived Fall 2015 students have just wrapped up their first week of classes in Aegina. This photograph was taken last week when they were getting acquainted with Athens and here they are outside the Greek Parliament. Here’s to a great semester!